In today‘s world, sales intelligence is an important marketing instrument to retain current customers and win new ones. It is vial that a company’s data is kept up to date otherwise it could lead to embarrassing situations when talking to customers. CRM systems need to be constantly refreshed with information from the internet to ensure the latest data is available. As a provider of such a tool, Implisense GmbH’s choice of infrastructure has to work quickly, reliably, and above all, securely. For German customers, high security means that their data is stored exclusively in German data centers in accordance with the German Data Protection Law. With Open Telekom Cloud, Implisense found the right infrastructure on which to base a real growth spurt.

Implisense GmbH (Berlin) is a multi-award winning start-up: BMWi ICT start-up competition innovation 2011, 15th NUK Business plan competition 2012, INNOVATIONSPREIS-IT 2013 CRM category and WECONOMY 2013 – and the list of awards is expected to grow this year. Implisense’s B2B sales intelligence software refreshes large corporate’s customer relationships automatically. Implisense’s management started off in pure research at centres including Stanford University, Xerox Research, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems IAIS. Natural language processing and machine learning techniques give new insights when transferred to unstructured web data. This means Implisense’s multinational corporate clients can take advantage of new sales niches and optimised customer relationships.

Implisense‘s data stock is constantly growing and currently includes around six million companies in Germany and the United Kingdom. An intelligent search machine developed in-house collects data on several million companies to identify changes in production, technologies, or personnel. Within seconds, automated processes analyse this mass of data and produce detailed company profiles based on the client’s selected criteria. From this data stock, Implisense fills complete CRM systems with companies that could be potential clients. Making the right data available quickly demands highly scalable and flexible infrastructure. Of course, handling the sensitive CRM data of Implisense’s customers also demands high security.

The high speed of growth meant Implisense’s storage and processing capacities were always at the upper limits. External capacity was sought but its use was limited due to financial constraints, a common problem with start-ups. The corporates interested in the service also showed a healthy scepticism which added to the problem; “Where exactly is our data?” was the first question during every presentation. The logical conclusion was to find a competent partner that provided not only infrastructure and service but also offered the comprehensive security needed.

After in-depth discussions with T-Systems at CeBIT 2016, it became clear that Open Telekom Cloud was the ideal infrastructure for Implisense’s SaaS service. Implisense calls on computing power, memory capacity, and internet access via Open Telekom Cloud’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service. The company always uses the exact amount of resources needed on the OpenStack infrastructure for target customer evaluation, analysis and recommendations, CRM fulfilment etc – flexible, scalable, and immediate.

Reliable high scalability is vital for the large elastic search cluster  which is the heart of the platform, the shared crawling engine, and the many analytical stages during text mining. Secure access to these high-powered clusters is provided via an integrated password function. Thanks to the user-friendly self-service portal, Implisense can easily administer all relevant parameters as well as additional services such as security and management functions. Individual support by T-Systems is always available for further questions.

Implisense is already enjoying cost savings of around 20% with the same level of service, scalability and more security. Thanks to the pay-per-use price model, Implisense saves on IT infrastructure investment. They only pay for what they use and capacity is available when needed. Budgets are free to be used for the further development of the business-- and to add to the list of awards. Implisense can continue its rapid growth with the knowledge that infrastructure will support their expansion.

Using Open Telekom Cloud put the initial fears of potential customers to rest. The fact that data protection and security conforms to German Data Protection Guidelines gives Implisense a substantial competitive advantage. Open Telekom Cloud has become a decisive marketing factor. Customer demands for documentation and audits, another closely connected issue, have also been satisfied by choosing T-Systems as the host.

With T-Systems, Implisense has a real value-added provider by their side. They get support from a dedicated account manager on the one hand and future innovation on the other. Open Telekom Cloud’s roadmap includes new functionality from which Implisense can benefit. For example, spot instances, which offers computing costs at even more preferential rates during times of low cloud use.

User-friendly, simple administration together with rapid access times has motivated users like never before, leading to higher productivity and more output. Implisense’s management appreciates the support of a competent partner and the newly-found freedom thanks to OpenStack technology with no vendor lock in; should they want, Implisense could change provider in no time. And last but by no means least, Implisense’s customers are delighted with continuously updated CRM data they can simply download from the online shop.

• Company: Implisense GmbH
• Established: 2013
• Location: Berlin
• Industry: Information technology

The company:
Implisense GmbH (Berlin) is a multi-award winning startup (BMWi ICT start-up competition innovation 2011, 15th NUK Business plan competition 2012, INNOVATIONSPREIS-IT 2013 CRM category and WECONOMY 2013). Implisense’s B2B sales intelligence software refreshes large corporate’s customer relationships fully automatically.

The challenge:
Since being established, Implisense has quadrupled its turnover every year. Due to this high speed of growth, infrastructure was always being pushed to the limit; highly scalable and cutting edge infrastructure was needed. Furthermore, as customers’ sensitive CRM data was being handled, data security had to comply with German law.

The solution:
Implisense chose Open Telekom Cloud’s IaaS. The company calls on computing power, memory capacity, and internet access on a pay-per-use model. The company always uses the exact amount of resources needed on the flexible, scalable and immediate OpenStack infrastructure for target customer calculation, analysis, and recommendations, CRM fulfilment etc.

The result:
Implisense has seen a reduction in infrastructure and running costs of about 20%. Customer demands for German data protection have been fulfilled. Implisense is benefitting from T-Systems comprehensive experience and professional service – today and in the future. Users, management, and customers are not only happy but absolutely delighted.

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