Darren Shahinian is the November 2016 Sales Champ! This is the second victory for Darren in 2016.
Focus
Darren’s primary focus in November was supporting schools that are taking their first steps in Azure. This involved connecting staff with professional service partners, applying for Microsoft funding where applicable, scheduling on-boarding assistance, and punctuating cloud conversations by providing appropriate licensing and activation resources. Azure has been a popular topic among institutions as schools look to move to the cloud.
Success Story
Darren has been working with Agnes Scott College throughout the year to help them determine the best route for licensing Microsoft products, and after making their way through the necessary paperwork he was able to set them up with an EES enrollment through the Georgia Independent College Association (GICA) consortia’s group purchasing program that is managed by ScholarBuys. Not only does this program aggregate the buying power of the consortia’s member institutions, but in partnership with Microsoft, GICA and ScholarBuys have wrapped a bunch of additional value around the program for participating schools and their constituents.
 
Technology
When asked what technology Darren is most excited to promote in the coming months he replied:
Veeam is releasing a new product: Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 – I am excited to learn more about the offering and how it augments both the user and IT administration experiences for schools that are already invested in Office 365 technologies. Veeam has also granted a promotion for the release, where existing Veeam customers can subscribe to this new product for 1-2 years for free based on their existing Veeam licensing, so I will be getting the word out and guiding my customers that are interested through the process.
Service
The ScholarBuys team is always learning and gaining knowledge about the latest technology so we can provide the best service- that’s why we are Academic Technology Experts! Last month Darren learned about Adobe’s new on-boarding assistance offered to new Value Incentive Program (VIP) customers. This program assists VIP customer’s with their initial Creative Cloud deployments within their environment. With a qualifying order (25 licenses or more), Adobe will have a specialist – whom they refer to as the Deployment Ambassador – reach out to the institutions’ Adobe administrator and provide remote assistance.
