'The UK is our most important market right now' - French software vendor on mid-pandemic expansion

"Intranet in a box" vendor Powell Software has fingered the UK market as most important to its expansion plans, according to UK country manager Philippe Gomes.

The vendor was spun out from French reseller Expertime which has built intranet systems for large French firms. Powell specialises in creating digital solutions built on Microsoft 365 as well as collaborative tools for Microsoft Teams.

It received $16m in Series A funding in January of this year, which will be used to invest in its digital workplace offerings and its expansion strategy, Gomes said.

The company set up an office in the UK in September last year and is working with Microsoft to expand its partner and customer base in the UK market.

"It's really about trying to reach out to the right partners in the UK," he told CRN.

"We decided to open an office in the UK simply because the UK is the second-largest Office 365 market in the world - you cannot have bold ambitions without actually setting up an office in the UK.

"On the back of that, a lot of investment is going to come to the UK in terms of allowing us to do the right marketing and lead generation that we required to become the partner of choice for Microsoft Office 365 users and partners. We already have that position in France and Germany, but we still need to build it in the UK and one of the ways to do that is getting aligned with Microsoft."

When Powell first set up last year it had one partner in the UK and it has managed to increase that number to seven, which Gomes described as "implementation partners" that are all Microsoft Gold partners in the collaboration space.

Around 80 per cent of Powell's business goes through its partner ecosystem and it is on the lookout for more UK partners and is "open" to other types profiles, Gomes added.

The majority of its first year in the UK has been dominated by challenges thrown up by the coronavirus, but Gomes is unfazed by the virus' impact on its growth plans.

"Most of the customers' longer-and-medium term projects and investments, such as intranet, were put on hold at the time," he explained.

"It's been a bit of a struggle but we still did manage to get our first new meaningful customers in the UK during this time. It's now getting better now and we're seeing more projects and more urgency for them."

Powell offers partners the ability to build custom solutions and their own IP on some of the digital business processes that it offers and its collaborative platform is tapping into the need for companies to have seamless collaborative processes, he said.

"It's been a very challenging time at the moment, but there is an urgency in the projects that we're seeing at the moment," he noted.

"We see quite a lot of urgency because companies are looking for more sustainable solutions at this time to help their employees get better connected and get a sense of belonging to the organisation, because it's quite a challenge now for most employees working remotely."

Powell has operations in the US, Australia and Dubai, among others. The UK is the third European country where it has established a physical presence, after its native France and Germany.

"We are really well established in France and it's a bit more mature in Germany as well, so the big focus for us in EMEA right now is the UK," he declared.

"In Europe, the most important market right now for sustaining our growth is the United Kingdom."