September 12, 2005
Watermark Resumes Growth
Management and Organisational Changes Yielding Fruit
Veenendaal, 12 September 2005 –
Watermark, the largest European supplier of Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) and SSA Global software, has been able to show strong results since major organisational changes have been exercised. These changes were directed at improving efficiency, decreasing costs and re-focusing on core activities of the company.
New Management
In April of this year Tom Stolk and Frank van der Woude took office as new directors of Watermark and set out to streamline this international organisation, yielding positive figures within their first few months. The turnover for Europe increased slightly in the first six months but showed an accelerated growth of 11% in the second quarter alone;This was coupled with a considerable decrease in costs due in part to the dissolution of a system of autonomous management in the individual countries. Instead, country by country international models of operation were set up which now requires of all countries that sales, implementation and support to report directly to the international management at Watermark.
“We have administered a number of spearheads in a short period of time. Our regular costs have dropped by 10% and our execution strengths have increased allowing us to expedite and conclude many on-going international projects. The organisational changes have also been well received internally and we are all once again very enthusiastic about realising our Watermark goals and objectives. We think it is feasible to have our European turnover grow within the next three years to as much as 75 million euros. We also feel that we can strengthen our relationship with Microsoft as their top-partner in the field even further.”
- Tom Stolk, CEO, Watermark
Microsoft Inner Circle
Watermark was invited this month to participate once again in Microsoft’s prestigious Inner Circle. “Watermark belongs to the top three MBS players in the world who are capable of carrying out implementations in several countries and continents. The membership of the Inner Circle is our way to express our thanks to Watermark for the excellent performances in the past financial year and their close collaboration.”
- Doug Burgum, Senior Vice President, Microsoft Business Solutions
Numerous deals throughout Europe have been concluded over the past months with leading international businesses using Microsoft Business Solutions. These include RTD Group, Group 4 Securicor, Primagaz and Nucletron. Further growth in turnover and improved results are expected for the remainder of the year.
”We now have the organisation modelled as we want it to be. Employees, partners and customers are very positive and our sales forecast looks good.”
- Tom Stolk, CEO, Watermark