Four experienced guys from the Danish IT and telco sectors have established a new company, that will facilitate contacts between the thousands of vendors, that produces software for business customers to the buyers, who try to find their way through the jungle of possibilities.

swipx is the name and has just recently moved their premises to an entrepreneurial neighborhood in Århus Street, in the center of Copenhagen.

The concept is a digital platform where small and medium-sized providers of software solutions create profiles within 12 categories and more than 200 processes – eg. HR, Accounting & Finance, Marketing, Analytics etc. The buyers will through a quick questionnaire be presented to a handful of options they can investigate further.

3,000 software companies are registered

“Right now we have about 3,000 companies on our site – everything from IBM to small software producers and from a wide range of countries such as Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, USA, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria. We are simply helping providers to enter new markets and to make it easy and transparent to find the software, that you are looking for. There is really a lot of good software out there – if you just simply could find it, “says Peter Berg, former CMO of Telenor in Denmark and now CMO at swipx.

The idea comes from the company’s CEO, Svend Erik Kundby-Nielsen, who has previously worked in investment banking in Denmark, Germany, and the United States and most recently was General Manager for IBM in Australia and New Zealand. He persuaded last year Peter Berg, who after Telenor time, was CMO of Ukraine’s largest mobile operator. In addition, two of the Danish IT industry ‘grand old men’, former Microsoft CEO Jørgen Bardenfleth and former IBM director Kim Østrup, have both invested in the company and also joins the board of directors.

Peter Berg describes swipx business model as a kind of software’s answer to Spotify. Software vendors can create free profiles, but if they upgrade and become paying subscribers for 79 euros a month, they get an extended profile with multiple links to their own website, customer leads and access to analysis of the customer’s behavior and search on swipx.com. If you pay monthly 119 euros you also get access to country reports including regulatory, political and economic issues, that will make it easier to decide, if you consider expanding your business into a new market and country.

“Right now our focus is to create traffic from buyers to our website and get as many software vendors registered as possible. We will in the foreseeable future start to get companies to upgrade their subscription.  We have now rolled out in Denmark and Finland and will subsequently enter the German market, which has great potential. We will initially not conquer the world. The focus is on Northern Europe, maybe later Britain and perhaps even later the United States, explains Peter Berg.

Keep it simple is key

There are a few other suppliers with a similar business model like swipx, but they have, according to Peter Berg, focus on the US market and these companies also get provision for sales through their digital platform. swipx will, therefore, focus on the European market with an overall ambition to be independent and transparent – something that Peter Berg has learned to appreciate the hard way in the telecommunications industry, which has always been accused of incalculable subscriptions and bills.

Buyers who are looking for software can always use swipx for free. They click their way through a simple questionnaire, where they answer questions about the country, language, pricing model, size of the company, etc., and end up with a list of 5 to 10 relevant providers that they can contact.

“It should be simple – otherwise people do not bother,” emphasizes Peter Berg.

swipx consists right now of Svend Erik Kundby-Nielsen, Peter Berg and a further four colleagues and are not to become a huge company.

“We only plan to be a few people, maybe up to 10 in Denmark, and then establish regional offices as we expand into new markets. Over time maybe we will be up to 15-25 people. But right now we are doing the hard work to getting swipx more known. It’s hard – but fun – work, “he says.

 

Link to original article: Business.dk