Martin & Zerfoss and Kite Technology Group optimize business advantages of Microsoft Defender for Business

Mickey Martin is the CEO of independent insurance agency Martin & Zerfoss in Nashville, Tennessee. He speaks with reassuring confidence about his 38 years of experience providing customers with insurance for their personal and business needs. By getting to know his clients, Mickey can accurately meet their specific risk management needs, giving them the ability to operate their personal lives and businesses with confidence. Mickey says, “Our agency reputation and our business have been built around these relationships and people we know throughout our community.” 

Creating partnerships

“Everyone within our agency is counting on two individuals to ensure we can look our customers in the eyes and say, ‘You can trust us, you’re in the best hands, and your information is safe to the best of our ability,’” says Mickey. He’s referring to Dibbie Martin, IT Director at Martin & Zerfoss, and Adam Atwell, Cloud Solutions Architect at Kite Technology Group. 

Dibbie selected Kite Technology Group to help modernize the agency’s IT infrastructure. “We’re licensed in all 50 states, so the new platform helps us maintain compliance with ever-evolving cybersecurity and regulatory requirements,” she says. “But most importantly, we needed technology that could help us do that without getting in the way or causing extra work for us. Our core business isn’t managing IT—it’s providing great customer service.” Migrating to the cloud, selecting the right partner, and adopting Microsoft Defender for Business was a big step in the right direction.

Moving to the cloud

Dibbie’s initial hesitation with migrating to the cloud and introducing new security measures came from concerns over the potentially disruptive and downtime effects on staff efficiency. However, she was determined to consolidate the fragmented, server-based deployment that had developed over time with a more comprehensive, coordinated, and easily managed solution. 

And she was reassured by Adam’s experience, which spanned both his proposed solution and the specifics of the insurance industry. “We have about 100 clients, 75 percent of which are in the independent insurance vertical,” Adam says. With increasing numbers of those clients recognizing the benefits of enabling remote work and work from home, their network becomes a key factor in a successful transition out of the office. For that reason, he adds, “Our goal for the last eight years has been to modernize them and pull them to the cloud.” 

Dibbie says that working with Adam was the right decision. “Going to the cloud and the Microsoft 365 platform has been straightforward. This has allowed me to reduce the number of components to manage, down to a single provider and support partner.” Mickey agrees. “There’s an old adage: trust, but verify,” he says. “I trust our partner to help us choose the technology. Dibbie can verify that they’re the right choices for us because she knows how to ask the right questions.” 

Maintaining trust with enterprise-grade security

Among those questions was how best to make the new infrastructure as safe and secure as possible for Martin & Zerfoss staff and the clients who trust the agency with some of their most important information. Like many other organizations, Martin & Zerfoss needs to focus on its bottom-line business. IT security isn’t among its core competencies, and Mickey wasn’t ready to hire a dedicated IT security specialist and operate his own security operations center. But in today’s IT-dominated world, says Mickey, security is essential. “Our customers are our first priority, so security is paramount for us. Customers can be assured that we’re doing everything we can to keep their information private.” 

Security was also top of mind as Dibbie worked with Adam on the transformation because one of the company’s broad range of specialties is cyber liability insurance. When advising others on mitigating the risks associated with security threats coming from the internet, it’s crucially important that Martin & Zerfoss also be a great example of operating a highly safe, secure, and compliant IT infrastructure of its own. Adam considered Microsoft Defender for Business to be the only choice. “We bring strong teamwork across all three parties: Kite Technology, Martin & Zerfoss, and Microsoft,” he says. “So, when I saw Defender for Business, I thought, ‘What else would we use?’ With Defender for Business, we can offer enterprise-grade tools at a small-business price that you can’t get close to if you acquired them from different vendors, and you can’t get all of those services from any other single vendor.” 

The Defender for Business solution

The rollout and operation of the new security features were simple and straightforward for Kite Technology Group to implement for Martin & Zerfoss. “I can easily add Defender for Business features into customer deployments, and I didn’t have to do anything special from a launch standpoint,” says Adam. “In fact, in an early conversation with Dibbie, I said, ‘I can onboard your people overnight if you want!’” 

The increased visibility across devices into customers’ environments is already paying dividends. “Defender for Business offers a bird’s eye view on what’s going on in the exposure points across my customer’s deployment,” he says, adding that there are additional advantages to cross-platform visibility into mobile devices, which Defender for Business provides. “Our security guys love that. We get granular detail at the device level or an aggregate across the complete cross-platform landscape. Being able to see all of the risk exposure and take immediate action is a huge advantage.” 

Increased visibility

The Defender for Business threat and vulnerability dashboard provides a comprehensive view of devices and operating systems in the environment and for on-premises devices joined to Microsoft Azure Active Directory, which is managing them. Adam says the identification and aggregation of all that data on the environment, current threats, and vulnerabilities provide an unmatched value for him and for his customers. “That comprehensive amount of information would cost us hundreds of dollars per customer to be able to discover and provide were it not exposed for us by Defender for Business.” 

Martin & Zerfoss is already seeing the results of the increased visibility into its infrastructure and operations holistically, which Defender for Business provides. “We’re now able to keep software current more quickly and without issue by identifying potential vulnerabilities in those updates before we deploy them,” Adam says. “And web protection reports help keep browser usage highly safe and secure, while a comprehensive software inventory helps ensure that everyone is running the right browser, applications, and services. We couldn’t easily capture all that information before.” 

Automated response

The dashboard can raise alerts and prioritize actions to save administrators’ time. Automated investigation and remediation features built into the dashboard can then streamline the process of vulnerability and threat management and simplify speedy intervention and resolution when necessary. “We can mitigate issues without even thinking because the Defender for Business environment just handles it,” Adam says, offering the example of browser vulnerability alerts that he was able to solve by encouraging more widespread adoption of Microsoft Edge. “That the service extends beyond the device level to web and application protection is super awesome!” 

The advantages for Martin & Zerfoss

For Dibbie, the confidence to retire the agency’s last two on-premises servers shows the advantages of cloud adoption. Additionally, the security of Microsoft Defender of Business adds to the company’s peace of mind. Dibbie is committed to continue working with Adam and Kite Technology Group to help manage highly secure, available, and accessible services for her staff and customers. “Adam knows what we need, and the new environment is delivering. The snow last week was a timely example. We were forced to close the main office, but this time, I didn’t have to worry if the building power was on or not—everybody kept going, our endpoints were protected, and the business was unaffected!” And whatever equipment her staff were using—home computers, work computers, or personal mobile devices—she says, “With Defender for Business, we can help secure our staff’s equipment and authenticate them to access customer data more easily and safely.” Adds Mickey, “An independent insurance agency is all about service, and for great service, you need continuity and availability. Now, we’re able to continue serving our customers whether we’re in the office or at home.” 

The advantages for Kite Technology Group

Adam also sees advantages for his own business. He can offer a tried, tested, and highly secure managed IT service to Martin & Zerfoss and his other smaller business customers in an efficient and cost-effective package. “With Microsoft Defender for Business, we’re able to bring enterprise-grade security protection to our small and midsize business customers,” he says. “We can now meet their current security requirements and prepare them for whatever comes tomorrow.” 

But is Adam sure that Defender for Business is the right choice for his business? He’s confident. “We’re building our new, next-generation managed service offering with Defender for Business as a core requirement,” he says. “Our position is clear: you must use this product.” 

Find out more about Martin & Zerfoss on Facebook and LinkedIn, and learn more about partner Kite Technology Group.