Company: Jenzabar, Boston, MA
Company Description: Created out of a passion for education and a vision for technology, Jenzabar offers disruptive, innovative solutions and services that empower students’ success and help higher education institutions meet the demands of the modern student. Over 1,350 higher educational campuses use Jenzabar solutions for improved performance across campus and more personalized and connected experiences.
Nomination Category: Customer Service & Call Center Awards Team Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Back-Office Customer Service Team of the Year - Technology Industries
 Nomination Title: Jenzabar's Managed Services Team Minimiziing the CrowdStrike Incident's Impact
- Which will you submit for your nomination in this category, a video of up to five (5) minutes, explaining the achievements since July 1, 2022 of the nominated team, OR written answers to the questions? (Choose one):
Written answers to the questions
- If you are submitting a video of up to five (5) minutes in length, provide the URL of the video here, OR attach it to your entry via the "Add Attachments, Videos, or Links to This Entry" link above, through which you may also upload a copy of your video. If you are submitting written answers to the questions for this category, provide them in the spaces below.
- Briefly describe the nominated team: its history and past performance (up to 200 words):
Total 187 words used.
With their wealth of personal and research data, higher education institutions are increasingly becoming prime targets for cyberattacks, particularly ransomware. These incidents not only compromise sensitive student and faculty information, but also threaten the continuity of academic operations. In some cases, cyberattacks have resulted in institutions shutting their doors for good.
The Jenzabar Managed Services team provides higher education institutions with specialized support that enhances cybersecurity, optimizes operations, and improves user experiences. The Jenzabar Managed Services team provides dedicated servers, vigilant monitoring, and industry standard failover recovery to ensure institutions have the means to scale their technology and safeguard institutional and student data against potential threats.
This year alone, Jenzabar’s Managed Services team has thwarted 10 ransomware attacks. Specifically, the team had a huge impact on client institutions during the CrowdStrike incident of 2024, in which more than 8 million systems around the world crashed and were unable to properly restart, resulting in estimated $10 billion USD in financial damage. Many institutions were impacted during the CrowdStrike incident, but Jenzabar’s Managed Services team was able to intervene and get systems back online in a matter of hours.
- Outline the team's achievements since July 1 2022 that you wish to bring to the judges' attention (up to 250 words):
Total 247 words used.
The punchline: After the CrowdStrike incident, Jenzabar had client systems back up and running in a matter of hours.
The story: Jenzabar uses CrowdStrike—a cybersecurity technology company—as its endpoint detection and response provider for SaaS solutions. CrowdStrike effectively serves as Jenzabar’s eyes on our customers’ systems, providing 24/7 critical support to safeguard institutional and student data against cyber threats. On July 19, CrowdStrike pushed out an update that crashed Windows systems globally.
At 3:00 AM on July 19, Jenzabar received an alert from its overnight team indicating that there was an issue on 1/3 of its client-hosted servers. This meant that hundreds of institutions and over 1,000 systems were essentially non-functional. Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the Jenzabar Managed Services team sprang into action.
From 3:00-4:00 AM, the team worked tirelessly to assess the extent of the disruptions and figure out the source. Via research and the early morning news cycle, they discovered the CrowdStrike update error and quickly devised a strategy for implementing a rapid recovery plan. The team called an all-hands meeting at 8 AM, laid out the strategy, and mobilized over 60 staff members to work system-by-system until functionality had been restored to all those impacted. The team worked across time zones, first addressing East Coast clients, then moving to Central and farther west.
Remarkably, by 1:00 PM that same day, Jenzabar’s Managed Services team had systems back online, ensuring minimal disruption to client operations, systems, and data.
- Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):
Total 229 words used.
Thank you notes from our clients:
“We just came up! Our Orientation is today so we are SO SO relieved.”
“Thank you for the post and for all the hard work. It just reminds me what a great decision it was to go hosted!”
“I know it's a tough day that's not your fault, but your efforts to help customers are much appreciated!”
“A big thank you goes out to you and your team for the titanic effort in fixing the CrowdStrike incident last week. Just knowing what we had to go through on-premises, I cannot even imagine what it was like for your team. Great job, all!”
Coverage of the CrowdStrike Incident:
- Explain why the achievements you have highlighted are unique or significant. If possible compare the achievements to the performance of other players in your industry and/or to the team's past performance (up to 250 words):
Total 196 words used.
According to CrowdStrike, most businesses were back online within a week, and many experts quoted in the news coverage of the incident said, realistically, it could take several weeks for businesses to fully recover from CrowdStrike’s IT failure. Meanwhile, the Jenzabar Managed Services team had the problem entirely handled within a matter of hours, ensuring institutions could continue business-as-usual and would suffer no ill effects of prolonged downtime.
This recovery is significant because it highlights not only the talent of Jenzabar’s Managed Services team, but demonstrates their preparation for these types of incidents. The team’s dedication to providing customers with 24/7 monitoring meant that the moment the issue occurred, Jenzabar knew about it and was working toward a solution.
It is also worth noting that while the team regularly holds webinars and conference presentations designed to educate clients on how to improve campus security, in the wake of the CrowdStrike incident, they’ve doubled their efforts. One of the team’s recent initiatives was on display during a conference at the HESS Consortium National Conference, during which they discussed the CrowdStrike incident and educated HESS member institutions on ways they can enhance their own cybersecurity awareness moving forward.
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