As 2011 is drawing to a close, let me wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year – and let me share with you some of the great things that happened at e-conomic this year.

Many more customers

In 2011, more than 10,000 new companies chose to do their accounting using e-conomic, taking our total beyond 40,000 customers!

We also continued our expansion into Europe, with Finland as the latest addition to the list of countries we’re present in, and further growth and expansion in all e-conomic countries.

New initiatives

We’ve launched a lot of new features this year, such as the e-conomic app for Android which allows our Android users to do keep track of products and customer, scan documents and create, book and send invoices while they are on the move – all using the e-conomic app on their smartphone.

And speaking of apps, we’ve launched a brand new Apps section on our website featuring lots of applications connecting e-conomic with other systems – web shops, reporting tools, CRM systems, you name it – with the purpose of making things easier and faster for our customers.

Improved product and support

This year also saw the release of Tab Finance, an additional tab in our accounting system that represents a much faster and more flexible way of entering data into journals.

And that is of course in addition to the continuous stream of large and small e-conomic system enhancements and updates – more than 150 so far this year!

You can now also chat with us at e-conomic – and we’ve added even more YouTube help videos and e-copedia articles to supplement our regular phone support.

We’ve also instigated a lot of social media initiatives to reach out to our customers proactively, including our Facebook Fan of the Month competition and Friday videos from the office.

Notice something in the background? That’s ‘the e-conomic man’ – a frequent visitor on our social media.

A big thank you to our customers

I’d like to welcome all of our new customers, and also thank all of our loyal customers who have been with us for a long time. I look forward to collaborating with all of you next year and making your e-conomic experience as great and fun as possible.

Tip: Check out my next blog post, which will be about my expectations and focus areas for 2012.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Recently, I’ve been interviewed by some of the major Danish newspapers on the problems that growth companies face when trying to get credit from their banks. You can find the articles from Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten and Berlingske Tidende here (links in Danish).

I’d also like to share with you my views expressed in my own terms – below you can read a translated version of my comments published in Berlingske Tidende (link in Danish):

No go, banks are telling us apologetically, when we meet with them full of expectations and plans for how we wish to develop our business over the coming years. A business which in 10 years has become extremely profitable through massive growth, with more than 40,000 customers and expansion into 10 countries.

We present them with all circumstantial information so no questions can remain about our solidity. As our latest achievement, we have received a Gazelle award and been named Most Profitable Gazelle in the Copenhagen region.

Additionally, we are among the 5% of Danish companies that have obtained an AAA credit rating. Vækstfonden (the Danish state investment fund) has provided a guarantee of DKK 10 million based on their evaluation of our company. This means that Vækstfonden will cover 75% of any losses suffered by banks who lend us money.

It’s an uphill struggle trying to impress banks. The message coming from them is that we are a sound company – yet our credit is down by 50% from 2008. Take it or leave it. To obtain credit, you need to be able to provide production or physical stock as collateral. Our company provides a web-based accounting solution, meaning that we are as far from physical production as you can get.

Astoundingly, despite our thousands of customers domestically and in foreign markets, we are not in the same category as companies that possess a physical stock or real estate. And, one might ask, how much security does real estate offer anyway, with real estate prices spiralling downwards and now at the same level as in 2003/2004?

Also, why don’t banks educate their staff on the differences between knowledge-based and production-based companies so they can align their banking products with business realities?

Everyone agrees that knowledge-based companies, not production-based companies, are necessary for Denmark to thrive in the future.

Perhaps the government should play a more active role in this, driving the process forward when wariness is holding us back? If we really want sustainable companies that create growth and jobs, one solution is for the government to act as a bank and lend money to companies through Finansiel Stabilitet A/S (state-owned financial institution).

The government could also empower Vækstfonden to force banks to lend the money vouched for by Vækstfonden. If Vækstfonden has no real authority or use, it should be removed from the national budget.

Let’s get a debate going on this. Perhaps it’s just wishful thinking, but things would be a lot easier if the business world and the banking world had the same view on the basic facts and the same vision for the future.

Unleash the growth potential

As a final note to this blog post, let me just add that fortunately our company is seeing massive growth, has a strong cash flow and can go a long way without the full support of a bank. From this privileged position, I feel obligated to speak out on what I consider a critical issue, in the hope that this will eventually help improving conditions for the many hard-working companies with great growth potential that hold the key to future growth in Denmark.

Cloud computing has been a hot topic in 2011 – and all indicators suggest it will remain so for at least the entire next decade, with the global cloud computing market expected to grow from approx. 30.4 billion euro this year to 180 billion euro in 2020.

Keeping the timeframe to just the next year, I’d like to offer my top 5 predictions for what will be some of the major trends for cloud computing in 2012.

1. Security stops being an obstruction for switching to cloud computing.

With cloud computing businesses having spent much time and effort explaining and convincing customers about the high security of their data storage setup, the time has finally come for a general agreement among users that cloud computing is safe and doesn’t compromise their data.

2. The PC is still the most important client device for cloud computing.

Tablets, notebooks, smartphones and other devices that are handy when on the move are prerequisites for one of the major benefits of cloud computing, namely the ability to access information wherever you are.

However, they still account for a relatively small percentage of client usage for business-related activities, meaning that the PC remains the primary and most important cloud client for the foreseeable future.

3. Consumers convince businesses that cloud computing is the way forward.

Cloud storage solutions such as Apple’s iCloud make average consumers comfortable with the cloud. This acceptance and familiarity on part of consumers is instrumental in convincing businesses that the cloud computing model is worth investigating and employing.

4. File-based models of collaboration give way to cloud-based models.

For purposes of collaboration, especially business-related, cloud-based services like Dropbox make it much easier to collaborate when multiple people are working on and need access to the same content.

5. People with high IT cloud computing skills are difficult to find.

Even though unemployment is rising in Denmark, it is increasingly difficult to find people with the required skills for developing and coding within the cloud computing framework. Here at e-conomic, we are constantly on the lookout for people with these kinds of skills – go to our Jobs section to find out more.

So, that’s my thoughts on what 2012 might hold for cloud computing. One thing is for sure – great and exciting things are in store for all of us in the cloud computing business!

Christmas is around the corner. This year we have decided to use the capabilities afforded to us by being a SaaS provider to deliver something truly special to our customers:

New improvements to the e-conomic system – released and delivered every day from December 1 to December 24!

Daily releases

Starting today, a new feature will be made available to our customers on a daily basis.

When you go to the e-conomic login page, you will see an explanation of today’s new feature, with links to further information in our e-copedia.

After you have logged on to the e-conomic system, the new feature will be automatically available for you to use.

Think about it – updates to the basic application code released every day!

Automatically available

And what’s even more impressive is that all these system updates entail absolutely no extra work for you as a user. You don’t have to run application updates, restart your system or even your computer. And you don’t need to contact technical support when your system doesn’t work correctly after an update.

Instead, an updated version of our system is automatically available in your browser whenever you log on.

Opportunities from cloud computing

Of course, this ‘Christmas Calendar’ model with daily releases is another example of the many opportunities provided by cloud computing. Unlike traditional software providers, we can make major application changes without worrying about creating issues or extra workloads for our users.

On the contrary, we can give our customers something extra to help them with their accounting – free of charge and readily available.

On our website, you can see the full list of new features delivered in December, updated every day with the latest improvements.