Forthright: Optimizing application delivery through digital transformation

About Forthright

Google Cloud partner Forthright is a leading provider of consulting, engineering, and managed services, including offering virtual desktop, application, and other end-user technology for customers in a range of industries.

Industries: Technology
Location: United States

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About itopia

itopia is the leading desktop-as-a-service solution for Google Cloud Platform. A 2019 Google Cloud Cloud Commerce Technology Partner of the Year, its Cloud Automation Stack provides end-to-end automation and orchestration for cloud desktops.

Forthright uses Google Cloud Platform solutions and technology from Google Cloud Premier Partner itopia to modernize and optimize its customers’ IT infrastructure.

Google Cloud results

  • Reduces support ticket volumes by 15%
  • Achieves 25% reduction in IT infrastructure spending
  • Improves security and responsiveness to customer demands
  • Establishes infrastructure for innovative analytics projects to enhance customer experience

Enables a customer to reduce OpEx spending by 50%

Enabling change

With more than 30 years of delivering technology solutions, Forthright serves a wide range of industries to enable companies to reduce operating and capital expenditures while boosting efficiency. Many of the managed service provider’s customers became more interested in cloud infrastructure and services to reduce spending compared to on-premises IT.

As Forthright set out to offer more agile, affordable, and future-proofed services, the company’s leadership knew it needed a proven IT platform that could support needs now and in the future. The company turned to Google Cloud to accelerate client implementations and offer the best possible services.

Adding value through cloud infrastructure

Forthright’s first use of Google Cloud Platform involved a relatively large manufacturing client that needed to refresh its enterprise IT infrastructure. “We viewed this as an opportunity to truly modernize this client’s infrastructure, which is important in every industry,” says Frank Merino, VP of Professional Services at Forthright. “We made it clear that migrating to Google Cloud Platform would improve efficiency, increase the value of the huge volume of data they had on hand, and make their business more competitive.”

“Google Cloud Platform gives us an environment that can speak the language of business owners, data analysts, and other employees in the enterprise. With Google Cloud, our clients have a delivery platform that harnesses the power of their data and reduces IT burden.”

Frank Merino, VP of Professional Services, Forthright

Forthright evaluated and presented Google Cloud Platform as the right option given its strong balance of price and performance, as well as the fact that Google takes a security-by-design approach to protect data and infrastructure, rather than viewing those requirements as an afterthought. In the end, this mix gave the client stability in its IT environment and freed up resources to reinvest in its business.

In addition, the company gained the ability to use decades of data to empower its business. These new insights allowed its customers to enter new markets and launch new ventures.

“Google Cloud Platform gives us an environment that can speak the language of business owners, data analysts, and other employees in the enterprise,” says Frank. “With Google Cloud, we can offer our clients a delivery platform that harnesses the power of their data and reduces infrastructure burden. That puts Forthright in a great position as a trusted advisor.”

More advanced infrastructure, greater savings

Google Cloud Platform infrastructure solutions such as Compute Engine, Stackdriver, and Cloud Load Balancing have combined to greatly reduce OpEx spending by several Forthright customers. Forthright assisted in the overhaul of another client’s legacy infrastructure, migrating it to Google Cloud Platform. The results revealed the power of these solutions to achieve efficiency gains.

“One company realized 30 percent savings on IT infrastructure spending,” says Frank. “Now that they’re taking full advantage of the solutions and putting their data to better use, they’re now recognizing an additional 20 percent in general OpEx savings. That’s impressive.”

“We have cut response times for tasks that would typically take days down to mere hours, and that includes getting a client on their new dataset. From a customer service standpoint, that is exceptional.”

Frank Merino, VP of Professional Services, Forthright

Forthright also realized savings, efficiency gains, and improvements internally by using Google Cloud Platform. For example, the company reduced its operating expenses for data centers and other infrastructure by 25 percent since moving to Google Cloud Platform.

The Google Cloud environment has also helped Forthright respond faster to client needs and realize a 15 percent reduction in support tickets. “We have cut response times for tasks that would typically take days down to mere hours and that includes getting a client on their new dataset,” adds Frank. “From a customer service standpoint, that is exceptional.”

With many customers in compliance-heavy industries such as healthcare and manufacturing, Forthright also credits solutions such as Google Cloud Armor with improving its security reputation, as well as that of its clients.

“itopia’s single, unified interface gives us the administrative functionality we need to serve our clients and provide a rich experience. The centralization has reduced a lot of risk and ultimately better positioned Forthright to provide top-tier consulting services to our clients.”

Frank Merino, VP of Professional Services, Forthright

Capitalizing on the Google Cloud partner network

Forthright is a Google Cloud partner and works hand in hand with other partners such as itopia to improve customer experiences.

“Because we are a service provider, having a technology partner like itopia has been invaluable for us,” says Frank. “itopia’s single, unified interface gives us the administrative functionality we need to serve our clients and provide a rich experience. The centralization has reduced a lot of risk and ultimately better positioned Forthright to provide top-tier consulting services to our clients.”

Forthright also takes advantage of itopia’s ability to speed deployment processes using Cloud Automation Stack (CAS). For example, traditional turnaround times to deploy an infrastructure to deliver applications took several weeks to several months. With itopia’s help, Forthright can now deploy the infrastructure in a matter of days.

“That was a real game-changer for our client onboarding process. We’ve been able to pass on savings to our customers too,” adds Frank. “itopia has been an exceptional partner for us because they listen to our feedback and make real adjustments to their technologies. That sort of collaboration isn’t easy to find and has made a huge difference in our performance over time.”

Crafting novel infrastructure management solutions for the future

Forthright recognizes its customers’ need to not only modernize their IT environments for success today, but also to continuously improve to gain future competitive advantages. The company is now working on a product for existing customers that will leverage the data of the environments it manages to better predict challenges and improve end-user experiences with solutions such as AI Platform and BigQuery.

“We’re working on a new AI practice within Forthright that will leverage the 30 years of ticketing and product data we have on hand to improve our customer service,” says Frank. “We believe solutions including AutoML and Cloud Bigtable could be great fits for those ventures. As our customers’ operations advance, we’re using Google Cloud Platform to empower them with the tools they need to succeed.”

Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

Contact us

About Forthright

Google Cloud partner Forthright is a leading provider of consulting, engineering, and managed services, including offering virtual desktop, application, and other end-user technology for customers in a range of industries.

Industries: Technology
Location: United States

About itopia

itopia is the leading desktop-as-a-service solution for Google Cloud Platform. A 2019 Google Cloud Cloud Commerce Technology Partner of the Year, its Cloud Automation Stack provides end-to-end automation and orchestration for cloud desktops.