Faster performance, better support and broader reach
We set out to achieve eCommerce hosting perfection
Almost 10 years ago, I founded Sonassi, where ever since, the team and I have worked tirelessly to build the absolute best eCommerce hosting company possible. I am continuously humbled by the loyal customer relationships we've developed over the years - and it is because of these relationships that I've made an important decision; to find Sonassi a bigger and better home to thrive in.
Scaling Sonassi and keeping its roots
The decision to sell Sonassi came as the result of months of self reflection around a single question,
"How do I continue to scale this business without losing a single strand of its DNA?"
You'll know as a customer that we put our ethos and ethics before all else; to be honest with you as a customer; to be loyal to you - and without question relentless in the support and service we offer you - but I have enough self-awareness to know where Sonassi excels and where it has room to grow. We've gotten bigger, we've gotten better - but I've certainly recognised there are areas where we can improve.
The question is, how can we improve?
As we've grown, I've recruited additional staff - and I've recognised the amazing expertise of my team; the skills they bring, their personality and their beliefs. Without my team and my customers, Sonassi wouldn't be where it is today. But as a "small" business, there are challenges in recruiting that additional resource, in delivering extended support coverage and extending our physical presence globally. I had two choices,
- Attempt this major leap alone (and admittedly without the experience of doing so), potentially at the risk of diminished service to our current customers in the pursuit; or
- To bring in a larger organisation, that has the experience, the expertise, the scale and presence to help us retain what we are and deliver improvements seamlessly.
Something I always say to the team here, is "Do it once, do it right" - and I very much intend to do this right. Give me the choice between letting customers down or improving the service we deliver - and I'll take the latter every time. Being great at what you do, means knowing what you are great at - and not so great at. I know Magento inside out; but I don't know the first thing about US tax legislation, or what is involved in building a data centre in Australia. So it meant I had to not just recruit that skill, but partner with a much larger organisation that did, it meant giving another company enough interest in Sonassi to help me achieve that goal, it meant selling Sonassi.
Selling Sonassi was entirely predicated on finding a company that had a strong sense of ethics, shared our vision and would be able to fill those growth gaps, so that the new owners and I can continue to build what I started almost 10 years ago.
I started a process, almost 12 months ago, of identifying and interviewing companies that I felt shared Sonassi's ethics and vision. I took my time not to sell Sonassi to the highest bidder, but quite the opposite, to find someone who bought into our my beliefs; into Sonassi's vision and ethics. That meant that I refused many offers, some of significant personal financial incentive; because it wasn't about the money, it wasn't to simply achieve a sale. I want to keep working in Sonassi, growing Sonassi - but have that little extra support and expertise behind my team and I to deliver it.
If you know me, I'm idealistic and I'm a romantic; to find business synergies between Sonassi and another company is excellent, but to also find the other business is based in my birth city, where a large proportion of my family live, who's CEO had family that went to the same school as my family, it just clicked for me. Its a company that I can really be with for a long time.
So, what does this mean in a practical sense
There's two key things here,
- I'm staying with Sonassi, forever. I'm in this for the long haul and intend to take my pride and joy, to far reaching new heights with the assistance of an experienced, global team.
- Your pricing, service and support will stay exactly the same; but if you want it, we'll have a whole lot more to offer.
I've got grand plans for what Sonassi will achieve in 2018; including but not limited to deploying our physical infrastructure in our new data-centres worldwide (Canada, USA, Europe, UAE, Asia and Australia), boosting our support from ticket-driven to also include phone-support, and extending non-emergency support to also be 24x7; taking advantage of an incredible high performance fibre network and having access to a range of new services and expertise.
Your performance is going to improve, your support is going to get faster and better, we'll be able to offer even more services - and all of this delivered by the same team you know and love, with myself filling the exact same role as I do today. So if you want to speak with me, just raise a ticket, call the office or email; I'll be here for many, many years to come.
So without further ado, let me introduce our new owner, iomart.
iomart - our new owner
iomart is a leading provider of secure managed hosting and cloud services. It specialises in the provision of managed hosting as well as private, public and hybrid cloud solutions, and is a leading partner of AWS and Microsoft Azure, providing management around their hyper scale clouds.
While iomart is headquartered in my home city of Glasgow, Scotland, it has a big UK and global presence. Not only does it own and operate secure, ISO accredited data centres at eight locations across the UK, it has a further 19 international Points of Presence; from the USA, through Europe and the Middle East, right across to Australia. Plus, it's listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange (AIM: IOM) and reported annual revenues for the year-end of £89.6m. If you'd like to find out more, check out iomart.com
What does this mean for our customers?
It will be business as usual. We will continue to deliver the highest quality Magento hosting to you and to be as agile and responsive as we've always been.
The team here is very excited about becoming part of iomart. Having spent time with their executive team we believe Sonassi is in excellent hands. It's the right time for us to become part of a much larger company that can take us to the next level of success. Here's to the future!