ECI Cloud Ops: SaaS Growth & Partnerships
Key Points
- Brian Hildebrand oversees cloud operations at ECI, a SaaS provider serving vertical markets such as field service, lumber, building materials, distribution, and manufacturing.
- ECI’s model lets small‑ and medium‑size businesses avoid buying and managing hardware by delivering fully managed, highly available cloud solutions.
- The platform has grown dramatically, expanding from roughly 50 users at launch to about 7,000 users today.
- Strategic partnerships—first with IBM, then with ECI’s customers and their end‑users—are central to the company’s go‑to‑market and scaling strategy.
- This cascading partnership ecosystem enables each participant to focus on its core strengths, delivering a superior overall experience for the final consumer.
Full Transcript
# ECI Cloud Ops: SaaS Growth & Partnerships **Source:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQEo3qn3EGs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQEo3qn3EGs) **Duration:** 00:01:27 ## Summary - Brian Hildebrand oversees cloud operations at ECI, a SaaS provider serving vertical markets such as field service, lumber, building materials, distribution, and manufacturing. - ECI’s model lets small‑ and medium‑size businesses avoid buying and managing hardware by delivering fully managed, highly available cloud solutions. - The platform has grown dramatically, expanding from roughly 50 users at launch to about 7,000 users today. - Strategic partnerships—first with IBM, then with ECI’s customers and their end‑users—are central to the company’s go‑to‑market and scaling strategy. - This cascading partnership ecosystem enables each participant to focus on its core strengths, delivering a superior overall experience for the final consumer. ## Sections - [00:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQEo3qn3EGs&t=0s) **Partner‑Driven SaaS Growth at ECI** - Brian Hildebrand explains how ECI’s cloud‑based SaaS platform, scaling from 50 to about 7,000 users across verticals such as field service, lumber, and manufacturing, relies on a cascading partnership model with IBM, its customers, and their end‑users to let each party focus on its core strengths. ## Full Transcript
my name is Brian Hildebrand I am the
manager of cloud operations for ECI so
ECI is services for different vertical
markets so there's a field service
there's lumber and building materials
there's distribution and manufacturing
we offer our software as a service so
that our customers don't have to go out
and buy hardware have to pay people to
manage it for them when you think of
small medium businesses when they're
deploying hardware they're not
necessarily deploying it so it's highly
available we started with you know 50
users and we're at just over 7,000 or
right around 7,000 now so that the
amount that it's exploded over time is
is not something that we foresaw as we
started this the partner piece is key to
us you know being a partner with IBM and
then us being a partner with our
customers and then then being a partner
with their customers so it's a nice
cascading effect that happens that
allows you know everybody to do what
they do best right we do software and we
do it well our customer does you know
lumber or hardware or whatever it might
be and they do it well and then their
end user their customer they build
houses or they do a home repair or
whatever and that allows them to focus
on what they do best as well
so it's a nice line of business that
happens there that it allows everybody
to focus on what they do best and be
able to perform and offer something
that's that's exceptional