User Stories

Cloud computing is not just super-high-tech companies. The cloud has life-giving properties that are helping many new firms build their business mostly or entirely on the cloud. Why? Because it helps them bring together business processes at a single access point and an ability to work anywhere from any device. New micro firms are also increasingly using cloud-based administration tools to keep track of their revenue. Read our user story on Conversion Garden, which runs entirely in the cloud. 

One of the key benefits of the cloud is its ability to level the playing field. Because cloud removes much of the initial up-front costs, it allows small- and mid-sized businesses to compete with their larger rivals and in some instances to surpass them. Read our user story on how iMinds helped a Belgian startup move to the cloud.

Not surprisingly, the cloud is increasingly becoming a staple for start-ups, giving them entry to almost any sector, and an opportunity to disrupt the market.

See how firms are using the cloud

Learning how other firms are using the cloud can you match requirements and benefits to your own business context. To see how businesses of all sizes are using cloud services, scroll down to view our user stories. We also have examples of how big corporations are benefitting from cloud capabilities, like Costain, a global engineering solutions provider. 

 

Apodesk, cloud-based software revolutionising the Italian pharmacy market

S’moove Software has developed Apodesk, a cloud software delivered as an online service for pharmacies, helping them save time and money.

Pharmacies use Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to optimise the storage of thousands of drugs and other products, to automate purchases, as well as for invoicing and running loyalty campaigns. The downside? The Italian pharmacy market is packed with complex applications for running these services with just a handful of suppliers dominating the market.

How iMinds helped one Belgian startup become a global player

Belgian startup POSIOS launched in 2012 with an innovative point of sale (POS) solution and the ambition to become the world’s top POS app for the hospitality industry – specifically restaurants. 
 
In just two years, the company has grown from a local team of three to an international business of 23 employees and more than 700 customers worldwide. That rapid expansion caught the eye of Canada’s Lightspeed, the global leader in retail POS solutions. 

Dutch retailer uses Cloud for merchandising

Wehkamp needed to improve its online retail services and use big data and analytics to provide their mostly young customers with a personalised and tailored online shopping experience, as well as improve profitability. The results of using cloud services for digital analytics, customer experience management and email campaigning speak a language any shareholder can understand: a 271% higher sales-per-send ration for marketing emails, including a 68% higher click-through rate

MobiCloud delivers the Costain Site Diary

Costain is an international engineering solutions provider company, which needed to streamline existing construction processes and provide post-build maintenance and infrastructure management services. 
 
In this article, we look at how Costain chose to replace existing site diaries with a novel Site Diary application. Site engineers use these diaries to record at the end of the day all the events that have happened on site.
 

Construction company transforms workforce efficiency with MobiCloud

Speed-reading
 
  • To move with the times, global engineering solution provider Costain needed to streamline existing construction processes and provide post-build maintenance and infrastructure management services. 
  • It worked with MobiCloud to build context-aware, cross-platform and cloud capabilities so it can take full advantage of mobile devices, increasing efficiency while reducing costs.

Flexibility in financial services in the cloud

This success story elaborates on the work between CloudSigma - an innovative public infrastructure as a service provider, and Deutsche Börse - one of the largest financial exchange organisations worldwide in deploying a proprietary cloud-based solution to provide trading members with self-provisioned, on-demand access to Eurex’ s T7 trading architecture for testing and development purposes.

Empowering Emergency Crews with the Cloud

When a fire strikes, every second counts. Effective fire management is an essential part of fire-fighting strategies to minimise damage to land, property and loss of life, as well as safeguard the environment. Forest fires are particularly challenging for the south of Europe. Almost 7% of fire ignitions in Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece result in 85% of burnt areas. Even countries like Germany, Belgium and Switzerland experience forest fires.

Molplex Pharamceuticals: A UK Small Business Success Story in the Cloud

When Molplex Ltd - Translating targets into drugs set up in 2010 its aim was to offer high-quality services on a pay-as-you-go model. These services are accessed through powerful online drug design systems. This approach aims to eliminate the high start-up costs of inventing new drugs which acts as a barrier to scientists outside well-funded big pharma companies.

VISIONCloud: Transforming information into a real content asset for data journalism

Today’s media landscape is a fully interactive and connected digital ecosystem with increasingly high demands on bandwidth, storage and integration of services to suit the needs of today’s media professional. The emergence of data journalism demonstrates how vast amounts of data can be aggregated to provide media organizations and journalists with excellent opportunities to make sense of complex information.

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