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NZ cloud software sells strongly at US conference
Auckland, New Zealand. 27 November 2013. Stella – the New Zealand-developed cloud-based knowledge management and collaboration solution for IT managed services providers – has returned from the Connectwise IT Nation conference in Orlando Florida with a full order book.
Stella co-founder and executive director Ken Davis says there was very strong interest, with ten US IT managed services companies opting to begin immediate implementation.
“We’re delighted with the enthusiastic response to Stella,” Ken Davis says. “We’re particularly pleased that ten customers want to move into implementation immediately. Work has already begun on the first two US sites, with these initial sites working with us to refine and blueprint our online implementation processes to we can quickly scale up to handle high implementation volumes going forward.
“The typical feedback we got from Stella demos was ‘Wow, you guys clearly have an in-depth understanding of what IT service providers require from a real world perspective’. So now what we have to get absolutely right is the online on-boarding process. Stella itself is a proven solution, already supporting 10,000 end users at CodeBlue’s customer sites around New Zealand. Our challenge is to make the cloud provisioning of Stella to MSPs in multiple geographies as robust and seamless as it needs to be to service the projected sales volumes.”
“IT managed services providers, of all sizes, are out in the market looking for a site documentation and knowledge base solution, which is in the cloud and fast and easy to implement. This is what MSPs of all sizes really need to increase service desk resolution rates, keep site documentation current, and have all of the customer information they need at their fingertips. MSPs need to have this level of sophistication to maintain profitable growth in a high competitive services market – and they know it,” Davis says.
About Stella
Stella is a cloud-based knowledge management and collaboration solution purpose-designed for IT managed services companies – particularly those using Kaseya, ConnectWise and Autotask in their customer service platforms. Stella uses a Wiki framework to provide engineers and service desk staff with instant online access to each customer’s full site documentation and knowledge base. Stella includes sophisticated reporting tools, a customer self service portal, and many other features designed to increase service quality while reducing service costs. Launched worldwide during 2013, Stella is now supporting more than 10,000 users in New Zealand. Implementations are also underway in North America and Australia. Stella is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Accelerate Ltd, a privately-owned technology ‘incubator’ company whose investments include IT service provider CodeBlue Limited and Accelerate BPI, a cloud-based business process improvement company specialising in the IT managed services sector. https://www.stellanow.com/
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Released by Sayle Noble & Associates on behalf of Stella. For more information please contact Tony Noble at noble@noble.co.nz
NZ cloud software set for global launch.
Auckland New Zealand. 5 November 2013. A New Zealand-developed cloud-based knowledge management and collaboration solution for IT managed services providers – called Stella - is to get a worldwide launch at the Connectwise IT Nation conference in Orlando Florida on 13 November.
Stella has been developed by New Zealand IT managed services company CodeBlue and spun off into a separate company. This follows a highly successful development phase which has culminated in Stella being used to help support more than 10,000 CodeBlue customer users around New Zealand. Stella is purpose-designed for IT managed services companies.
Stella co-founder and executive director Ken Davis says Stella has generated strong interest in the U.S market, with two pilot sites signed up after a single visit there.
“Stella delivers four key things that MSPs really need,” Ken Davis says. That’s site documentation with full version control, a client specific knowledge base engine, a customer self service portal, and a very sophisticated and effective reporting/BI solution for customers.
“Stella is fully operational right now. It supports more than 10,000 CodeBlue customer users and we can quantify the difference it’s made to CodeBlue’s business.
“The big payoff is that our first call service desk resolution is now up over 80 percent. This is due to the speed and ease with which site documentation can be kept updated, providing a foundation for a knowledge base which is equally fast and intuitive to use. When a problem is resolved the fix is immediately available to all service desk staff and engineers in the field. Stella ‘captures’ knowledge and processes and empowers service desk staff and engineers by being so easy and intuitive to use that they enjoy and get satisfaction from feeding in new information and being part of an organic service development process.
“Documentation is the bane of every service business. If you can provide a good and easily accessible tool then it will be used. Because Stella is so easy and intuitive to use, uptake is strong and immediate – from customer onboarding with initial system review, quarterly update reviews, roadmaps and strategic planning based on up to date historical performance data. You name it, Stella enables it,” Ken Davis says.
“All of this has had a powerful effect on the quality of service we can provide our customers. It has also helped us win new business because of the quality of our customer references - and by being able to demonstrate, upfront with customers, the power of Stella in delivering outstanding service against our competitors.”
With pilot customers already up and running in the US, Ken Davis says Stella is ‘ready to ship’. It is fully established as a standalone company separate from CodeBlue, with a full time development team of five plus sales and management staff.
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Released by Sayle Noble & Associates on behalf of Stella. For more information please contact Tony Noble at noble@noble.co.nz.
Blog
Stella – the back story.
By Ken Davis, Co-founder and executive director CodeBlue and Stella
Stella grew out of a ‘new ideas’ session at CodeBlue’s annual conference. Our engineers and service desk staff saw that service quality was absolutely dependent on good site documentation, as well as a good framework for serving up the service history of each customer. There was a high level of dissatisfaction with current site documentation and a lot of discussion about how we could leverage work done in the past into intelligent processes, to save constantly reinventing the wheel around common faults and common processes.
So we set up a working group to look at how we could solve these issues. We had tried SharePoint and Word Docs for site documentation, with only mixed success. We decided that a Wiki was the best way forward and after evaluating various Wikis we built Stella, using Wiki protocols and disciplines, for both site documentation and a Knowledge Base.
The Wiki structure encourages Stella to evolve. For example, because we have such a rich library of Knowledge Base articles, it then became a logical step to give customers online Portal access to Stella, integrated into Connectwise so they can log tickets, but also read Knowledge Base articles and do self help. Evolution is built in with a portal design that makes it easy for the knowledge base to learn and evolve. Today, with Stella fully operational across CodeBlue’s customer base, we are able to fully quantify the difference that it’s made to the business. The big payoff is that our first call service desk resolution is now up over 80 percent.
Our costs are down as a direct result of the increased first call resolution. And our customer satisfaction levels are way up – again, largely as a result of the first call service desk resolution rate. We can also run our business with much greater sophistication in terms of understanding immediately and easily the profitability of each of our managed service contracts. We can see at a glance how we are performing with each customer against the agreed KPIs. All of this has had a powerful effect on our ability to retain customers, with much lower customer churn. It’s also helped us win new business because of the quality of our customer references and by being able to demonstrate upfront to customers the power of Stella in delivering outstanding service against our competitors.
In the media
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NZ cloud software sells strongly at US conference
Stella - the New Zealand-developed cloud-based knowledge management and collaboration solution for IT managed services providers - has returned from the IT Nation conference in Orlando Florida with a full order book.
27 November 2013 | Computerworld
Kiwi firm starts work on first US sites
Ten US IT managed services companies have opted to begin immediate implementation of the 'Stella' solution.
8 November 2013 | Computerworld
Kiwi-made solution for MSPs to launch on world stage
A cloud-based knowledge management and collaboration solution for IT managed service providers, developed in New Zealand by CodeBlue, will be launched.