January 11, 2021

Mathew Stava | CEO

Short intro – thanks and new year greetings 

Mathew Stava, CEO

This time last year, I wrote my new year’s greetings, confidently wishing everyone a very successful 2020 and stating a few promises and predictions. Wow. None of us had any idea what lay ahead with 2020 and all it brought to the world. However, now that we’ve made it to 2021, I doubt anyone will miss the past, wretched year. 

I’m incredibly proud of how our team handled the curve balls of 2020. Our global offices immediately moved to remote work, and we didn’t skip a beat with our customer service. Overall, we had an excellent record year in 2020. Our strategic planning, back-end technology, professional staff, and flexibility allowed us to find ways to service every customer without interruption.  

In addition, we worked closely with customers that quickly found themselves in financial straits, and we created flexible solutions where necessary. I firmly believe in our fiduciary and corporate responsibility in the business world, and we updated customers and the public on our status with as much transparency as possible. 

So, how did I do on last year’s promises and predictions?  

Despite all that happened, I still think it’s instructive and humbling to look back at what I wrote and reflect on its accuracy. Last year, I promised (1) we would be expanding our workforce, (2) continuing to invest heavily in our IBM partnership, and (3) making important announcements for our customers and friends. 

Despite the pandemic and economic challenges, we scored an A+ on those three. We grew our workforce by impressive double digits, hired IBM resources all over the world, and announced our new Salesforce practice and SAP Basis and BI managed services. 

As for my 2020 predictions, I’d be within my rights to ask for a pass based on a truly unpredictable year. But remarkably, most of those did come true, though not for the same reasons I asserted.  

As I predicted, we did experience increased demand for third-party support for businesses of all sizes, a reduced desire of companies to spend on expensive cloud upgrades, and a consolidation of services by our existing customers. But instead of being driven by a swelling global economy, our progress came as a result of the operational and fiscal challenges of the pandemic. 

We posted excellent growth in our first half highlights and will soon publish even more in our year-end 2020 results.  

My 2021 Predictions 

Having done well in 2020, I feel ready to try my hand at a new set of predictions for 2021. Here they are: 

  1. Demand for our services will continue to increase due to financial issues. Even if the stock markets continue to thrive, small businesses and consumers will still suffer, and this will trickle into the corporate world in 2021. Switching to third-party software support will bring much-needed cash back into the business. 
  1. Our partnership with IBM will continue to grow. We’re continuing to dedicate employees to working with and training IBM staff on the mutual benefits of third-party support. In 2020, we landed new, large customers like Albertsons/Safeway (US), Dixons Carphone (UK), EcoBank (Ghana/Africa), and Airbus (EMEA), all great examples of the ability to deliver global enterprise-level support through our work with IBM.  
  1. The way we work has changed for good. I agree with most experts that the pandemic will largely end, but the event will have a lasting effect on our face-to-face interactions. Prospective customers will not need or want us to make as many personal visits as we used to, and live conference attendance will take a long time to recover. The ways in which we meet and exchange information will continue to shift as technologies rush to fulfill the need. 

My 2021 Promises 

Aside from those predictions, here’s what I can promise: 

  1. We will expand to meet the global need for services. We’ll have some announcements about that coming soon. We’re also focused on creating redundancy in our practices in various continents to support our growth. 
  1. We will continue to innovate our technology. We know that technology usage will skyrocket, and we’re updating our communication and online technologies, with a focus on customer benefits like speedier time to resolution and automated monitoring and updates. We’re making support even more supportive. 
  1. Our Salesforce managed services will grow rapidly. We announced the Salesforce practice launch in March, and in 2021, you’ll begin to see the fruits of our investments in case studies and news of our team’s great work with our new customers. We will continue to hire to meet demand and are glad to speak with you about the depth and variety of the services we cover. 

My Ongoing Appreciation 

There’s no doubt 2020 was a hard year for everyone. No one was left untouched, and in the face of the challenges we had, I am even more grateful this new year to have the continued faith and trust of our customers. We see this in the annual satisfaction survey (98.7% satisfaction), the reviews on Gartner Peer Insights, and our regular conversations and business meetings. 

If you’re an existing customer, on behalf of our global team, thank you for your business and willingness to recommend Spinnaker Support. If you’re considering Spinnaker Support, we’re excited to begin conversations in 2021 regarding how we can support your enterprise technology through our services.  

Best wishes for a prosperous new year to you all.