How Are You An Award Winning Cloud Integrator And Staying Independent

SMB Consultants are the 2022 Partner of the Year for CIN7/ DEAR Inventory Globally. This is an incredible achievement and we are incredibly proud. However, a question we are asked is, how are you an award winning cloud integrator and staying independent? We appreciate the question being asked and the opportunity here to answer it.

SMB Consultants are one of the original cloud integrators. When cloud based apps started being created we saw an opportunity to help our clients and others within our niche industries of wholesale, retail and manufacturing sectors (who weren't our clients yet) transition to utilise the cloud to increase business efficiencies. Quite simply we saw the gap that needed to be filled and filled it. Apps for the sake of apps don't make good business sense. The right app for your business circumstances implemented properly can transform your business and enable it to grow exponentially. That is exactly where SMB Consultants come in. 

SMB Consultants are cloud integrators for growing inventory based businesses specifically for the wholesale, retail and manufacturing sectors. We are proudly platform agnostic. That means we stay independent. We value above everything being able to assess a business and its needs and then match the best apps to help the business streamline their processes, be more efficient and ideally reduce our clients overheads. We genuinely want to see them do better with what they have ensuring their business is not only better structured using cost effective cloud apps but they also are able to gain more profit with less effort. 

Utilising SMB Consultants signature 5 step process, we focus on being an independent voice that works with each client so we can ensure and give each client a recommendation and support for implementation that we believe is the best possible one for them with their best interests at the core of our recommendations. We only work with retail, wholesale and manufacturing businesses. Going through this 5 step signature process we discovered consistently a natural fit for clients was Cin7. Our key difference of if we were purely promoting Cin7 as a preferred platform and cloud based app as opposed to  being platform agnostic is that  we don’t start with the platform first. 

We have a client first approach that we instigate with our 5 step process. By always assessing a client's needs first through our 5 step process, we increase the chances of getting the right fit for the client and we avoid the ‘force fit’ of a client into a platform and we don’t get the Frankenapps effect. No one wants a Frankenapps effect where the app creates work arounds and new processes that add work and costly processes to the business giving the reverse effect to what the business actually wants to achieve.

Cin7 is one of our partners we didn’t start out automatically regularly recommending, it became an evolution over time as we were methodical in reviewing client needs first and then matching to the platform we saw as the best fit.

 Because of the capabilities of the Cin7 platform and the requirements of our clients in wholesale, retail and manufacturing businesses we have repeatedly seen a consistent fit. 

This consistent fit is why our award as the 2022 Partner of the Year for CIN7/ DEAR Inventory Globally is so special. We have been able to retain our independence as a Cloud Integration Expert Consultancy, delivering amazing results for our clients like AMF Magnetics, Dock & Bay, Urth and Heritage Building to name but a few.

Saying ‘we did it! 2022 Partner of the Year for CIN7/ DEAR Inventory Globally!’ Is such an accomplishment is an understatement.

The 2022 Awards evening was held on 10th August 2022. Jeffrey Atizado, SMB Consultants CEO and Co-founder accepted the award on behalf of the entire team. It’s incredible recognition for what the SMB Consultants team has done over the last two years to not only survive during the pandemic but to completely transform our business into what it is today.

To be recognised as Partner of the Year is not only validation that we made the right decisions, it’s rewarding to affirm we are continuing to be at the forefront of innovation in our tech space. 12 years of consistent innovation and going strong. It’s a testament to the importance of adaptability and sustainability in business.

‘I’m extremely grateful to have staff that have stayed committed to my business and our cause and I’m excited about the opportunities that lie ahead.’ - Jeffrey Atizado CEO SMB Consultants

SMB Consultants are cloud integrators for growing inventory based businesses. We are proudly platform agnostic. Utilising our signature 5 step process, we focus on being an independent voice that works with each client so we can ensure and give each client a recommendation and support for implementation that we believe is the best possible one for them with their best interests at the core of our recommendations. In saying this due to our specialist nature of only working with retail, wholesale and manufacturing businesses, we do have partners we work with regularly. 

Cin7 is one of our partners we regularly recommend for inventory management because the capabilities of their platform consistently work for the inventory based clients we look after.  AMF Magnetics is a great example of success.

“AMF were using a server-based system called FileMaker before they came to us,” says Deepak Stevens, an integration expert at SMB Consultants. “Our job was to understand their needs, and recommend a platform that would set them up for the next ten years at least. It was quite clear that Cin7 would be a good fit for AMF Magnetics, because we were confident the system would be able to adapt to any specific needs they have.”

This natural synergy has meant we have now helped quite a few clients transition to working on the Cin7 platform. Due to this we were incredibly excited to discover we were nominated for the 2022 Cin7 awards in two categories.

The Cin7 Partner Awards are a combination of client-nominated and data-based categories evaluated by the Cin7 leadership team. Award recipients are selected based on their commitment to customer growth, the scale of their solutions, and the exemplary use of the Cin7 or DEAR platform.

SMB Consultants are proud finalists in the categories of Expert Partner of the Year and Customer Growth in the Cin7/ Dear Partner Awards.

The Expert Partner of the Year is decided by Cin7 CEO, David Leach. This award recognises the Expert that soars above and beyond for their clients, catalysing impressive results and overwhelming success for Cin7.

The Customer Growth Award is for those leading the way in helping customers grow and scale. This award recognises a Cin7 product suite technology partner whose ability to scale has enabled revenue growth for their clients in an efficient and effective way. The technology solution enables customers to focus more on growing their business and less on operational challenges.

Being a finalist in these two categories is a significant honour for SMB Consultants. It reinforces our approach to being client first and fulfilling their requirements as being the right approach.

Clients like Heritage Building are beyond happy.and this makes for not just a successful business for SMB Consultants but also a successful business for Heritage Building. The win-win is gratifying for everyone involved.  

“Bill transformed his business from one that physically stored and moved a lot of second-hand goods to a modern, just-in-time purchasing model that no longer requires carrying significant amounts of stock. This shift, Jeffrey Atizado fromSMB Consultants says, simply wouldn’t have been possible without Cin7.”

It’s an honour to be recognised for the work we do by both Cin7 and our clients. We look forward to continuing to grow a great relationship with Cin7 and other incredible partners like them to help our clients build strong foundations for their businesses and scale globally.