Cloud integration company Maestrano is on the verge of doubling the range of applications it can connect.
As previously reported, Maestrano's business is focussed on integrating cloud-based business management tools.
The company has expanded rapidly during the last 18 months or so, and now has more than 25 enterprise clients in such industries as banking, finance and telecommunications.
NAB's Business in One small business dashboard - which aggregates and presents data from cloud systems including accounting and customer relationship management software - was developed in conjunction with Maestrano.
{loadposition stephen08}The reason for this approach is that acquiring SME customers is expensive, CEO Stephane Ibos told iTWire, and large companies already cater for that market. So it makes sense to help banks and other organisations better serve SMEs rather than attempting to go direct. In fact, most customers won't know anything about Maestro, he said.
The strategy is to remain focused on existing clients so Maestrano can maintain its existing "high touch" relationships, and later offer a more automated and systematised service to a wider market.
For end users, the company expects to add predictive analytics by the end of 2016. The software will effectively be able to tell users "if you do these things, then you should be in this position in a few months time."
The updated software will also automate certain routine tasks, Ibos said.
Maestrano expects to have at least 4 million SME end-users by the first quarter of 2017.
The software already integrates with around 75 systems including accounting (MYOB, Xero, QuickBooks, Sage Live, Sage One), ecommerce (Magento, Shopify), CRM and workforce management. The number will increase to around 140 in the next three months, he said.
SMEs do not have time for IT products that don't work first time, and they do not trust products that promise a long-term payback in return for a upfront investment in learning to use a system - "there's no time for that," observed Ibos. "Our technology solves the three problems" in that it is easy to learn, eliminates the need to load data into multiple programs, and provides an integrated view across multiple systems.