Model: Growing Customer Base by 20% and Boosting Upsell Revenue with Cynomi

Background

Model Technology Solutions is a cybersecurity and infrastructure engineering managed services company. For the past 10 years, the company has been serving mid-sized companies, helping them protect their organization from cyber threats. Since 2022, Model Technology Solutions has also been providing vCISO services. The company employs 25 experts, who are involved in the architecture, engineering, design and implementation of cyber security solutions and in remediation activities.

The Challenge

Before using Cynomi, Model Technology Solutions were experiencing a communication gap with their clients. They noticed that their own engineers and their clients’ technical decision makers did not always mean the same thing when discussing security issues and needs. This made it difficult to align on plans and show progress.

In addition, Model were using an internal IP that the company had developed. It was based on maturity models and industry benchmarks. However, it did not enable Model to correlate their clients’ capabilities with security frameworks. Developing the IP itself was a costly process.

Finally, Model were looking to expand to new markets, but their services were aligned to their existing customer base.

The Solution

Model chose Cynomi as their vCISO services and security management platform.

“Once we found Cynomi, we implemented it with our existing clients and they loved it.”

Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

All of Model’s vCISO clients have access to the Cynomi platform. Cynomi acts as a single-source-of-truth, allowing both Model and their clients to collectively view the same screens, through a user-friendly interface that presents security in a simplified and accessible manner.

“The Cynomi platform was an excellent bridge for us to all be on the same page.”

Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Together, they can collaborate on their security and compliance posture, no matter the client’s security expertise level. For example, Model and their clients can effectively discuss specific MFA authentication configurations or required security protocol updates while ensuring everyone understands the status, risks and risk implications.

Cynomi’s reporting capabilities allow Model’s customers to share their security and compliance posture and progress with management, boards and even their own end-customers. Through visually appealing reports, they can demonstrate how they comply with regulations and security requirements.

“Cynomi goes beyond the technical realm. By including the business decisions that need to be made, Cynomi creates a holistic view of cyber readiness and compliance.”

Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Model also uses Cynomi’s task management capabilities to plan and track remediation. After conducting an initial assessment and determining goals and the roadmap, Model works with their clients’ leadership to assign tasks to different people in the organization. Model also benefits from uploading scan evidence and documentation, which provide context to tasks. Then, Cynomi is used to track execution progress, to ensure the client is meeting their security and compliance goals.

“Cynomi enables communication between the various levels of decision makers and engineering levels, enabling us to improve communication and build relationships.”

Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Finally, Cynomi has enabled Model to expand their line of business by offering a new vCISO service to new clients.

The Impact

Cynomi has helped Model achieve their business goals. By using Cynomi, Model’s management was able to benefit from:

Growing the Customer Base by 20%

Cynomi’s comprehensive security capabilities – security assessments, policy creation, security planning, reporting, vCISO services, and more – enabled Model to offer enhanced functionalities and services to their clients. By strategically adding Cynomi’s capabilities to their services, Model was able to acquire a significant number of new clients, and grow their customer base by a whopping 20%.

“We have seen an increase in customers as well as increasing sales and services opportunities through the use of Cynomi. The ability to have a tool that supports our services has brought in additional customers we wouldn’t have had without it.”

Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Increasing Upsell Revenue by 60%

Model leveraged Cynomi’s vCISO platform to upsell their services to existing clients. This enabled them to significantly increase their revenue: for 20% of existing clients, Model enjoyed a 60% revenue increase.

Improved Efficiency: From Weeks to Days

With Cynomi’s standardization and automation, Model is able to conduct assessments and provide services more quickly and efficiently. The process of conducting security assessments was reduced to days with Cynomi instead of the weeks it took beforehand. Eliminating the need for cumbersome spreadsheets work and quicker identification of gaps that need to be filled significantly reduces the costs associated with conducting security assessments as well as other services.

“When we started, it was four or five months before I’d have somebody doing an assessment on their own. Now it’s down to one month.”

– Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Expanding the Target Market

Model has been serving mid-sized organizations with 2,000-5,000 employees. Thanks to Cynomi’s vCISO platform capabilities, the company has expanded to another group of companies, sized 500-1,000 employees. Their 2024 goal is to further penetrate this new market with strategic vCISO services.

“What has taken weeks in the past takes days with Cynomi.”

– Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Expanded Service Offering

Cynomi’s wide variety of capabilities allows Model to offer new services to clients. These include:

• Strategic vCISO services – Working with C-suite executive level and offering a holistic cybersecurity program and framework.
• Security and compliance posture management – Ensuring their clients meet framework requirements. For example, helping companies in regulated industries that need to be compliant with specific frameworks (watch an example).

Improved Communication with Clients

Model uses Cynomi to conduct fruitful and productive discussions with their clients. By using Cynomi as a common platform to understand the current posture, what needs to be done and future plans, Model can more easily collaborate with clients and present their progress, while increasing customer satisfaction. From their clients’ perspective, Cynomi allows measuring security posture over time. This helps their clients justify the investment in Model’s services.

“Our clients see ROI from working with Model Technology Solutions more easily. They can see what they’re getting out of our services”

– Steve Bowman, VP Sales & Marketing and Partner, Model Technology Solutions

Positive User Experience

Cynomi provided Model with a good user experience, for both Model’s employees and clients. Model enjoys using the Cynomi platform. In addition, they’ve seen a positive impact in Model’s customer satisfaction and engagement since adopting Cynomi.

Model plans to continue leveraging Cynomi’s capabilities in the future, anchoring Cynomi as part of their 2024 business expansion goals.

To learn more how Model’s clients benefit from Cynomi, hear from Matt Kelly, CFO of Wozniak, who chose Model based on their partnership with Cynomi.