For this week’s Partner Q&A interview I’ve talked to one of our German partners.
Eqeep has worked with IFS for many years, active across the DACH region. To better understand their history and plans for the future, I got in touch with Arnd Backhaus, Managing Partner at Eqeep GmbH. Below are the highlights of that interview.
How long have you been an IFS Partner?
We’ve been an IFS partner since 2015. Back then we started with only one person, but within four years we had grown to more than 50 employees.
Why did you decide to team up with IFS?
Right before 2015 it became obvious that IFS was moving towards a partner strategy, rather being a single point of sales, consulting and support. At the same time I had been responsible for IFS Applications™ on the customer side and was eager for a new challenge in my professional career.
I’ve always been a strong supporter of IFS’s business software and I had many ideas that I wanted to bring to the partner network. So, a combination of a strong product, my own experience and IFS’s partner strategy, is what ultimately led to Eqeep. Since then, we’ve been 100 percent purple.
Describe the ideal Eqeep customer.
I wouldn’t say there is such a thing as an “ideal customer”. But there are ideal customer-supplier relationships. “Customer first” and “customer is king” are things I learned very early in my career. At Eqeep we focus on the customer every day, always improving our daily routines and new offerings for our customers.
In what countries do you operate?
We have partnership with IFS for the DACH region, which includes Germany (D), Austria (A) and Switzerland (CH). But we are also more than willing to help customers all over the world. In order to offer this service, we’re partnering with IFS partners, so that Eqeep can support any IFS customer.
What makes Eqeep unique?
One of our biggest assets is diversity. We’re always acting with agile methodologies, also in an ERP implementation project. Our customer centricity means that we can support organizations all the way from the early scope, throughout the implementation and until end-support.
Next to the IFS solutions, Eqeep offers products that complement the IFS Applications suite as well as IFS Field Service Management. With Eqeep, the customer gets an all-in-one and worry-free solution – even if it’s in the cloud.
How would you describe your firm’s values and how do they align with IFS?
I think the same aspects that make us unique, are also what makes us a good match with IFS. We are agile, both in implementation and adaptation. Similar to IFS providing software that works for multiple industries and scenarios. We focus on diversity, trying to accommodate all our customers in every situation. I think that is a good fit with IFS, since the partner program enables customers to get the attention they deserve.
Innovation would be the third value I consider to be a good match with IFS. We are constantly trying to think outside the box with our customers, and IFS gives us the tool to make it a reality.
What are Eqeep’s strategic choices? Where are you heading?
Our goal is to secure a continued healthy growth of our company, becoming less dependent on IFS. By signing our own agreements with customers, we can secure a revenue stream from both consulting and license deals. Building our own customer base will enable us to become the preferred partner in the region, within 3 years.
Any Eqeep success stories you would like to share?
There’s been many! I’m very proud of the fact that Eqeep won the “IFS Service Partner of the Year” award in 2016 and 2018. Also, we were nominated for both Channel-, Growth- and Customer Choice Partner of the Year in 2019.
But the greatest success of all is that we have been able to find highly talented new employees on the open market! They prove every day that Eqeep can support and impact the IFS ecosystem. We get contacted every week from new customers that have heard about us and are interested in working with us.
We’ve grown to over 50 people within the past 12 months and are now benefiting from all the heart and energy my co-workers have put into Eqeep. So the biggest success is our employees!
To learn more about our partner landscape, please visit the IFS Partner Network.
If you have questions regarding our partners, simply reach out to me on LinkedIn.
