Happy Birthday – The Avanet celebrates his 5th birthday today
Every year on December 12th, we celebrate the birth of Avanet. Today it's time again and this year it's our 5th anniversary! 🎉
In this article I would first like to introduce you to our new logo, which we have specially commissioned for our 5th anniversary. Afterwards I look back briefly and crisply on the year 2017 and talk about a few things that have happened here.
For your birthday: The Avanet gets a new logo
I know you're probably thinking, "Why do you need a new logo after 5 years?" Of course, you are not completely wrong. But as you will read further down in the annual review, after 5 years of Avanet we have "grown up", so to speak. The start-up idea of not spending money on things that we could somehow do ourselves is moving more and more into the background. Over the years, we have focused our business model on IT security with Sophos and would now like to somehow herald a new age.
But there were also a few things that bothered us about the current logo. For example, we often heard the feedback that it looks very similar to the logo of "Angular JS". Since we even rely on this JavaScript framework from Google ourselves for mobile and also web projects, it naturally bothered us even more. Another point that turned out to be impractical was the sign with the "A", which was also used as the initial letter of "Avanet".
Due to the above mentioned reasons we decided in October to give our logo a "redesign" and leave the work to a professional. The step is now done and there is no going back. In any case, we kept the shield as a logo because it is still an excellent choice for a company that specializes in IT security.
Brief review of the year 2017
Business model continues to focus on IT security with Sophos
When we founded the Avanet on 12.12.2012, it was first of all about getting as many offers as possible on our website, with which we could somehow earn money. Since no one knew us yet, we wanted to address as much as possible to increase our chances of getting an order.
Even though I am still convinced today that we would hardly have survived for five years without this approach, it also shows very clearly that we did not enter into self-employment with a concrete business plan. We just got involved in this adventure.
However, each additional year in the Avanet has shown that we need to focus more to be successful in the long term. Anyone who knows us a bit is aware that this focus has been "Sophos" for about three years.
This year, we have spent almost 85% of our time selling, supporting and of course setting up Sophos products. In addition, we are still investing a lot of time in our online presence to make it as easy as possible to buy Sophos products.
Avanet GmbH became a stock corporation
This year's continued success with Sophos has prompted us to turn our limited liability company into an AG. We wanted to send a signal that we are serious about the Avanet and that we are 100% behind our company. As we will continue to rely on IT security as the main pillar of our services in the future, this step seemed to be very sensible for reasons of trust.
Sophos Discover Conference
A highlight of this year was definitely the Sophos Discover Conference in Lisbon! Since the word "holiday" has become a foreign word in recent years, Sophos at least once a year helps us to leave our offices, get on the plane and discover a new place in the world! We are already looking forward to the Discover Conference 2018, as long as we have the privilege of being there again.
Avanet becomes a Sophos Platinum Partner
It has always been a goal of ours and this year it happened. We have risen from gold to platinum partner at Sophos. Of course in view of what we want to achieve with Sophos, this status helps us tremendously. On the one hand, it confirms that we are on the right track, but of course it also helps us to continue to provide our customers with attractive quotes.
Launch of our Sophos Licensing Portal
The last subject in this review is the Sophos Licensing Portal. On 12 June 2017, we officially launched our new website at sophos.avanet.ch and have since then added more features to our to-do list. Our Knowledge Base grows and grows, and new articles appear regularly on our new News page. On 22 November we also fulfilled another promise and, in addition to our Sophos Central Subscription, we also added the Sophos XG subscription, where you can now purchase your XG licenses on a monthly basis.
You can look forward to the year 2018, because sophos.avanet.ch has some amazing plans for the future!