Final thoughts from the CEO: A look back at 2020

As New Year is upon us, we take a moment to appreciate the highlights of 2020.

2020 has been a special and difficult year. For all of us that enjoy socializing and meet new potential clients, we can say that it has been a challenging year. The year started with a long prospect list with clients ready to start their digitalization journey planning to implement a data platform for further growth. Everything looked very promising. Nearly overnight on the 12. of March, everything was postponed. The focus shifted from further development to survival mode for many. The uncertainty of not knowing what will happen was maybe the most challenging aspect. 

After having all employees, clients, and families working from home, it is a relief to see that 2021 most likely will change back to normal after having the vaccine being distributed all over the world.

BI Builders growth strategy

By 2021 we see a huge potential for further SW sales, but also consultancy services for our partners delivering data platform projects. Next year will demand more manpower at all locations, so we are still looking for new employees to join the team. Combined with our partners we are ready for further growth and believe that 2021 will be the most exciting year ever.

Planned events 2020

2020 was the year where we planned for many physical events ever. Status in December is that we ended up with 1 event. That reflects most of the pandemic year. For a software company like BI Builders socializing, meeting clients and partners is vital for further growth. There has been a lot of digital events where we have participated, but this will never replace meeting people in person. We are very much looking forward to the normalization of our client’s dialogue.

New work habits

Despite not meeting clients in person, we have managed to grow the SW footprint in 2020. The way to work has changed a lot. One of the most positive effects of the pandemic is the adoption of Teams and similar tools. It was challenging in the beginning, but everyone has matured and taken huge steps in materializing efficient collaboration. We are looking forward to normalization, but we will continue to use Teams when feasible to ensure cost-efficient follow up of clients.

As mentioned earlier we have seen a lot of projects being postponed. Luckily, we see that many clients have picked up the plans again and are looking into 2021 with a more optimistic view.

New York office

We established the New York office in 2019 and was planning a lot of activities, but the pandemic hit New York very hard this spring. We still believe in the market and are eager to meet new clients in 2021, as part of our growth strategy

Gaselle company 2020

For the fifth year, we made the Gaselle list in Norway. I am very proud of everyone in BI Builders who have contributed to this success. There are not many companies that make this five times!

Product development

2020 has been a very exciting year for further development of our software, Xpert BI. The development of our solution catalog has been important to secure visibility and lineage of data for our clients. With Microsoft’s new PurView launch, we see that our product is a perfect match co-existing with Microsoft Purview.

For XpertBI Automation, we have further developed the solution ready for Azure. In a further development, we have been granted support from Innovation Norway, which is a significant contributor. BI Builders can deliver data warehouse automation for Synapse and ADLS. Having full lineage and automatic documentation of your environment will be very important.

BI Builders is positioned to become the preferred vendor for automation in azure and has many exciting news coming in Q1 2021. Two examples are automation for Microsoft ADF and Snowflake. It is just to contact BI Builders for more information.

These were some of the highlights from 2020. I am proud of what we have achieved and excited to make 2021 even more eventful.