Supported by a strong collaborative culture and consistent government support -the incentive to technological development is a healthy state policy-, Microsoft's Uruguayan partners have conquered some summits that otherwise would have been impossible to reach. This year, fourteen business partners participated in the WPC that Microsoft held in Toronto. ITSitio.com talked to some of them to unravel the secret of their success.
Last year there were twelve. In 2016, the Microsoft WPC held in Toronto, Canada, received fourteen business partners from Uruguay: almost 3% of the nearly 500 partners that the brand has in that country. "That has to do with the relative participation that our business partners have in Microsoft's business in Uruguay -explains Rodrigo Astiazarán, general manager of Microsoft Uruguay-. Historically, Uruguay has been a software exporting country, and it has stood out for its talent in the technology industry. The fact that there are so many partners in relative terms compared to the rest of the countries, with larger populations, has to do with the importance that these partners see in our business platform to develop and enhance their own solutions".
Participating in the WPC means for these business partners the possibility of interacting with their peers, so that the offer of solutions and services transcends borders. In fact, many Uruguayan Microsoft partners are already working in the United States and in the most developed markets. In this order, Astiazarán highlights the degree of commitment that the Uruguayan delegation had in Toronto.
"Investing that level of energy, ending the day extremely exhausted after having had so many meetings, also has to do with the seriousness and commitment that the partners have with the brand and with the event" - Rodrigo Astiazarán.
COLLABORATION AND TALENT SEARCH
"There is a feeling of teamwork and collaboration in Uruguay among Microsoft partners. I don't know how much of that is replicated in other countries, but it is very real in Uruguay. And in fact very interesting things have emerged in recent years linked to that feeling, and very related to the WPC," says Julio Fitipaldo, CEO at Nublit, and one of the directors of MaS Soluciones: a collective that includes Nublit, Arkano, AT, Pyxis and UruIT.
MaS Soluciones was chosen this year as Partner of the Year by Microsoft on a national scale. The secret of its success has a lot to do with this spirit of collaboration and complementarity mentioned above. Today the five companies that make up an ecosystem of more than 300 people, and the organization works for the main Uruguayan companies and organizations, exporting its expertise to fifteen countries in America and Europe.
In this way, MaS is part of a tradition of technological excellence in software. Currently, the country is the third largest software exporter per capita, behind Chile and Costa Rica, and until two years ago it was the first. Software sales today represent 1.82% of Uruguay's GDP, and by 2020 exports are expected to reach US$1 billion (in 2013 they were US$300 million). Juan Suárez, another of the directors of MaS Soluciones, and also director of Arkano Software, explains that the barrier to further growth is the availability of "talent". Companies are working to encourage young people to enter the industry," he says. At the same time, each of these companies "is bringing professionals from abroad, in particular there are many professionals from Venezuela, Cuba, and even Argentina, who are relocating to Uruguay. And it is also happening that Uruguayan companies are opening subsidiaries abroad, generating a base to hire talent and from there export solutions to other countries". For proof is enough a button. Arkano was born in Montevideo nine years ago, with a strong focus on Microsoft development platforms, and for the last three years has had a branch in Chile. In UruIT - another of MaS Soluciones' partners - four of the 60 employees are Cuban.
For Osvaldo Pais, another member of MaS Soluciones, at the time also director of Pyxis, there is not only complementarity but also collaboration even in lines of Microsoft solutions in which the member companies of MaS compete. "This explains a little of the maturity that we have reached after a couple of years of working together with customers. For the client, there is a single point of contact, and we take care of providing them with the best resources for each of their needs. This is the strength that the group has and why it has moved forward after a couple of years of intense work", he reiterates.
The Partner of the Year award came to MaS at a special moment. Another of the directors, Marcelo Mazzilli, from AT, considers that after two years MaS "must continue to strengthen and consolidate the delivery of value that we have in a unified and standardized way so that the customer can feel that we can tell the whole story of Microsoft". Of course, Microsoft is currently focusing on the Cloud, as well as on ISVs, lines with which MaS strategically coincides.
MATURE ECOSYSTEM
Nicolás Rostán is a manager at Netviax Solutions and is quick to clarify that he is not part of MaS Soluciones. However, we have worked with them," he points out, and finds in this fact an important key to the maturity of the partner ecosystem in Uruguay: "We are not worried about dividing the cake, but we want to make it bigger. That is the spirit. We add competitors, but we know we can access a larger and more interesting market.
Netviax has two major growth drivers, and in one of them it recognizes itself as "Microsoft dependent". "Netviax started selling a solution for the vertical segment of Tourism, with all its installation on premises. And when they wanted to sell that solution abroad, they were able to do it thanks to Microsoft and the scalability that this partnership allowed us. We were able to implement it very quickly and without having great technical skills at the infrastructure level. That allowed us to develop the market in Argentina, where today we have most of the turnover. Forty percent of Argentina's air emissions go through our rules engine", he assures.
For everything related to infrastructure, Netviax relies on other partners. "The Uruguayan market does not allow us to specialize in all topics, so we try to add value in one topic, to be good at it, and for the rest we rely on others. The WPC helps us to consolidate those relationships," says Rostán.
STATE POLICY, VENDOR POLICY
For Astiazarán, from Microsoft, the results of Microsoft's work in Uruguay have been very good. "In the last five years we managed to double our turnover, pushed by our business partners, by the new solutions that were appearing in the market and accompanying the new platforms that Microsoft was proposing and that allowed partners to diversify more and more".
The vendor, which has twenty people in Uruguay, seeks that its business partners work independently. "From the company we seek to help our partners to have more elements to develop these individual initiatives, developed with autonomy". To do this, it provides training resources from the cloud, supports partners in creating and providing solutions (with account plans and specific solutions for each vertical segment) and focuses on innovation. "Our approach has to do with Uruguay continuing to position itself in aspects more related to innovation. These partners are good examples of innovation projects. And that is also our focus.
Mazzilli recognizes that Uruguay does not escape the context of what is happening in the region. "Undoubtedly Uruguay is in a process in which there is a slowdown compared to how it was in previous years. And this has a direct impact on business. It is reflected in the fact that certain businesses have been slowed down and others have been postponed, not cancelled, but delayed into the future".
Despite this, Uruguayan business partners are expanding. Fitipaldo explains that there is government support in different initiatives that have to do with the development of technology businesses. "There are support programs that are interesting and that allow us to generate innovation, develop products, incorporate resources from abroad with certain specific capabilities that can add a lot of value to that business, and also in the internationalization process. Many Uruguayan companies are betting on working in other markets and marketing their products or services outside Uruguay. There are tools provided by the government that allow them to develop all that".
Suárez explains that one of the agencies that carries out initiatives of this kind is Uruguay XXI. It not only helps in the incorporation of resources and in promoting internationalization. "Several of us obtained subsidies to participate in this event (the WPC), supported by an area within Uruguay XXI called ProExport. And there is ANII (the National Agency for Research and Innovation), which supports the creation of innovation in the country, where technology plays a very important role. In particular, Arkano has been a beneficiary of ANII to open a subsidiary in Chile. ANII provided a soft loan, which is repaid only if the company is successful in its internationalization process. "They lent us about US$300,000, which we are paying back today. Thus, the country assumes risk together with the entrepreneurs. On the other hand, certain services exported from Uruguay are exempted from paying income tax.
This support is also manifested in the creation of new companies. In the same vein as MaS, Pyxis, UruIT and Arkano formed Conexio, linked to the Adobe world. "This company today has about 25 people, but the initial kick-off, the initial investment, was shared between Uruguay XXI and the partners in this venture," says Suárez. Pais adds that Uruguay XXI also offers subsidies for the training of employees within the organizations. "At Pyxis we presented English language training plans, and Uruguay XXI subsidized 50%. This is important, especially in English, for the internationalization of companies. But it also happens in other areas".
For Fitipaldo, the development of value solutions was one of the hot topics of the WPC. "There is a huge focus on ISVs, and Microsoft is positioning itself as a platform that will allow partners, on the one hand, to consume the technology resources needed to develop these niche or value solutions for certain types of customers and, on the other hand, as a facilitator for the commercialization of these solutions and to reach the end customer," he says.
Source: ITSitio.com
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