Last week, I was interviewed in the Danish business media about my experience with banks and obtaining loans as a growth company.

Here, I described our paradoxical situation: We can present excellent results over the past years in terms of both growth and profitability (hence our newly-awarded title as Most Profitable Gazelle in the Copenhagen region), our number of customers is increasing rapidly, and we have a well-proven business case – yet, our credit in the bank has gone down by 50% over the past three years.

The explanation from the bank? Everything about our company looks fine, except that we don’t have a physical stock or real estate to offer as collateral.

Flawed argument

This is a flawed argument on at least two grounds:

First, no matter how well software companies like us perform we will by definition never be able to meet this requirement, yet no-one will dispute that software companies can be very profitable businesses nonetheless (in fact, the general consensus is that IT and other knowledge industries is one of the main opportunities for growth in Denmark).

And second, as the financial recession of the past years has made it very clear, physical collateral such as real estate really doesn’t constitute the security that the bank sector still seem to think it does.

Identifying sustainable businesses

 A bit cheekily, but also seriously, I would suggest that bank staff with decision-making responsibilities become better educated and equipped at identifying and supporting sustainable businesses. In fact, they could start by simply taking a look at other authorities’ evaluation of growth companies.

In our case, we can point to an AAA credit rating, held by only 5% of companies in Denmark.

Furthermore, we have a DKK 10 million guarantee from Vækstfonden (the Danish state investment fund) in place, based on their evaluation of the conditions and sustainability of our company.

This guarantee means that Vækstfonden will cover 75% of losses from our loan, thus minimizing the risk that banks will run.

Change the system

Yet these factors have not been enough to convince banks to even maintain our credit level. For the bank sector, the overriding concern is to cut down costs and reduce losses, to a large extent as a way of meeting the demands of the government’s Bank Packages.

So, if the government really wants to ensure that sustainable growth companies can thrive, the system needs to be changed.

How to move forward

The way I see it, what is required is for the government to play a more active role in helping growth companies.

One way to do this is for the state to act as a bank proper and lend money to companies through Finansiel Stability A/S (state-owned financial institution).

Another way is by actively forcing banks to accept guarantees from Vækstfonden so that companies can use these as vouchers that enable them to obtain a bank loan with the full amount from the guarantee.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions for how to improve this situation, please let me know by leaving a comment.

As I shared with you recently, e-conomic has been selected as a ‘Gazelle’ company based on our excellent growth and turnover performance, which includes doubling our turnover in just three years.

Most Profitable Gazelle

Now, we have received further recognition as we’ve been named ‘Most Profitable Gazelle 2011′ for the Copenhagen region. I was presented with this additional honor at Dagbladet Børsen’s Gazelle conference earlier today.

Being presented with the ‘Most Profitable Gazelle’ award

Growth despite obstacles

I’m very proud of this acknowledgement as one of Denmark’s premier growth companies. Despite a marked lack of understanding on the part of banks and financial institutions of how we’re going to ensure future growth in Denmark, e-conomic has been able to generate massive growth during the financial downturn.

To me, our success is all down to the dedicated, skilled and committed people working at e-conomic. And my list of employees has grown significantly longer over the past years. When I started in 2008, 35 people were employed at e-conomic – a figure that will soon exceed 85!

Increasing the number of people at e-conomic

Hope for small and medium businesses

So, it is still possible to create growth and jobs in Denmark in spite of the recession, and in spite of the difficult conditions that banks provide for companies like ours.

And hopefully, success stories like e-conomic can serve as an eye-opener to financial institutions showing that it makes sense to invest in small and medium businesses with the right business case, market potential and people in place.

Tribute to our clients

Finally, I’d like to thank our clients – most of them small and medium businesses facing the same challenges as us. Our growth would of course not be possible without the loyal support that we have from a great number of these businesses. So, a big thank you is in order to all our clients.

Today, I have the honor of introducing the world’s largest selection of accounting apps!

All apps integrate with e-conomic and are part of our strategy to make bookkeeping and accounting easier and more fun for small and medium businesses.

Providing the world’s largest selection of accounting apps

Streamlining and simplifying processes

For business owners without accounting experience, bookkeeping can be very time-consuming. That’s why we strongly support the development of apps that streamline and simplify these processes.

Using e-conomic apps, you can e.g. report mileage automatically using your mobile phone, automatically record orders and sale of a web shop, or automatically scan and transfer invoices to e-conomic. In the same way, apps are available for helping you collect outstanding payments, book salary and record time and materials spent on projects.

Connecting systems

In e-conomic, an app is an integration application that works as an intuitive utility to connect e-conomic with other systems such as web shops, CRM systems, payroll systems etc.

As you may know, e-conomic is structured around an open Application Programming Interface (API) enabling other companies to develop and sell apps that integrate with e-conomic. This is part of our basic philosophy that data should be allowed to flow freely between business systems. Our framework is so standardized and easy to use that you can code almost all of your app in our API.

We don’t make money on apps, but the number of apps has increased by 40% in the last year, and they play a significant part in attracting new customers and so help us increase our growth.

Apps seminar for developers

With so many apps and opportunities provided through our API, we’d like to play a much more active role in helping developers and partners create the best possible apps.

That’s why we’re organizing a Getting started with Apps seminar (select ‘Getting Started with Apps’ as ‘Type’), which will take place November 24  at 18:00 CET. Here, developers will get introduced to our API, our app resources and learn how to create their first app.

We’ve also set up an Apps team dedicated to assisting developers and partners by providing them with feedback on their ideas, helping them promote their apps and pointing them towards resources.

With these new initiatives, I look forward to seeing even more great e-conomic apps developed in the future. Keep an eye on the Apps section of our website to stay up-to-date with the latest apps.

Recently e-conomic had the opportunity to collaborate with Microsoft.eu and discuss my view on the cloud movement and it’s lasting impacts on the international marketplace.

I shared e-conomic’s experience as a start-up in the cloud marketplace 10 years ago, and how far we – and the cloud movement as a whole – have rapidly progressed ever since.

Read ‘The cloud is more than just hot air’ on Microsoft.eu

e-conomic for Microsoft.eu

You can read my full guest post, The cloud is more than just hot air, on Microsoft’s website.

Please feel free to comment here or on Microsoft.eu with any thoughts you have on the subject.  Do you agree with me that the cloud is truly the way forward?

Thank you to Microsoft for this great collaboration!

I’m happy to share that e-conomic has been selected as a ‘Gazelle’ company, one of the most prestigious awards for growth companies in Denmark!

To make us entitled to this award, we have experienced continued yearly growth and doubled our turnover during the last three years – which is actually one year less than the required turnover doubling in four years.

No mean feat, I think, particularly in light of the global recession – as witnessed by the fact that last year only 1 in 500 companies were able to meet the requirements.

Among these elite growth companies, the very best Gazelle companies will reveice further honors on October 31, and of course e-conomic will be in the running for this. You can read more about this announcement and the Gazelle award in general on Børsen’s website (in Danish).

The Gazelle award is presented by Dagbladet Børsen, the leading Danish business newspaper

Reasons for success

It’s always great when others appreciate your hard work – and I think everyone at e-conomic has delivered a huge effort to get the company to the position it is in today. So, well done and congratulations with the award to the people at e-conomic!

Also, the award is proof to me that we have made the right strategic decisions by e.g. focusing on expanding into foreign markets. This strategy is starting to pay off now as we’re really establishing ourselves around Europe – and that’s one of the reasons why I see plenty of room for continued growth for e-conomic in the coming years.

Ready for growth

While we’re on track for continued growth – and we do, after all, aim to reach 100,000 customers by 2013 – we have also made some key decisions concerning how to support an increasing number of customers in more and more countries.

Here, we have chosen to stay true to our roots as a digital and online company by relying on social and online media to communicate with customers and provide support and service. This way, our customers can get assistance in their own language, wherever and whenever they need it.

In short, I believe we have everything in place to allow us to stay Gazelles for many years to come – and hopefully already receive further honors as Gazelle winners on October 31!

This past week in Norway, the magazine PC World compared nine different online and offline accounting systems against one another, including the e-conomic online software.

I’m happy to share that e-conomic received fantastic scores in this test and exceled in several specific areas.

e-conomic scored high in PC World's accounting system test

e-conomic –  easy and secure

The PC World test compared the nine different accounting systems based on the needs of a public company with three users, who would use the program over a period of three years.  A number of categories were judged.

In the getting started category, PC World highlighted e-conomic as the easiest accounting system to start working with.   They also highlighted the fact that e-conomic was the only online option for companies who do not use a Windows operating system.

e-conomic also scored highest in the backup and security category, and our e-conomic apps were highlighted as a clear strength.

Low cost, high expectations

In the cost category, e-conomic also received the highest score.  Out of the nine programs tested, e-conomic was the lowest priced system.

Over a period of three years, the e-conomic system cost nearly 1,125 Euros less than the second cheapest system, as well as 3,970 Euros cheaper than the other online system in the test.

With e-conomic’s high scores in all three of these categories, it is clear to see that the cheapest solution can also be the best solution!

Looking forward to the next round

It has been an honor to receive these high scores (e-conomic was the only system to receive the top score in three different categories), especially since PC World has highlighted some of the aspects of our system that we work hard to emphasize – most notably usability, security and flexibility at a low cost.

Later this year, PC World will once again run a comparison of numerous accounting systems, this time based on sole proprietorship companies.  e-conomic will again be among the compared systems, so we look forward to seeing their assessment in the next round.

See here what PC World said about e-conomic (in Norwegian).

This week GetApp.com featured a review of the e-conomic online accounting software, giving the system a 9/10 score for its straightforward layout and usability, helpful e-copedia, and clear cut audit trail, among other things.

GetApp.com is an online marketplace for Business Application buyers and providers.  e-conomic was reviewed by technical writer Michele Nachum, who shared her own insights and experiences with the e-conomic accounting software.

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This year, e-conomic is proud to sponsor the 2011 Innovation Champion event – a Danish business competition to find the most innovative company leader or team – because we want to help maximize the success of our innovative customers.

I strongly believe that innovation means everything in today’s business world, and it is with this belief in mind that the e-conomic company is run.

e-conomic is a proud sponsor of the 2011 Innovation Champion competition

Innovation in our organization

Here at e-conomic, the company has been structured to contain very few organizational restrictions.  Our management is visible, open minded and engaged in driving new ideas and focusing on an innovative work process.

We strive to keep the e-conomic environment fun and interactive.  I believe that it needs to make sense to go to work each day – not just to earn a salary, but in order to be creative, successful, innovative and challenged every single day.

Since I would never turn down a good, well-thought-out idea from someone in the company, we constantly have many new projects and products emerging from the innovation of our employees.

We like to try new things and see what comes of them. It’s always exciting to see how we can improve and enhance processes — both in our office and for our customers.

Innovation in our customer relations

Here at e-conomic, all members of the company are close to our customers.  Our contact with customers is open, personal and transparent – we strive to always listen and react to their needs and experiences.

For one example, you can see this reflected in our regular Market Packages when we initiate system improvements “due to popular demand”.

Innovation in e-conomic – moving forward

e-conomic’s innovative organizational structure allows our company to reach new heights and goals nearly every single day.  Whether we set a mission to make welcome calls to 100% of new sign-ups, or to welcome 100,000 clients to e-conomic by 2013 – innovative thinking is how we achieve and surpass such goals.

The 2011 Innovation Champion

The most successful businesses are driven by an innovative leader or innovative teams that have four defining features: initiative, speciality, organization and networking.

Are you this year’s innovative leader?  Does your company have an innovation dream team?  Join the Innovation Champion 2011 competition and find out!  You can read all about how to apply at www.innovationchampion.dk.

When I first came to e-conomic, I put up an ambitious mission statement for the online company.  Now with our current growth rates, we are coming closer and closer to our mission to reach 100,000 customers by the end of 2013 – but much hard work still lies ahead.

2011 e-commerce Awards

That’s just one reason why we were thrilled when our ambition and ongoing efforts were honored at the 2011 Danish e-commerce Awards this past weekend, where e-conomic was presented the award for the Best Business to Business e-commerce company!

The e-commerce Awards jury noted that e-conomic was chosen because of our significant and continuous growth, our international expansion, and our goals to make bookkeeping easy, effective and even fun!

Tejn Vanting Nielsen, Country Manager Denmark, accepting the 2011 e-commerce B2B Award

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This year e-conomic international is proud to sponsor the Baker Tilly EMEA conference, which will begin this weekend in Cyprus, lasting from April 30 – May 5.

Baker Tilly International is one of the world’s leading networks of independently owned and managed accountancy and business advisory firms.  In Denmark, Baker Tilly International is represented by the chain Dansk Revision.

e-conomic and Dansk Revision, which represents Baker Tilly in Denmark, both focus on the SME segment

An ongoing discussion of the cloud

The Baker Tilly EMEA conference will be a unique opportunity to meet with managers, partners and other key accountants who all have a simultaneous desire to explore new ideas for business development, and e-conomic wouldn’t miss it for the world!

We would like to continue a constructive dialog with Baker Tilly’s European offices on how cloud computing, and online accounting software in particular, can help make accounting offices more flexible, cost effective and service-oriented.

A proud partnership

Here at e-conomic, we feel that this sponsorship is a natural extension of the great relationship that already exists between Baker Tilly and e-conomic, and we look forward continue expanding on this partnership in the future.