Channel partner of the quarter: Machado, veteran-owned IT consulting firm

Overview

Founded: 2001

Size of company: 30+ employees

Industry: IT Consulting and Services

Location: Massachusetts

Length of time using Bitwarden: 2 years

Number of clients: 105

Number of Bitwarden seats managed: 400

Machado, a Massachusetts-based, veteran-owned IT consulting firm, offers bundled IT and cybersecurity services to business customers across various industries. While the company sells an array of IT security services, its password management offering was limited. Customers were following poor password management practices that could have lead to data breaches, so the Machado team knew it was time to provide stronger password security solutions. 

Situation: Concern about insecure password storage prompted search for enterprise password manager

Over the years, Machado had taken note of customers storing their passwords insecurely. As high-profile data breaches continued to pile up, password security became increasingly top-of-mind for customers concerned about their own legal, financial, and reputational risks. 

“Between ransomware attacks and business email compromises, securing credentials is of utmost importance,” said Max Kaplan, director of engineering at Machado. “If you aren’t securing your credentials, what are you doing?”

Despite the inherent risks, the Machado team found that a number of customers were still storing their passwords in Excel spreadsheets. “While customers recognized and acknowledged the risks of doing this, they also weren’t sure where to start in terms of course-correction,” said Kaplan. “Some customers defaulted to storing their passwords within browser-based password managers. But, not only does this not extend to applications that aren’t websites, it also doesn’t enable organizational oversight or any sense of containment. Those passwords are just in a browser.”

Machado considered a few options as it was evaluating the best password management solution for its customers. “We knew we wanted a solution that was easy to use, since technological comfort levels and abilities tend to vary. Having some measure of provider management was important, as we didn’t want to deal with having a hundred separate accounts that require separate credentials,” said Kaplan

The Machado team also sought a password management provider that was transparent about its product roadmap and technical architecture and of course, friendly to managed services providers (MSPs) like Machado. “A lot of the enterprise-focused password management companies seem very closed off. They’re a bit inflexible, not open about their product direction, and not open about their code,” said Kaplan. 

Solution: Bitwarden, easy-to-use and accessible for customers

While Machado briefly considered other password manager solutions to sell to customers, Kaplan’s own personal positive experience with Bitwarden and the software’s overall reputation helped propel Bitwarden to the front of the line. 

“I already had experience with Bitwarden and was really impressed with its overall capabilities,” said Kaplan. “Some employees were familiar with LastPass, but when we did a feature-to-feature comparison of the two businesses, we quickly realized Bitwarden was the company we wanted to work with. LastPass just isn’t as MSP-focused.”

Said Kaplan, “As our customers can attest, Bitwarden is easy-to-use and easy to adopt.”

Kaplan cites that there are “many different ways to use Bitwarden, such as through the desktop, mobile application, and web extensions” as a major selling point. He lauds the centralized nature of the product, password-sharing capabilities, and secure password generation as important factors that have helped customers instill a strong password security culture.

Collaborative partnership with Bitwarden and seamless customer deployment

Kaplan is particularly appreciative of how laser-focused the Bitwarden team is on ensuring its partners have what they need to best serve their customers. “When we first came on board, the Bitwarden partner program was in its early stages,” said Kaplan. “And yet immediately, we saw the level of work, dedication, and resources Bitwarden was putting into partner success.”

Machado has also found the Bitwarden deployment process, in the words of Kaplan, ‘extremely easy.’ 

Said Kaplan, “We’re able to get things spun up very quickly. We offer SSO (single sign-on) and system for cross-domain identity management (SCIM) provisioning with every single customer we set up. Between that and the time it takes to get the users provisioned in the environment, the desktop clients deployed and the web extensions deployed, we’re talking just a couple hours. It’s pretty amazing.”

Bitwarden: “A solution we can stand behind”

“In the past, we didn’t have a solution we could wholeheartedly stand behind,” said Kaplan. “Usually we would end up directing customers towards whatever solution was big at the time. But, we didn’t support it. It was just a recommendation. Now we have a solution we stand behind, wholeheartedly support, and believe in. Bitwarden is something we can easily recommend, resell, and provide to our clients.”

“The product itself is fantastic. What more can you ask for?”

Get started with Bitwarden

Interested in becoming a member of the Bitwarden Partner Program? Find out more here. You can also learn more about what Bitwarden can do for your business and sign up for a free 7-day trial.