How Soup Agency stayed secure through 30% growth with no dedicated IT

The challenge

Soup Agency is a marketing performance agency based in Sydney, founded in 2019. The team works across design, production, and digital for Australian and international clients.

Tanya Vakulenko, Operations Manager, joined as the second hire. Under the operations umbrella, she owned devices, software, and security. In the early days, it was manageable. She knew every laptop on the floor, could follow up with teammates directly, and kept things running through proximity and persistence.

Then they started growing faster. A new batch of hires landed, and each of them needed a different setup. The per-device, in-person follow-through that worked at six people could not keep up at sixteen and beyond—and chasing teammates for software updates was no longer a minor inconvenience. It was a big job.

Security pressure arrived at the same time. Soup Agency had been targeted by an impersonation campaign of spoofed domains and fake LinkedIn pages. Tanya handled the takedowns herself, but she saw just how devastating cyber attacks could be. For an agency handling client work and creative assets, a single compromised endpoint would be a much larger problem than any operational inconvenience.

Hiring a full-time IT resource wasn't realistic, but security wasn't something we could compromise on. I needed a solution that I could manage myself without becoming an IT specialist. Having good security systems and processes in place is non-negotiable.

Tanya Vakulenko
Operations Manager

She needed a system she could run without an IT background, one that provisioned devices, delivered software by role, enforced updates, and ran threat detection without an operator in the loop. It also needed to support both the agency's Mac devices and its company iPhone used for content shoots and social media management. She taught herself Apple Business Manager and device management fundamentals from a standing start, knowing the challenge would keep growing whether she was ready or not.

The solution: Choosing Iru

The evaluation came down to one question: would the platform require her to become an IT specialist, or would it handle itself? Tanya needed a platform she could configure and manage without IT experience, one that wouldn't consume half a day every time something needed to change.

I love this software just purely because of how easy it is to use, and how simple it is to set up. All the support is there.

Tanya Vakulenko
Operations Manager

Tanya was running the fleet on it within weeks. She could log in and configure Blueprints without a learning curve and no implementation partner needed. 

Laptops arrive ready

Devices flow through Apple Business Manager into Iru, then into the new starter's hands, without Tanya touching the hardware. When the laptop boots, Iru's onboarding screen walks the employee through enrollment and installs the apps tied to their role before they have logged in. All Soup Agency’s Mac devices are auto-enrolled through ADE.

The shape is the same for every new hire: power on, sign in, work. For Tanya, the only step is assigning the device and the role tag before the start date. What used to take 1.5 to 2 hours of hands-on setup per device now takes around 10 minutes. The one-hour onboarding session Tanya runs with each new hire is now spent entirely on training and getting them productive, not configuring their laptop.

Software stacks are customised by role

Different roles need different stacks. In an agency with a mix of disciplines, role-based delivery is the difference between provisioning a device in minutes and provisioning it over an afternoon.

Before Iru, the agency was using different systems depending on people's title and job requirements. Now, Tanya tags the device by role and the stack pushes itself. Auto Apps delivers Adobe Creative Cloud, Canva, CapCut, ChatGPT, Slack, and Productive.io across the fleet, mapped to the roles that need them. There is no manual install pass before handover.

Updates run without anyone being chased

Managed software updates run on a schedule Tanya configured once. The latest macOS is installed on computers, staying current without her needing to remind teammates or send Slack messages.

We needed software in place that kept our laptops secure without me chasing everyone down.

Tanya Vakulenko
Operations Manager

The work that used to be "follow up with everyone about the update" is now handled automatically with Iru.

The fleet remains secure on its own

Iru Endpoint Detection and Response runs in Protect Mode on every Mac device in the fleet, flagging suspicious activity and sending Slack alerts the moment something looks wrong. Combined with the ability to remotely lock or erase any machine instantly, Tanya has full endpoint coverage across a team that works in the office, from home, and while traveling.

Iru is definitely the biggest part of making sure we stay secure.

Tanya Vakulenko
Operations Manager

The result is a security posture that doesn't require a dedicated person to maintain it. The alert pane stays empty. Computers stay current. Nothing has been compromised.

Results

Soup Agency has grown to sixteen team members without a gap in security coverage. Every Mac device is enrolled, configured to its role, and running current software. Device onboarding time has dropped by more than 90%. When someone joins, their device is ready before their first day. When someone travels or loses a device, Tanya can lock or erase it immediately. Since moving to Iru, Tanya says, "We've never had any compromises."

For a digital marketing agency that runs entirely on its platforms and its client relationships, that's the baseline that makes everything else possible.

Looking ahead

Soup Agency is still hiring, and the device setup scales with it. Each new hire gets a provisioned, secured, role-configured Mac device through the same enrollment process, without any additional setup work on Tanya's side. The security controls, the software stacks, the update enforcement: all of it carries forward automatically to every device that gets added to the fleet. The infrastructure doesn't have to be rebuilt as the agency grows, it just grows with it.

About Soup Agency

Soup Agency is an independent digital marketing agency based in Sydney, helping ambitious brands grow through a combination of strategy, creative and performance marketing. Founded in 2019, the agency has grown rapidly to a team of seventeen specialists across paid media, SEO, content and CRM, supporting clients throughout Australia and internationally.