Piloting your business through the winds of EUC, workspace, and cybersecurity change is always difficult. If you’re a UK small business owner, you can only trust your technology platforms if they work together in a seamless and transparent way. The mission of PilotIQ, as the latest Liquit partner, is to make that a reality for your end users.
Peter Ely
While the London-based IT company recently opened its doors, founder Peter Ely brings a long history and deep expertise as a solutions architect. Having worked with startups, enterprises, large-scale MSPs and resellers, Peter saw 2024 as the right time to bring his vision for PilotIQ to the UK market.
PilotIQ’s focus on providing SMBs comprehensive IT services tailored to meeting their unique needs gives them a fresh perspective on managing infrastructure technology. Their goal is to bring enterprise-level consulting to small businesses by offering integrated vendor capabilities and strategic partnerships. According to Peter, this market is underserved throughout the UK because providers, channel partners, and MSPs focus on big-ticket projects and large enterprises:
“Most SMBs are underspending on the right integrated technology solutions focused on their end users who are the pilots of the business. The enterprise-level players have no idea how to provide the customer service and integrated solutions that an SMB warrants. But there are countless SMB projects that can be very fruitful, and I wanted to take advantage of that.”
EUC, workspace, and virtual desktop market changes are driving the Microsoft market leader shift. Peter explained that as Microsoft ascends, it can leave SMBs unsure about how to proceed and understand their strengths and gaps as part of the development process:
“You need to appreciate what a cloud economic setup looks like from the infrastructure and functionality point of view, which makes a Liquit relationship essential. It fills the gaps while replacing the legacy approaches to application packaging, delivery, and access, which is what excites me about the platform.”
Discovering Liquit
Peter acknowledges that the platform-agnostic integration of application delivery, VDI and workspace was being offered in VMware’s Workspace ONE. The challenge for SMBs is that it requires an all-in investment with their mobile device management (MDM) and changing licence structure adaptation. “Liquit offered a more agile approach,” explained Peter. “This gave SMBs and enterprises more freedom in developing their app management, MDM, workspace and VDI/DaaS infrastructure for diverse EUC environments.”
A longstanding association with Ben Ward bolstered by good timing and like minds planted the seeds of the Liquit/PilotIQ partnership. “Ben’s a good industry friend of mine who was transitioning to Liquit UK field CTO about the same time I discovered them,” explained Peter. “He had spent some years at VMware, Citrix and IGEL, so his move to Liquit showed we had the same perspective on the platform, which was reassuring.”
Peter’s vision for PilotIQ had a strong security integration component, which strengthened his perspectives on adding Liquit to his offerings.
Themes of Partnership and Security
Experience told Peter that core data cybersecurity defence challenges are the same across SMBs and enterprises. PilotIQ’s technology and security approach via integrated vendor solution investments are key to serving SMBs. He explains how the end-user focus enables them to deliver a seamlessly secure working environment that maximises technology benefits:
“This integrated technology and cyber secure employee experience focus is about making sure that PilotIQ fills the gaps for SMBs that no one else is addressing. We partner with technology vendors providing a level of future-proof integration and resiliency to meet changing EUC and cybersecurity needs. This goes beyond providing a risk assessment and cyberthreat barriers to really making sure your employees and business are going to be satisfied with how they work.”
Cybersecurity is part of everyone’s narrative with phrases like zero trust thrown around. It all comes down to providing SMBs and enterprises with EUC, workspace, and application environments that work holistically and securely for end users. “Every vendor claims they provide security and AI, so business owners hesitate to invest because of uncertainty about potential risks,” added Peter.
Small businesses need consulting that supports tailored investments, which presents an opportunity for PilotIQ. Peter emphasises that Liquit’s ease of use and capabilities also helps support cybersecurity via context-aware individual/group app delivery. “Liquit lets you deliver or restrict an app’s use for any user without relying on other parts of your EUC technology stack,” explained Peter. “Finding a suitable application delivery solution that makes it this easy would be a big challenge.”
Why Liquit is a Natural Integration Fit for PilotIQ
Microsoft is a key partner for PilotIQ with access to a broad suite of integrated solutions and a simple licence model that gives SMBs control. With app delivery as the next wave after desktop delivery and management, many solutions that work today won’t meet tomorrow’s business needs with scenarios like:
- Microsoft App-V reaching end of life and SCCM limitations
- Apps changing scripting language
- VDI to DaaS Transitions
- Changing business models with Citrix, VMware, Ivanti, and others
“Businesses will always need to make smooth transitions and Liquit makes that possible by filling gaps without overlap to deliver optimum end-user experiences,” said Peter.
SMBs can see the PilotIQ integration approach across all current vendor partners where:
- ControlUp fulfils the employee experience management layer where Microsoft leaves off
- Acronis delivers customer backup, data loss prevention, etc., and enables offsite backup and cloud backup of the SMB M365 environment
- AWS plays a vital role in the core PilotIQ partner stack as they grow their dominance in supporting the DaaS market.
With Liquit as the next piece of the PilotIQ puzzle, the new partnership is ready for rollout.
Onboarding the Liquit/PilotIQ Partnership
PilotIQ starts with a small team headed by Peter and business partner Michael Fitzgerald who brings deep EUC, tech industry, and AI experience. With Peter wearing several hats, including sales, marketing, and CTO, the Liquit partnership onboarding will continue over the next six months with:
- PilotIQ engineering teams getting up to speed with the Liquit platform
- Development and rollout of a marketing plan revolving around small business challenge areas, including:
- Cybersecurity
- Desktop, mobile, and workspace management
- Application delivery/lifecycle
- AI
The broad strokes are the creation of a recurring day workshop for customers that introduces Liquit as part of the integrated technology stack to the UK SMB market. This will include go-to-market materials introducing Liquit-as-a-service managed by PilotIQ for SMBs as an out-of-the-box solution. “Our marketing approach addresses current SMB frustrations and shows how answers can be simple and easy to implement and use with our support,” said Peter.
The upcoming summer slowdown provides an ideal opportunity to put these and other parts of the partnership and customer outreach plan in place. PilotIQ is already onboarding several customers as they build up to the formal UK market introduction. According to Peter, the addition of Liquit as their latest partner puts all the pieces in place to meet the PilotIQ vision and the needs of SMBs starting where they are:
“Our solution stack with Liquit as the latest partner fulfils our concept of guiding each small business customer on their journey. That always starts with an immediate need, such as cloud transformation, backup services, cyber insurance requirements, and risk assessments. This enables us to help them take the next step in that journey by seeing a clear path to integrated solutions and its tremendous benefits for their people and productivity.”
