Today’s SAP industry scenario is, from an infrastructural point of view, has seen a massive rise. End clients increasingly seek comprehensive solutions that provide the service they demand in a transparent, flexible and secure manner.
Gigas has built a world-class cloud hosting business that provides best-in-class solutions and services to customers worldwide. Although there are much larger players in the industry, from a competitive standpoint, Gigas has found, time and again, that businesses are more interested in excellence in service than incumbency.
In just seven years of operations, Gigas has emerged as a true market leader in their native Spanish market and key Spanish-speaking markets throughout Latin America, attracting large enterprises such as United Nations, Aon, Avianca, Diners Club, Acciona, Iberdrola, OHL, Canal 13 or BarceloTravel. The company has deployed 6 datacenters in Europe, North America and South America and offices in Spain, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Panama, USA and Mexico.
Additionally, after only few years in the market, and following explosive organic growth, Gigas went public in November 2015 in the Madrid Stock Exchange. Since, the company went great lengths to detect opportunities for inorganic growth (M&A), culminating with the acquisition of two companies (in Spain and Colombia) and continues to assess corporate deals to boost its business.
The Quintessential Leader
Diego Cabezudo, the CEO of Gigas holds an MSc in Telecommunications Engineering and an MBA from London Business School and UC Berkeley. He was the former CEO of AGS, an IT consultancy firm, where he grew sales exponentially and expanded the business to several international markets. He previously served as COO of FON, the largest Wi-Fi network in the world, and as Head of Strategy for mobile services provider O2. He has also worked for cable provider TeleCable and management consultancy firms DMR, Fujitsu Consulting and Coleago.
As the CEO of Gigas, Diego’s main task is to lead the company, guide its strategy, and to recruit an exceptional team, mentoring its members and training them so that they grow together with the company. Cabezudo is also in charge of representing Gigas to a range of different stakeholders (the media, analysts, investors, shareholders, etc.), managing the company’s growth and investment strategy, as well as creating and encouraging corporate culture.
Extraordinary Solutions from Gigas
Gigas has developed an award-winning cloud platform that has attracted more than 4,000 enterprise customers. In 2014, Gigas was one of the first cloud providers to be awarded the SAP “Infrastructure Operations Service” certification. Its focus on hosting mission critical services makes it natural to run complex SAP production environments in an efficient, secure and flexible way.
SAP-certified Cloud Datacenter solution of Gigas provides a pool of resources (CPU, RAM, storage, networking, security) which customers can manage themselves in order to set up virtual machines, VLANs, VPNs, backups, load balancers, different types of storage, commercial firewalls, etc. An easy to use but powerful control panel allows the deployment of highly complex system architectures in real time, from a fully automated and optimized environment. Clients can therefore decide, at any given moment, what their SAP requirements are and expand or decrease instantly according to the needs of their business, as well as distribute them geographically among Gigas’ datacenters.
Gigas has become the preferred partner of multiple SAP integrators in Spain and LATAM thanks to its advanced platform and its close and customizable service. With its channel, the company continues to innovate its portfolio to deliver new solutions, such as Gigas SAP S/4 Hana Private Cloud on a “cost-per-user” basis. This solution offers a managed environment with great savings, facilitating the incorporation of all types of clients into the SAP world, regardless of their size, since it avoids large investments and speeds SAP adoption processes
Significant Benefits for Customers
Companies that have deployed their SAP solutions on Gigas platform benefit from significant cost savings. Gigas cloud model for SAP, aimed at both large companies as well as SMEs, does not require an initial investment in infrastructure and it is less costly than customers owning and maintaining their own infrastructure. In addition, as a pay-per-use model, it adapts very well to the usual ramp-up SAP installation, minimizing costs until service is fully deployed and in production. Furthermore, the solution enjoys the pay-per-use while at the same having all variable costs included, allowing for a predictable, transparent and inexpensive financial model, with no bill surprises at the end of the month.
For local SAP partners in Spain and Latin America, being able to count on the expertise of a certified infrastructure specialist with local presence, highly qualified 24/7 technical support in Spanish and local billing is critical. Furthermore, the fact that Gigas does not compete offering SAP professional services, can be extremely agile and flexible and also offers a healthy margin to its SAP distribution partners, have made Gigas the infrastructure partner of choice in the SAP world.
The Sparkles of Excellence
Gigas named as Significant Provider by Gartner, in its “Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service” report (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2017, Innovation Award in the 2013 Computerworld & CIO Iberoamericanos Awards; Best Hosting and Cloud Company by eAwards (2013 and 2016 editions); Eurocloud Award for the “Best IaaS Service in the Market” (2013 and 2014 editions); Best Cloud Service Provider in Spain by MSP Mentor 501 2015 and 2016 Global Edition; Best World Cloud Hosting Provider by The Cloud Awards in its 2016 and 2017 edition. Gigas was included in the Financial Times report 1,000 Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies, in 2017 and 2018.
After only four years in the market, and following explosive growth, Gigas went public in November 2015 in the Madrid Stock Exchange.
Future Roadmap
Gigas wants to continue focus on what they do best. In that respect, rather than expanding their portfolio of services, company looks to keep expanding its offices and datacenters into new markets, continuing with its “being global by being local” strategy. At the same time, Gigas is also investing in expanding its indirect sales channel, partnering with system integrators, ISVs and SAP partners to better reach customers and provide them with a one-stop-shop solution to their needs.
“Our ‘think global, act local’ philosophy is clearly making an impact, and we look forward to cultivating further growth in what we
