FUTUREINN Builds Customer Trust as an Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery Partner

Business and IT services provider FUTUREINN CO. LTD. (FUTUREINN) is committed to sharing its cloud expertise and growing its sales. So building objective business indicators that inspired customer trust was important for the company. As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Partner serving the Chubu region of Japan, FUTUREINN turned to the AWS Service Delivery Program, which is designed to validate and promote AWS Partners that have deep technical knowledge and proven customer success in delivering specific AWS services. Since achieving an AWS Service Delivery designation, FUTUREINN has worked alongside AWS to drive customer acquisition through new marketing and education initiatives and to create a foundation to deliver future customer service benefits.

FUTUREINN offers tailored solutions for education sites, public sector entities, water services, and corporate customers and has provided managed services since 2011. In 2015, the company became an AWS Partner to support the cloud migration of its infrastructure-as-a-service solution, which it had previously delivered in house. In 2017, FUTUREINN completed a 1-year project to migrate all customer infrastructure-as-a-service workloads (approximately 50) to Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), a service offering secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload. Since completing the migration of its infrastructure-as-a-service solution to AWS, FUTUREINN has focused on migrating on-premises workloads. The company is also offering software-as-a-service business development support on AWS.

In 2019, FUTUREINN needed to meet key business requirements, so it joined the AWS Solution Provider Program (AWS SPP), which lets AWS Partners resell and deliver AWS services to customers as part of their specialized offerings. Shortly after, in July 2019, the company applied to join the AWS Public Sector Partner Program, which organizations can use to grow their public sector business through alignment with AWS Public Sector sales and marketing teams. As an AWS Public Sector Partner, FUTUREINN is pursuing varied public sector goals on AWS, including supporting public education sites.

FUTUREINN began considering the AWS Service Delivery Program in March 2020. The company was seeking business qualifications that could demonstrate its expertise and help it nurture customer relationships at the proposal stage of the sales process. “We had a lot of experience, but we needed objective indicators to prove our experience to new and existing customers,” says Takahisa Ota, technical director, product owner, and solutions architect for cloud services at FUTUREINN. “We needed to boost name recognition to make our proposals more appealing to new customers to help close deals.” Anticipating ongoing demand to support Windows workloads, FUTUREINN decided to become an Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery Partner, an AWS Partner that is ready to help companies plan, implement, and manage cloud migration and modernization of Windows-based solutions. Acquiring this designation would also help FUTUREINN become an early adopter within the AWS Partner Network (APN) for the regions of Japan that it serves.

FUTUREINN achieved the Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery designation in June 2020 and subsequently enhanced its marketing capabilities. Working alongside AWS, the company can implement and analyze marketing projects with greater ease to drive customer acquisition. One key initiative involves hosting Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery seminars, an area where FUTUREINN received specialized AWS support. “To support hosting our first online seminar, we received detailed advice that included how to give an effective lecture,” says Ota. “After the seminar, we were contacted by existing customers and were able to win new business leads.” From its seminar initiative, FUTUREINN has generated 11 inquiries, completed two migrations, and begun negotiations for three new cases.

“In terms of digital advertising, achieving the Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery designation helps us to provide an objective evaluation for customers and enhance the public relations of our company,” says Ota. Additionally, with its new AWS designation, FUTUREINN has enhanced customer trust at the proposal stage. Working alongside AWS, the company has also gained access to regular business updates relating to the AWS Service Delivery Program.

FUTUREINN plans to use its new business resources and collaboration alongside AWS to grow as a company and deliver future customer benefits. “We believe that our Amazon EC2 for Windows Server Delivery designation will increase sales prospecting opportunities and drive and facilitate business discussions with new customers,” says Ota. In 2021, under its AWS managed services business, FUTUREINN had approximately 180 customers and projected annual sales of 120 million yen.

In 2022, FUTUREINN plans to expand its digital marketing, building on education provided by AWS. “We also anticipate holding webinars for new customers and are positioning these webinars as an important component of digital marketing in 2022,” says Ota. The company plans to grow its public sector presence as well. “We have introduced many Windows-related solutions in elementary and junior high school systems, so we would like to make proposals that take advantage of our AWS Service Delivery designation,” says Ota.

FUTUREINN is also committed to the ongoing development of its business capabilities and offerings. The company plans to work toward becoming an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner and an AWS Migration Competency Partner, an AWS Partner validated to help enterprise customers migrate applications and legacy infrastructure to AWS. FUTUREINN’s business goals also include working on cloud adoption at the edge and expanding the use of its serverless development environment, which runs on AWS. Additionally, the company wants to build its internal efficacy to help small and midsize customers achieve more efficient cloud infrastructures. “We want to achieve greater efficiencies on behalf of our customers so that they can enjoy the advanced benefits of the cloud,” says Ota.