Interview with Chairman of the Board of Directors at n'cloud.swiss AG Andre Matter

Andre Matter is Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors at n’cloud.swiss AG. In various national and international management positions in the banking and large-scale industry, he has acquired profound expertise as IT Manager, especially in the area of data center solutions. Consequently, he is familiar with the requirements for datacenter-based IT services at first hand. The IT architecture and solution concepts of n’cloud come from his pen. As one of Europe’s first IaaS/SaaS cloud platforms, n’cloud is the result of Andre’s tireless dedication and innovativeness. Today, several thousand users are working every day in the n’cloud – some since 2009! As a decisive step towards its expansion into 60 countries worldwide, n'cloud.swiss AG is launching an ICO. Andre Matter is aiming with his team to establish n’cloud.swiss as a Swiss/European alternative to the major cloud providers.

How do you overcome resistance around you being the leaders in innovation and one of the cloud pioneers in Europe? What is your secret to self-motivation?

It is said that if you do love what you do, you will never work a day in your life. This applies perfectly to me. Throughout my career path, I have had the privilege to occupy leading roles. Having a high degree of responsibility awareness is therefore something that allowed me to be successful in the different roles I occupied within well-known and large companies. Now being Chairman of the Board of Directors at n’cloud.swiss AG, I am also responsible for the well-being and success of my employees which is without doubt a big but a challenging burden to take on. I also believe that becoming a great leader is not something that happens overnight. In my opinion, it can be achieved only through discipline, hard work and a commitment to improvement. I would like to underline here the term “innovativeness”. In fact, I am encouraging the development of an innovation culture within n’cloud.swiss AG where I motivate every employee to be innovative and help us in developing new products and improving existing ones as well. n'cloud is above all the result of this innovation culture. Today, we are rightly seen as one of the cloud pioneers in Europe with our own cloud platform since 2009 already. However, standing still is never an option for me. Innovations, new technologies, state-of-the-art products and services motivates me. After all, we operate in an industry that is extremely innovative. Cloud computing is undoubtly the digitization tool par excellence. The cloud market presents a huge potential to us. This is why we have launched n’cloud.swiss as with the ambition to establish it as a serious “Swiss made” alternative to the major cloud providers.

How important do you think is the process of innovation? Which is the strongest capability of n'cloud.swiss, what differentiates it from the others?

First of all, before analyzing the importance of the process of innovation, we should have a look at the person behind this process. For this reason, I tend to consider the role of innovation leadership. I believe that the latter is essential to ensure the presence of an innovation-friendly environment. This type of environment can be defined as a process for creating direction and commitment needed to create and implement something new that adds value. The process of innovation is important, but having leaders and a team with an innovative mindset is crucial. As a Swiss company, “Swiss madeness” is omnipresent in our day-to-day activities. All our products enjoy “Swiss made” high quality standards in terms of security and reliability in setup and operation of fail-safe cluster-systems. This is exactly where the strongest capability of n’cloud.swiss comes to light. Moreover, Switzerland is known for its high security standards. As a cloud provider, we have here a huge competitive advantage. In fact, our servers are located in one of the world’s most secure data centers in the Swiss mountains. Moreover, we provide our customers with personal support and competitive pricing models, API connectivity for easy and fast transfers of existing developments from or to other major cloud platforms. Cloud exit strategy is hereby something we accorded an enormous importance to take away the fear of “lock-in” which is one of the most known myths in the cloud computing world.

You are launching an ICO in April to expand worldwide into 60 countries. What is particular about your ICO? What advantages do investors have?

Compared to the majority of other ICO-launches nowadays, n’cloud.swiss is not a start-up operation. The initiator of n’cloud.swiss AG - Netkom IT Services GmbH - the company I founded in 2001 in Seengen, Switzerland - is a Swiss based IT & cloud provider with a proven track record of 17 years of successful operations in various countries. n’cloud.swiss is therefore already a successful cloud platform running in one of the world’s most secure data centers in Switzerland with existing customers, transactions and success stories in Switzerland, Germany, India, Russia, Pakistan and Ukraine. Investors in our ICO will be investing in a real story. They have with us the opportunity of supporting a proven business case to grow global and become a real cloud alternative to the major well-established cloud providers in the world. Since the launch of n’cloud as one of Europe’s first IaaS/SaaS cloud platforms, several thousand users are working every day in the n’cloud. The development of n’cloud.swiss as a full-service cloud platform for all cloud models is in my opinion the logical continuation of a long-term cloud strategy of a healthy fully self-financed company.

What will you say about the potential of n'cloud.swiss as being a Swiss made alternative to the major cloud providers? What are your objectives?

By having a deeper look into the cloud market, we immediately realize that the market is dominated by Amazon AWS, followed by Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform and IBM Softlayer. Serious competition only comes from Alibabacloud. The remaining part of the market is in the hands of numerous cloud providers from all over the world. In principal, we can say that today’s cloud market is characterized by a competition between four American and one Chinese giant companies. Interestingly, the revenues in this market are expected to double in the next 3 years from 89 billion USD in 2017 to 162 billion USD in 2020. This is where I definitely see the potential for n’cloud.swiss and the opportunity to win a substantial part of this rapidly growing market. With the ICO, we will be able to expand worldwide. The Swiss origin and company values, the innovative n’cloud product range, coupled with know-how, pioneering and innovation spirit, make the successful establishment of n’cloud.swiss as a true alternative to the major cloud providers possible. This enables us to strengthen and underline our cloud leadership role for the future.