Home office closets are usually filled with winter coats or workout gear. But one year ago, Cresta’s Head of IT Jared Allenbrand had a closet crammed with approximately 100 employee laptops.
Cresta, an innovative conversational AI company that helps empower contact centers, offers personalized real-time coaching of live agents, virtual agents, and problem-solving chatbots to assist with end customer support before a live agent steps in.
As the first IT hire in 2021, Allenbrand was tasked with laying the technology foundation at Cresta. By 2023, it became clear that Cresta’s global expansion required moving laptops out of his closet and into a streamlined process for IT device procurement, shipping, and management.
By partnering with Firstbase, Cresta not only cleared out closet space—they saved valuable IT hours, expanded into several new geographies, and grew headcount from 160 to 300 in less than a year.
When he joined Cresta, Allenbrand set the stage for success by implementing systems like Okta, Jamf, and Intune. As the company grew, he also hired two direct reports. Yet even with an IT team of three, excessive hours were being spent on device logistics.
During a period of hypergrowth, Cresta was hiring up to 20 employees per week—resulting in several hours of shipping tasks for the IT team per day. There also were countless additional man hours required to collect used laptops, wipe them, and prepare them for the next hire.
“We ship internationally to Canada and Germany, and we didn't have an IT presence there. We had to ship everything out of the U.S., which made things quite difficult,” Allenbrand says. “Now that we’ve expanded into India, Romania, and Germany, we need to easily get inventory there for new hires, and vice versa for offboarding.”
It became clear that outsourcing hardware logistics and management was the solution that would allow Cresta to successfully scale into new geos and free up valuable time for more meaningful tasks—all while maintaining a lean IT team.
While exploring possible solutions, Allenbrand discovered Firstbase.
“It wasn't the cheapest solution, but it was the most well-managed and mature solution out there,” he says. “Because we have multiple geographies globally, we need to support them as they grow.”
To vet Firstbase and other candidates, Allenbrand and his team conducted multiple platform demos. The goal was to find a solution with minimal bugs while covering maximum geographies. They also needed a partner who could handle all onboarding and offboarding needs by provisioning new hires and conducting time-consuming device recovery.
Firstbase was a slam dunk on all counts, offering Cresta the best device management logistics overall and covering potential and existing geos alike.
Once the decision was made to partner with Firstbase, the first step was to get the 100 laptops out of Allenbrand’s closet and over to Firstbase. The next step was to add Firstbase to Cresta’s Apple Business Manager (ABM) account and authorize Firstbase to purchase devices on Cresta’s behalf. Weekly meetings with key stakeholders on both sides kept everything on track.
“Today, it doesn't matter which geo we pull from. Firstbase’s hardware reseller geo is now inside of our ABM, making everything easier and simplifying device management globally,” says Allenbrand.
Integrating IT and HR systems saves critical time. For example, it allows common HR actions—such as adding a new hire into the HRIS system—to trigger an automated action—like an email from Firstbase prompting the new hire to select their equipment.
“As we’ve continued working with Firstbase, they’ve improved their platform with new integrations, like Jamf. This integration allows us to quickly assess the security posture of devices, ensuring they’re encrypted, up-to-date, and compliant,” says Allenbrand.
For example, if a Cresta employee loses their laptop, Allenbrand’s team can quickly lock the machine remotely, then trigger a replacement machine order through Firstbase. The new process minimizes security risks and expedites getting a new laptop into the employee’s hands—minimizing downtime.
Cresta’s hardware inventory is now standardized company-wide. By default, every employee gets a laptop, but different roles require different machine types (for example, an intern might receive a different machine versus a full-time engineer).
Previously, device selections were made on an ad-hoc basis. Today, IT can simply send new Cresta employees a link to Firstbase, allowing them to select from a pre-approved device menu customized to their role.
Allenbrand is also a fan of the Firstbase IT catalog, which allows employees to requisition simple items like chargers and headsets with ease.
“We have an IT Service Management system (ITSM) that keeps track of all our tickets. If a Cresta employee has a broken charger, for example, they can put in a ticket requesting a new one. If the item is in our IT ‘closet,’ we'll approve the request and they can go on Firstbase and order it immediately,” Allenbrand explains.
Next up, Cresta hopes to integrate a system for employees to redeem complimentary device stipends directly through Firstbase—no IT tickets required.
During the sales process, Firstbase provided Cresta with a handy calculator tool to estimate how much time they would save.
Firstbase estimated that within a year Cresta could increase headcount to 190 and save 268 IT hours. Before the one-year date, Cresta hit 300 employees and saved an estimated 270 IT hours.
“Today we’re at almost 300 people and we still have only three IT team members,” says Allenbrand. “We're a very lean team trying to be as efficient as possible. Removing the task of boxing up computers and driving to FedEx has allowed us to tackle larger projects and strategic initiatives, which has been a game-changer for our IT department.”
For example, in the past year Cresta has had the bandwidth to implement Kolide, a system that integrates with Okta to provide critical device security measures. This major initiative will help Cresta continue to scale swiftly and safely.
IT isn’t the only department to benefit from the Firstbase partnership. Thanks to read-only admin privileges, Cresta’s human resources team now has Firstbase visibility that offers real-time device status updates.
“HR can see everything, but there are limits,” Allenbrand says. “If a new hire is inquiring, ‘Hey, where's my laptop?” instead of needing to contact us, they can log into Firstbase, type in the employee name, and give them that information.”
As Cresta embarks on their next stage as a Series D company, they are ready to leverage Firstbase to navigate expansion in their newest geographies. Pre-planning for the next fiscal year will cement their new headcount goal, and Firstbase will help them stay ahead of logistical needs and contribute to another phase of growth.
Global growth goals are tricky to execute when you rely solely on internal IT team members—particularly in regions like India, where 10-week laptop provisioning timelines are common.
Thanks to their Fristbast partnership, Cresta is driving device efficiency across the organization and fulfilling needs in new geographies with ease.
“The biggest benefit of Firstbase is the time it saves us,” says Allenbrand. “Tasks like recovering a machine, shipping it, receiving it, testing it, and performing QA used to add up significantly. Firstbase streamlines all of this, which has been invaluable for our team.”
The burden of going to FedEx and DHL to ship machines has been removed entirely, freeing up valuable hours for strategic IT work. Meanwhile, simplified inventory and self-service options for HR and employees have added efficiency company-wide.
The best part? Wherever Cresta goes next, Firstbase will be ready to go, too.
Firstbase supports teams in over 100 countries to streamline their IT logistics operations. Ready to chart your own course for global success?