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Companial Launches in Ireland

Companial's UK subsidiary has recently expanded into Ireland.

Thursday, October 12, 2023
Reading time: 5 minutes

Vivian Buttle, Regional Lead for the UK, drove this launch to engage with Irish Partners. We asked Vivian about the efforts and background of this release:

Q: Why did you decide now to expand the Companial business to Ireland?

A: In the past, it was always quite tricky to get any real traction in the Irish market. There were several reasons behind that. We didn’t have proper Microsoft support in Ireland. We always tried on our own but never succeeded. So, what makes the difference this time is that Microsoft Ireland asked Companial to come and work with them to support the channel. We engaged with Microsoft Ireland on various levels and divisions within the organization. Microsoft had challenges with supporting the Business Application space and driving their on-premises business to the cloud.

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Q: What are the market opportunities for Companial in Ireland?

A: There is a good base of Irish Partners who are interested in partnering with a distributor like us. In the past, the challenge for Companial was that there is a very strong distributor in Ireland who had all the accounts. They also don’t have the capabilities that we have because we are an indirect vendor that only focuses on business applications. That’s the difference between us and the local provider.

Also, Business Central SaaS was not available in the Irish market before, it was only launched in the last two years. This means that the whole landscape and opportunities in the market have changed with the move to the cloud. Grown in-fact.

Now Partners want to take a step forward, their clients want to move to the cloud, but they need expertise and support, so they need to consult with the experts. And this is where Microsoft approached us, because they see that the move to the cloud is not happening fast enough with the on-premises base.

Jonathan Eustace, SMC Lead at Microsoft Ireland made the point that the Irish market is increasing its tech investment. In fact, 70% of the SMB market plans to increase IT spending, 53% of SMBs aim to digitize business applications, especially finance, and 2 out of 4 expect to grow.

He also said they estimate that market of medium businesses (25-300 employees) to be around 6.3m accounts. It’s not a case of looking for demand, it’s a situation of trying to keep up with it.

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Q: What was the core reason that triggered Microsoft Ireland to ‘Call in the A-Team’?

A: Gaps. They noticed multiple gaps in the market. Not only are we so niche and focused, but this is also reflected in the breadth and depth of our knowledge base – we can solve (most likely) every problem presented to us tin the Microsoft 365 Dynamics Business Applications space. Contributing to this, we support the training of their staff, which plays to a global challenge for every Dynamics Partner – a lack of talent in the market.  The lack of talent then feeds the time constraint Partners have. Microsoft recognizes they aren’t equipped to provide support like this.

We also have the ISV Marketplace which has its own universe of ‘vertical specific support’. We can tell we’ve hit the mark with the communication we’re getting from the Irish market even now, only a week or so out.

Q: How did the official launch in Ireland come about?

A: We had several meetings with executives from Microsoft Ireland to get their support for our market entry. Because to enter the market, you need the support of the vendor. And Microsoft’s support was key for us. We agreed to officially launch Companial in the Irish market with the message of how we work and how we support Business Application Partners, Partners who want to get into the Business Application space, or Partners who want to grow the Business Application practice with other business areas.

For this launch, we worked closely with Microsoft Ireland. They have provided us with data on the Partners they want to work with in the Business Applications space. We also conducted market research in the Irish market to find the interested Partners we wanted to invite to the actual launch event.

Q: How did the official launch in Ireland come about?

A: We had several meetings with executives from Microsoft Ireland to get their support for our market entry. Because to enter the market, you need the support of the vendor. And Microsoft’s support was key for us. We agreed to officially launch Companial in the Irish market with the message of how we work and how we support Business Application Partners, Partners who want to get into the Business Application space, or Partners who want to grow the Business Application practice with other business areas.

For this launch, we worked closely with Microsoft Ireland. They have provided us with data on the Partners they want to work with in the Business Applications space. We also conducted market research in the Irish market to find the interested Partners we wanted to invite to the actual launch event.

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Q: How did the actual launch event go?

A: Great. We invited people to the Iveagh Garden Hotel in Dublin, and we are very proud to say that we had a full room of potential Partners interested in this event and in working with us further. We had nearly 40 people in the room; including executives from Microsoft and Companial, who attended and played a crucial role in telling our story to the audience.

A big part of the agenda was to educate the Partners in Ireland on how they can leverage all the technologies in the Business Application Platform. How Business Central works with Power Platform and Power Apps and how information is delivered on the web to get the word out, how everything is connected and how to think about the whole platform and suite of solutions to drive success in the business with customers. Another big topic was the strong capabilities of our Partner Care team, enabling Partners to find a solution to their licensing queries and therefore be quicker than taking operational matters into their own hands.

After the presentations we socialized in the bar before having dinner together. It was a really great way to get to know Partners on a less formal level, just like the relationships we have with our UK Partners.

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Q: How did Microsoft Ireland support you with this event?

A: They helped us a lot with the invitation process in the run-up to the event. They also highlighted the importance of the Business Applications space during the event. They positioned the opportunity in Ireland with the Partners so that they could understand why Business Applications are such a great opportunity for them to really get traction and move forward in the market, and seriously consider a move to the cloud and digital transformation, emphasizing that Companial is a digital transformation Partner in the market and helping to drive change.

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Q: What does Companial offer Irish Partners?

A: What makes Companial stand out from the local vendors is our unique offering under one banner with training offerings, us being an ISV Development Center, our broad range of technical services, and also with this great community of Partners that we embrace. So, it’s a great benefit for Partners to leverage the Partner2Partner collaboration for their customer projects. It also makes it easier for us to connect with local Partners in Ireland. We also invited Partners who offer niche solutions and presented them in the ISV slot. These mainly cover areas of environmental and sustainability reporting, as well as areas of security, all based on Microsoft’s underlying Power Platform/Power Apps technologies. We presented this element from the perspective of ISVs or platform service providers to show them the value of working with Companial and where we can help them work with Partners who already have these types of solutions in the market. So, they don’t have to figure out how to deploy or create them themselves.

We’re really a one-stop boutique shop for the Irish Partners so they don’t have to go to different vendors to help them with their business efforts. We provide everything they need to be successful as a Business Application Partner.

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Q: What are the next steps?

A: As an outcome, there is already a lot of interest from the Partners that were in the room with us. We are now in the follow-up phase when it comes to memberships or Companial Learning Journeys.

We have 2 offers especially for the Partners, who are interested in partnering with Companial.

We have a Learning Journeys offer for those who signed up. We are opening the ‘Members Only invites to the last 2 Partner calls of the year, and an open invite to our end of year, big-bash, Connect in November. All with the purpose of demonstrating the community which has been built and developed for the last 15+ years.

I would like to end with a quote that a Partners gave us directly at the event and that shows the appreciation for Companial focusing on Ireland.

“Everything presented was excellent, ‘on-point’ and all the reasons why I joined Companial.”

Shailan Chudasama, Director, Clearly Cloudy Ltd.

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Companial: Thank you Vivian for these insights – and looking forward to hearing more about the Companial Partners in Ireland.

Ursula Koller
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