EPC Group Hosts Microsoft Office and Productivity Solutions that Deliver Value to Customers Through Product Education

TL; DR: EPC Group has a proven track record as a dedicated Microsoft Office solutions Gold Partner for consulting and software integration. The company helps clients deploy Microsoft’s suite of solutions to collaborate, communicate, and share information and assets. It has migrated more than 4 million Microsoft 365 users and works directly with organizations to ensure Microsoft products serve their specific requirements. EPC Group also emphasizes its role as a business technology educator and maintains a robust library of webinars and YouTube video tutorials.

When it comes to praising the use cases of Microsoft’s office solutions, EPC Group may only rival the software giant itself.

EPC Group’s mission is partly informed by its belief that, while Microsoft is dominant in the business software market, organizations often do not have the time or knowledge to make the most of its solutions suite.

EPC Group addresses that gap by expanding awareness of Microsoft’s full range of hosted products and platforms, and teaching users about their robust feature sets.

Microsoft has maintained its majority share of the office productivity technologies market for decades. According to Statista, Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) controls around 47.5% of the global market.

EPC Group positions itself as a leader in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Power BI, Dynamics 365, and Teams, among other solutions. Its hosted Microsoft product portfolio expertise also encompasses Exchange and Viva, the recently launched remote working support platform.

The company’s reputation as a Microsoft champion dates back to when EPC Group’s Chief Architect/Principal, Errin O’Connor, was on the original SharePoint and Office 365 Beta teams. He has also authored three standard SharePoint reference books.

“When Errin O’Connor founded EPC Group in 1997, his vision was to create a one-stop support brand that specialized in all Microsoft solutions for businesses of all sizes across the U.S.,” said Markus Houston, SEO Manager at EPC Group. “Even 24 years ago, that was a pretty challenging goal. But his original vision is still the spirit that drives us. It’s a belief in successful growth through knowledge acquisition — for our own team and our customers.”

The consulting side of EPC Group’s structure also reaches into Salesforce and Managed IT services — delivered on a regional basis in the U.S. It boasts more than 200 IT experts supporting different business applications and hosted platforms, including Azure and SQL Server.

It’s a relatively broad portfolio of solutions and services for a provider of EPC Group’s size. But, according to Markus, ambition has always been at the heart of the firm’s identity.

EPC Group has acquired a granular knowledge and understanding of the solutions suite as a Microsoft Gold Partner for more than 20 years. And its ability to understand client technology needs at the same level of detail is just as critical.

“We leverage our time-tested expertise through what we term ‘From the Consulting Trenches’ strategies,” said Markus. “These frontline-hardened strategies serve as the foundation for our solutions and services delivery for thousands of user organizations.”

The key, Markus said, is confidence. EPC Group experts know Microsoft products inside and out. That intricate knowledge can provide a hosted solution that meets just about any business software need.

“The sheer range of current Microsoft solutions gives EPC Group a sense of assurance,” Markus continued. “Our team knows that when we are talking with clients, no matter what comes up as they describe their ideal solution, we’re confident that EPC Group can deliver it. And that confidence exists because Microsoft has all bases covered, requirements-wise.”

Still, EPC Group aims to be much more than just another high-ranking Microsoft partner.

“The word we use is personification,” said Markus. “It’s making sure that our user organizations know they are interfacing with people as well as brand values. It comes from the top of the company. When we’re in communication with clients, Errin O’Connor wants to get on the call and talk with them directly.”

Being based around a single vendor’s products also has its challenges. New versions of Microsoft products appear according to Microsoft’s delivery schedule, so EPC Group is bound by that. But it distinguishes itself as a premier player in the Microsoft office solutions market in other ways, including value-added customer relationship initiatives.

“We differentiate through the renewal of our initial company mission — particularly our aim to grow our role as educators,” said Markus. “That’s something Errin O’Connor always made part of EPC Group’s value proposition.”

The EPC Group team found various challenges while trying to maintain that service as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded. It soon realized that effective use of hosted collaboration tools like SharePoint, and productivity tools like Power BI, were more critical than ever. They helped its client organizations run their businesses through the crisis.

“When the pandemic happened, we pivoted the same way everybody else did, but it’s also our job to help other companies pivot,” Markus added: “At EPC Group, we understood how important it was to do our best because that, ultimately, is going to support the economy. So we set up an additional layer of support, including webinars and videos on its YouTube channel. We have products and services to enable remote working, but they might not have been aware of these until the pandemic forced the issue.”

EPC Group develops educational initiatives to broaden its outreach to existing and potential customers in the post-pandemic world. The company’s YouTube channel, for example, features dozens of solution-specific video tutorials.

On social media, EPC Group’s LinkedIn and Twitter pages are also busy. The company posts podcasts on its BuzzSprout and PlayerFM channels with topics that include “Microsoft Teams versus Slack,” “Being Assured with Azure,” and a discussion of the business implications of Office 365’s name change to Microsoft 365.

“We’ve started these podcasts to reach our customers at a different level,” Markus said. “We have more live online seminars planned to give our clients opportunities to engage with us at a senior leadership level. That availability is part of the continuance of a tradition of education that we feel is of utmost importance and value.”

That reflects EPC Group’s belief that implementing solutions and providing services is only one part of the company’s mission. The other part is educating organizations about the technology they rely on.