CANFIELD – In a “state of the company” address to employees, Robert Merva, owner of Avrem Technologies in Canfield, told employees that 2023 would be a year of employee education. As a result, new professional certifications were achieved in cybersecurity, project management and with Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365.
“These certifications ensure that the Avrem team has the knowledge to continue to deliver value to every one of our clients and can rise to meet the challenges that 2024 will bring,” Merva says. “In addition to our certification goal, we also set out for every employee to achieve one non-work-related skill to round out the entire group. As a result, every employee at Avrem received training and a certification in CPR from the American Red Cross.”
Avrem serves clients across 22 states, he says, and with the hiring of three new employees, the company was able to focus on other initiatives.
“One of our biggest efforts was concentrated toward launching an entire team dedicated to helping clients with governance, risk and compliance needs,” Merva says. “The company overhauled six key service delivery processes that we identified as being the most complex but also the highest touch with our clients.”
Avrem has taken the position that all clients align to the Center for Internet Security v8 Framework, an industry set of best practices. “This is an approach that’s unique to Avrem among our competitors in the area but sure to be adopted as a standard practice by MSPs in the years to come,” he says.
Last year Avrem was recognized on the MSP501, a list of the 501 fastest-growing managed service providers worldwide. It was also recognized in the Weatherhead 100 awards presented by the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western University.
This year, Merva says his state of the company address redefined core values: Communicate before it’s necessary; focus on outcomes; obsess over the details; keep perspective; be open to new; and do the right thing.
“We’re providing a clear mandate to all Avrem employees that our interactions with clients should be characterized by thoughtfulness, efficiency, proactivity and integrity,” Merva says.