Workato builds a European channel

Enterprise automation specialist Workato is aiming to ramp up its channel activities following recent investments in Europe.

Last month, the firm cut the ribbon on its first EMEA datacentre in Frankfurt in response to a 289% increase in data usage on its platform across the region in the last 12 months. The firm hopes that the ability to support more customers will also translate into increased action on the partner front.

The business also has the wind in its sails following a Series D funding round worth $110m, which it said would be used to invest in technology. Some of that money has also gone into expanding its headcount, with the firm now 100-strong across Europe.

Markus Zirn, svp of strategy & business development at Workato, said more than half of the firm’s revenues across Europe already came from the channel and it was looking to increase that.

“With all the digitisation going on online and also with large companies kind of adopting Workato, we’ve seen tremendous growth all across the world, but especially also in EMEA,” he said. “This will not be the last step that we’re doing. We’re actually planning to do more of this. There will be the datacentre in Frankfurt, but there’ll be more.”

On the partner front, the door is open for more partners to work with the vendor and the expectation is that more will recognise the potential in the market.

“We are recruiting and we have goals on how many partners we want to bring on,” said Zirn. “There is this automation and digital transformation movement that’s happening out there. We believe that because it’s easier to use a platform, it’ll actually expand the universe of the partners that can that can work with.”

He echoed the views of many across the industry about the idea that the cloud adoption spurred by the coronavirus pandemic will not be reversed as the world gets back on a more normal footing. Customers have changed their attitudes over the past year and cloud has been embraced, giving opportunities to those who can take things a step further and add value, he said.

“Our job now is to focus on these business processes and really help the business – and that is such a positive trend,” Zirn added. “There is huge potential for improvement. I think most of the process and the automations, and so on, have actually not been done.”