SEESA Case Study

SEESA Dropsuite Case Study
Industry

Legal Services

Founded

1998

Website

www.seesa.co.za

SEESA Aids Client Compliance through Comprehensive, Intuitive Backup and Archival

Compliance is a Crucial Issue

SEESA is a nationwide industry expert, ready to assist any South African business in all their business matters from the first employment contract to payday and everything in between – Industrial Relations & HR software, BEE strategies, Consumer Protection & POPI compliance, employee training, skills development claims, employment equity and any other business matter.

Compliance is a key concern around the world, but in South Africa it can quickly become overwhelming. With more than 500 pieces of legislationi, the challenge of keeping up with requirements can prove taxing to any organization. SEESA tackles this head-on, making sure that their clients’ relevant data is protected, secure and backed up and readily available when needed to prove compliance with regulations such as POPIA (Protection of Personal Information Act).

Velocity Technology Group introduces the Ideal Solution for SEESA

In the past, the focus was primarily on email archival, often requiring a separate product from the traditional backup and recovery solutions. However, in recent years the scope of the problem has grown to encompass the requirement to backup and archive data from any device, as well as from Microsoft Office 365 products such as OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and the like. The archival solution that was used by SEESA – Mimecast – unfortunately only archived email; it did not touch Office 365 data at all. This presented a growing gap for customers who were quickly migrating to O365. SEESA has been partnering with the Managed Service Provider Velocity Technology Group for more than 10 years, relying on them for assistance with all major projects. When SEESA explained their need to find another solution for archiving that would be more comprehensive – not to mention cost-effective and easy-to-use – Velocity Technology Group introduced them to Dropsuite and arranged a demo.
“During the demo by Dropsuite we could see upfront all the benefits that this product offers for our business. This is an amazing product and easy to understand, implement and maintain, with little to no effort from the technical team,”
Paul Venter
National IT Manager of SEESA
Elegant and comprehensive

“One of the first things I noticed about Dropsuite was the clean interface. You don’t need to search for certain functions,” explained Venter. Dropsuite ticked multiple boxes by performing backup, archival, restore and retrieval of all relevant data. This single solution would be able to manage not only email but OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint, and other Office 365 products.

Cost-effective and flexible

In addition, Dropsuite was more cost-effective than Mimecast. Jonathan Kropf, CEO of Velocity Technology Group, explains that Dropsuite does not require a one-year commitment (which would preclude the ability to reduce or increase the number of users), and it does not charge egress fees.

Support is also less expensive: “It can be managed by first-line support, without the need for second or third-level engineers,” according to Kropf. After learning about the cost factors, Paul described the decision as easy. “With all the added benefits of having backups of the Office 365 suite that we are currently using, and at the price, this decision was a no-brainer.” Dropsuite’s flexible month-to-month billing is built around the belief that customers should always feel they have the ability to leave if the service isn’t meeting their needs, and Dropsuite is willing to earn the right for that business every month.

Onboarding Process and Migration

Kropf describes Dropsuite as easy to roll out. “Unlike other archiving products, there are no routing changes that complicate the process. From a customer onboarding perspective, it’s really simple.” Venter concurs: “For us, it was a 15-minute exercise. And within 20 minutes, we could see the backing up of data starting to populate in Dropsuite.”

“For us, it was a 15-minute exercise. And within 20 minutes, we could see the backing up of data starting to populate in Dropsuite.”
Jonathan Kropf
CEO of Velocity Technology Group

Results to Date

SEESA initiated the Dropsuite process in Autumn 2022 and has now experienced the benefits of the comprehensive backup and archiving solution. The company has not had to conduct any employee training at all on how to use the system.

To date, 905 mailboxes have been exported from the previous archival product, comprising a total of 11 TB of data. When asked what the most challenging aspect of migrating to Dropsuite, Venter appeared stumped. “I can’t pinpoint a single problem or concern.”

“The migration for our users to start using Dropsuite was indeed a matter of explaining where to go to sign in to Dropsuite and where they could find their backups of emails, OneDrive and SharePoint documents as well as Teams conversation, and thereafter everyone was comfortable to do it on their own with minimal requests to the IT technical team,” says Venter.

A Three-Way Partnership

SEESA and Velocity Technology Group have partnered for more than a decade on major projects. The partnership involves much more than simply providing hardware; after-sales support is vital to SEESA and has been a cornerstone of the relationship.

“Velocity Technology Group knows the business we are running at SEESA and is always introducing us to new technologies and IT services that will benefit our business in all aspects, keeping us on the front edge of the latest technology trends,” Venter concluded.

An important advantage that Velocity Technology Group brings to clients such as SEESA is the company’s willingness to allow them to speak directly to technology providers. In this case, SEESA can work directly with the Dropsuite support team, with the result that all three parties – Velocity Technology Group, SEESA and Dropsuite – understand the issues and the client experience.

Velocity Technology Group clients speak to the strength of the three-way relationship. Further, it underscores the extent to which Dropsuite is both a partner-focused and a customer-focused company.

Conclusion: Compliance Achieved

SEESA relies on Dropsuite to help clients remain in compliance regardless of the regulatory requirements. By covering all types of data – email, OneDrive, Teams, SharePoint and more – Dropsuite provides a one-stop solution that is cost-effective as well as easy to implement and use. This enables SEESA to ensure that its critical data is backed up and archived. And when the need arises to restore data or retrieve it for compliance purposes, SEESA knows it can rely on Dropsuite.

About SEESA

SEESA delivers a comprehensive collection of legal and compliance services to any business owner in South Africa.

SEESA maximizes the efficiency and effectiveness of your business by being available and accessible nationwide, by offering a single, fixed-cost subscription, and finally, by leveraging extensive experience and expertise to become the leading provider of business compliance and support services throughout South Africa.

With SEESA you can rest assured that your business is 100% safe and protected in terms of any legal, HR or related matters. Their fixed-cost pricing model creates perfect predictability in terms of expenses, while their ground-breaking guarantee and 24-hour support structures mean you don’t have to fret about the standard of work.

SEESA has a consistently high success rate of winning all contested CCMA cases on behalf of our clients. They deploy a dedicated research and practice team of 200+ graduated legal and compliance professionals across 20 nationwide offices, all experts with over 24 years of experience in the industry and related sectors.

Why SEESA chose Dropsuite