The sun never sets on growth

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“If you want to be really great at something, you have to specialize,” said Berend-Jan van Maanen, CEO at SaaSplaza. As the world’s leading Microsoft Dynamics Online solution provider and only Microsoft Gold Certified Hosting Partner specifically focused on Dynamics, SaaSplaza clearly practices what its leaders preach. Such commitment has paid off handsomely too, with the Netherlands-based company earning membership to the Microsoft Dynamics Inner Circle for service and sales achievement two years in a row. Achievements such as that put the company amongst the top one percent of the most successful Dynamics partners globally.

Follow the sun

Want to run your AX, NAV, or GP environments on any Microsoft Azure datacenter around the world? SaaSplaza wants to help. From subscription creation all the way through to a global 24/7 "Follow The Sun" support model, the company accompanies its customers every step of the way on their cloud journey.

Founded in 1998, SaaSplaza existed in its early years as a hosting business for generic applications. While a successful endeavor, the business model didn’t lend itself to substantive growth. Then in 2008, the company’s founder started noticing the high demand for Dynamics in the cloud. Seeing a golden opportunity, he switched the company from a hosting business to value-added services, making the company cloud Dynamics specialists. “We grew in sync with the success of Dynamics in the European marketspace,” said van Maanen. “And we did that even before Azure.”

Catering to different audiences

From partners to large enterprises, the company has managed to earn a reputation as a key trusted advisor. “I think that has to do with our investing a lot of time and effort to build a really good cloud platform that we can deliver quickly and easily, so companies can focus on running their own businesses,” said van Maanen.

Although SaaSplaza delivers services across industries, the company works a lot with ones that have decentralized environments, such as retail or automotive. Clearly, those industries can benefit the most from central enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications.

A balancing act

You know that old adage about people getting out of something as much as they put in. It applies to business partnerships too. Partners that don’t put their time into developing their Microsoft relationship miss out on big opportunities. “Partnerships are a balancing act,” said van Brummen. “From the start we’ve spent a lot of time with Microsoft’s corporate team and in sessions at Microsoft Ignite presenting the technology we facilitate and confirming the value it brings to Microsoft. You have to give something back to that ecosystem.” For SaasSplaza, 2008 giving back includes giving and taking constructive criticism to help Microsoft make its products and services even better.

A mind-blowing decision

If the leaders at SaaSplaza had to make their cloud journey all over again, the only change they would have made would be getting into the cloud earlier.

The company is also seeing exponential growth compared to standard private clouds.

Van Maanen finds that Azure enables SaaSplaza in helping their enterprise clients run better businesses. “We firmly believe Azure is the optimal platform to deliver excellence and security of ownership along with business agility for our clients,” said van Maanen. Looking ahead, SaaSplaza plans to continue investing in tools in support of business intelligence and as a means of broadening the company’s portfolio. SaaSplaza will continue to focus on service excellence, continuously driving quality of service through looking at technology options that help reduce cost and improve quality through the Azure environment or any other new technology stack that Micrsooft brings to market.

According to van Maanen, smaller companies hosting as his once did are going the way of the dinosaur. “Traditional hosting companies have to transform their business model and move away from a commoditized product to a more value-added service portfolio which enriches Azure’s offering,” said van Maanen. “My advice to all of the traditional hosting companies is to make that journey because if you don’t, in a matter of years you’ll be out of business.”