Innovative CMS for finance
ERC International is a Dutch software company which provides financial institutions with a complete and aggregated overview of all legislative changes and the possible impact on their organization. ERC has developed an innovative content management system which enables banks and financial institutions to manage their regulatory framework. If a legal or regulatory change occurs, the system sends an alert to the relevant stakeholders (legal, compliance, risk, audit and business), thus allowing them to quickly and effectively anticipate on the possible effects.
Tech driven organization, struggling to get the message across
In 2013, Barbara Eggels (CEO of ERC) decided to start a collaboration with Aexus. Eggels: “Until we started working with Aexus, ERC was a very technology driven organization. We had created a great product and had a clear vision on how it should be developed further. But we were struggling to get our message across properly. Although we were not a startup anymore, we continued to have challenges in defining and executing a successful sales strategy”
Related FAQ: ‘Our offering is so complex. Will your team be able to understand and sell our solution?’
“We came in contact with Aexus through a common business acquaintance and found that they had strong experience in bringing large, highly complex solutions to market. Also, they had an existing network of contacts in our main target market: the finance industry. The combination of these two components was exactly what we needed.”
A cost effective and low risk option
“The downside of hiring staff for your commercial activities is that you also create a single point of failure within your organization. Yes, we could have hired our own sales executives, but we did not want to be dependent on a small group of sales people. We could not take the risk of them not being successful.”
“Aexus presented a much more cost effective and low risk option to us. They bring a team of people, whereby each individual has his or her own expertise. Also, they can learn from each other and share experiences. We have been working very closely together with Aexus. It feels as if they are part of our team, of our organization”
Related FAQ: Outsourcing the sales process, what are the costs?
Sales know-how, existing relationships and the ability to quickly scale up/down
“Also, they bring some assets which would be very difficult to have access to otherwise. They bring sales know-how, a network of existing relationships and, most importantly for us, the ability to quickly scale up or down based on the market opportunities and our financial situation. Furthermore, ERC can benefit from the experience Aexus gained through the years in bringing solutions to market which are in the same stage in their product-life-cycle as our offering. A concrete example of this is that Aexus helped shape the pricing and business model for ERC, which has allowed us to gain market acceptance much more rapidly. Obviously, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.”
“By working with Aexus, we have been able to sign up several very interesting accounts. We have signed a major Central-European bank, with branches worldwide, a large and globally operating insurer and a small yet highly innovative new bank, to name just a few. In the coming year, we will leverage the experience we gained with these reference customers to extend into other verticals and other countries. And yes, we will do so together with Aexus.“