This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
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1. THE BEGINNING
This innovation initially came to life when…
Two engineers realised that SMEs have been left out of the cloud revolution at large and decided to make a real difference globally, by providing them with the platform and integrated services they need to save time and money.
The idea was to curate and bring in one centralised place the best third-party online applications a business needs to run its operations, and automatically connect them so they share data immediately and populate an advanced analytics dashboard live, with no IT knowledge, coding or complex setup required for a sweet price.
2. WHAT & HOW
The purpose of this innovation is to…
…simplify the life of SME professionals whilst increasing the efficiency of their businesses, and to take away the pain and cost of traditional IT. We give back time and simplicity to SMEs without requiring any technical skills.
It does this by…
…providing a simple, user-friendly dashboard where SMEs can access their business applications, run their operations and monitor their whole business at a glance with our advanced analytics.
Our patented technology Connec!™ enables real-time data sharing between applications, so customers can use the apps they are used to and get the same integration level as large corporations, out of the box.
3. PURPOSE & BENEFITS
This innovation improves on what came before because…
…SME professionals can finally benefit from excellent systems automatically connected, without the burden and cost of running lengthy and complicated integration activities.
It solves the issue of the “silo” of cloud offerings, provides a real solution to allow SME professionals to benefit from the cloud for real and not rely on spreadsheets anymore or be dependant on over-expensive proprietary systems.
Its various benefits to the customer/end-user include…
- Saving time and effort whilst focusing on high value-added core activities rather than repetitive admin tasks
- No more data entry or re-entry mistakes
- No more time wasted on frustrating tools
- More mobility
- More efficiency
- More automation
- More flexibility (no contract)
4. COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
In the past, this problem was solved by…
- using humongous spreadsheets full of custom-made macros (prone to dramatic mistakes)
- or resorting to expensive proprietary systems that were only subsets of systems designed for large corporations and not SMEs
- or searching and using disparate cloud systems with the burden of manually re-entering the data in all of them daily, without any holistic view of their business
Its predecessors/competitors include…
Zoho.com, Force.com, OneSaas (legacy technology, manual coding required) and all cloud providers that keep providing walled-garden offerings that lock SMEs into proprietary, sub-optimal tools, centered on one strong system (e.g. accounting).
And spreadsheets too – quite a strong predecessor!
5. TARGET MARKET
It is made for…
…SMEs world over. We carefully select our applications to present only the best ones out there, designed for SMEs. Our customers are time-poor, not tech-savvy and need easy, quick and efficient tools at low cost, addressing their specific needs.
In just 14 months of commercial activity, more than 4,000 SMEs have joined our service, which demonstrates a strong interest from this market.
Maestrano Enterprise also provides an integrated platform out-of-the-box to large global corporations needing to provide more services to their customers and in just five months since launch, it has attracted five global corporations from Australia, the US and Singapore.
It is available for sale through…
…our online platform maestrano.com, our application providers platforms (MYOB marketplace, apps.com from QuickBooks, etc.), our reselling partners and partner channels (active in over 10 countries). Maestrano’s technology is also available through the white labelled platform provided to large corporations.
Our marketing strategy is to…
- keep increasing our visibility to promote the very existence of such a ground-breaking technology through a combination of inbound and outbound marketing
- drive trials of our connected and “surprisingly easy to use” solution through online advertising and partners
- engage actively with our users to increase the word-of-mouth effect
FINE PRINT: This SMART 100 profile and the information it contains is a duplication of content submitted by the applicant during the entry process. As a function of entry, applicants were required to declare that all details are factually correct, do not infringe on another’s intellectual property and are not unlawful, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, obscene, or otherwise objectionable. Some profiles have been edited for reasons of space and clarity.
