INVESTORS

Business Strategy

It is our aim to deliver value to our Shareholders

Importance 2018 achievements Priorities for 2019

Sales channel development

The channel partnerships we have established are significant as:

  • they provide WANdisco with access to vast sales teams, adding significant global and horizontal market reach;
  • they allow us to drive more bookings at lower cost; and
  • their endorsement of WANdisco Fusion strengthens our brand and our portfolio of partners.

We continue to seek opportunities to expand our sales channels.
  • entered into an OEM sales agreement with Alibaba Cloud;
  • achieved co-sell status through the Microsoft One Commercial Partner Program;
  • significantly expanded relationship with IBM, with OEM royalty increasing to 50% from 30%; and
  • established a customer success team focusing on supporting our customers and partners.
  • in February 2019 we announced that we have received Advanced Technology Partner status with Amazon Web Services;
  • expand channel account manager model; and
  • expand partner channel further.

Product innovation

WANdisco’s technology solves critical data management challenges across cloud computing and Big Data for enterprise customers and their service providers.

We identify development projects that will enhance our technology and increase its ease of use and functionality for customers and end users, and we listen to existing and potential customers and our channel partners for future requirements.
  • filed blockchain patent to protect the use of our DConE;
  • launched LiveData for Multicloud guaranteeing data consistency across multiple cloud providers; and
  • IBM BigSQL co-engineered product launched expanding addressable LiveData market.
  • in January 2019 we announced the launch of a new joint engineered solution with IBM to support relational database technology for the first time, significantly expanding the Group’s addressable market.

People development

We want to provide an environment where we attract, retain, develop and enable all our people to demonstrate, grow and apply their capabilities, offering opportunities for everyone to reach their potential.
  • enhanced our management team with several key senior hires in product development and marketing;
  • provided new opportunities internallyM. resulting in a number of internal job moves and promotions;
  • enhanced our benefits package to employees; and
  • introduced our Bonusly recognition portal that allows our people to thank and recognise colleagues for their contribution.
  • continue to develop our team with internal job moves and promotions; and
  • enhance our team with quality new external hires.

Summary of achievements

Sales channel development

Of all the significant developments WANdisco has delivered in 2018, the further execution of our indirect sales plan has been the most strategically important.

In 2016, WANdisco was still primarily a direct sales organisation, with a market reach that was limited by our finite sales force. During 2017, we won or deepened strategic relationships with market-leading IT and cloud providers, including IBM, Dell EMC and go-to-market partnerships with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud and Oracle.

During 2018 these partnerships were further enhanced. WANdisco entered a new OEM agreement with Alibaba Cloud and also achieved co-sell status through the Microsoft One Commercial Partner Program. As a result, we can now take WANdisco Fusion to market as a packaged offering with Microsoft Azure. There was increased momentum in cloud with three strategic deals with high-profile Microsoft customers and our largest-ever cloud contract with a major US health insurer which leveraged our strategic co-sell relationship with Microsoft as the client looks to move data to the Azure cloud. In addition, we significantly expanded the relationship with IBM, resulting in OEM royalty increasing to 50% from 30%.

In February 2019 WANdisco received Advanced Technology Partner status with Amazon Web Services in the AWS Partner Network. The Advanced Technology Partner designation is the highest tier for Technology Partners that provide software and internet solutions in the AWS Partner Network. WANdisco achieved its status through a rigorous qualification process, based on referenceable customers on the AWS Platform and strict technical guidelines.

Driving channel sales success: supporting our partners

During 2018 we invested in developing our channel strategy, introduced dedicated channel account managers for key partner accounts and created a dedicated software engineering team. Their remit is to work with technology partners on the closer integration of our technologies and to accelerate speed to market with our joint solutions. We will continue to develop this model further including extending to our new partners. Supporting our customers and partners is a more efficient use of our resources and will ultimately drive faster and more profitable revenue growth.

The indirect sales plan: a breakdown by channel

WANdisco continues to target third party technology companies and cloud platform providers who want to embed, offer or recommend our Fusion product as part of or an extension to their platforms. We will continue to seek opportunities to form closer partnership relationships.

Product innovation

WANdisco’s technology solves critical data management challenges across cloud computing and Big Data for enterprise customers and their service providers. The ability to continuously replicate at vast scale to the cloud and on-premises data centres with guaranteed consistency, availability and no business disruption, frees companies to innovate in the way they exploit data for new business insights and initiatives.

WANdisco Fusion

WANdisco Fusion, is our next-generation replication platform, an architecture that supports a wider range of data environments than our original Hadoop deployments.

WANdisco Fusion for Multicloud

In October 2018, we announced the launch of WANdisco LiveData for Multicloud. This enterprise replication software enables a LiveData platform for a multi-cloud environment, ensuring data accuracy and consistency for business applications in any combination of major cloud environments.

WANdisco LiveData for Multicloud was borne from the cross-industry imperative to have data accessibility and availability in heterogeneous cloud data environments. The offering leverages WANdisco’s strategic partnerships with the major cloud services providers, including Microsoft Azure, Alibaba Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Oracle, and IBM, who share a commitment to global enterprises to enable viable and successful multi-cloud operations.

In addition, we have introduced greater flexibility in the way our partners and their customers can use our technology. Additional plug-ins mean WANdisco Fusion can address a wider range of use cases, including large-scale data migration between data centres and the use of cloud storage ”appliances”.

In January 2019 we announced a new joint engineered solution with IBM to support relational database technology for the first time, significantly expanding our addressable market. The IBM Db2 Big SQL solution was jointly engineered between IBM and WANdisco to extend the capability of IBM Big Replicate (IBM’s product name for WANdisco Fusion) to support scenarios where customers are looking to take advantage of hybrid cloud.

Source Code Management

The need for data replication across distance is exemplified in software development, where geographically dispersed teams of engineers need to stay continuously in sync, confident that they are all working with the latest code.

WANdisco Source Code Management (“SCM”) products, which harness the same patented DConE as WANdisco Fusion, provide real-time data synchronisation between diverse development locations – between local and offshore software engineers, for instance. This continues to provide a strong revenue stream.

Product protection: safeguarding our IP

WANdisco’s technology continues to be unrivalled in the marketplace. Until we developed WANdisco Fusion, there was no practical or affordable way for companies to keep mass-scale real-time data consistently and continuously replicated across distance.

Our IP – as embodied in WANdisco’s DConE and the products we have built from this – is well protected. To date, we have filed more than 42 patents, and 21 have been granted already. We also have a head start of more than twelve years over any potential competition. This early foothold, and the ongoing improvements we are making from experience with real-world applications of our technology at massive scale, continue to ensure our market advantage.

During 2018 we filed a blockchain patent to protect the use of our DConE to resolve issues associated with public blockchain technology.

Product plans for 2019 and beyond

Our product strategy will continue to evolve in line with our indirect sales strategy, with further enhancements designed to capitalise on the cross-industry opportunities and high-growth use cases we have identified. Our main focus for 2019 will be to accelerate the speed to market of solutions co-developed with or optimised for our strategic partners.