Case Study: ThinkTel achieves telecom transformation and 300% commercial growth with Microsoft Azure

Transforming telecommunications with Azure and the Microsoft Cloud

ThinkTel, a mid‑sized Canadian telecommunications provider, set out to move from a predominantly wholesale model to a commercial B2B business while modernizing telephony for larger enterprises. The challenge was integrating new, cloud‑based communications into customers’ legacy systems without high startup costs or data‑residency concerns, and improving reliability and support for complex deployments.

By building its services on the Microsoft Cloud and Azure—including Azure’s Canadian datacentres—ThinkTel rapidly deployed proofs of concept, avoided large capital outlays, and eased data‑sovereignty objections for sectors like government and health care. The result: ThinkTel shifted from 90% wholesale to 65% commercial, grew its commercial services ~300% over five years, delivered client cost savings typically of 50% (some up to 90%), and raised first‑call fix rates from the low 40s to the high 70s.

ThinkTel

Jim Dawson

Co-Founder and VP of Sales