The transition from on-premise infrastructures to cloud-native solutions is a challenging but necessary process for many companies. Showpad, a Belgian company that develops sales platforms, has already successfully completed this journey.
Showpad is a Belgian sales platform and loyal customer of AWS. During Re:Invent 2024, we asked some questions about the move to cloud to Jeroen Minnaert, Chief Architect at Showpad. In this article, you’ll learn more about how the company handled the migration to the cloud, what benefits it brought, and what lessons other companies can learn.
The first steps to the cloud
Showpad began transitioning from on-prem systems to a cloud environment in 2015. Minnaert explains: “We saw that many people had bad experiences with vendors. That’s because those salespeople often didn’t have access to the right information, marketing content, training or coaching.”
“Our platform actually brings marketing, who provides the content, the vendors who use the content and customers together in one environment. That’s what we’re trying to do with Showpad: the right content, in the right place, with the right tools,” Minnaert says confidently.
For us, moving to the cloud was mainly a way to become more scalable and innovate faster.
Jeroen Minnaert, Chief Architect at Showpad
To make the transition happen quickly and efficiently, they took a steady approach: “We were first an on-prem platform until 2015, after which we moved to the cloud,” Minnaert explains.
The first step was to move existing workloads to Kubernetes on AWS. This strategy minimized the risks of migration while allowing the company to prepare for the next steps. This phased process proved crucial: “We learned that a phased approach is essential for a successful migration.”
Why AWS?
Showpad deliberately chose AWS as its cloud provider, despite the fact that Microsoft and Google were also more than solid alternatives. “With AWS, we really feel like we have a partner, and not just a vendor.” According to Minnaert, AWS has strong technical foundations: “AWS not only has a customer-first mindset, but also gives us a good overview of all deployments.”
One reason for this choice was the ability to innovate quickly. “We wanted to outsource as many of the non-core elements as possible with Amazon,” Minnaert says. By leaving tasks such as infrastructure management to AWS, Showpad was able to focus entirely on product development and innovation.
In addition, AWS offers specific services that support Showpad’s goals. “Since 2020, we have been increasingly using Amazon’s managed services, since then our applications have been more in line with specific customer needs,” Minnaert said.
Cloud-native
The move to cloud-native has helped Showpad on several levels: “For us, moving to the cloud was primarily a way to become more scalable and innovate faster.” This was essential for a company that operates in more than 50 countries and serves more than 1,000 customers.
The big advantage of migrating to the cloud is to exude continuity. “Customers should not feel that moving to the cloud is a step backwards,” Minnaert clarifies. “That’s why it’s important to have a solid foundation. This allows you to optimize your workloads with more managed services, making it easier to switch to a serverless approach.” Again, Showpad chose to work one step at a time.
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It also provides more autonomy. “It’s important to certify and train our engineers in AWS tools. That process frees up a lot of time for us because it’s done through Amazon.” Minnaert continued, “Amazon allows us to spend less time on infrastructure and focus on innovation. Things where we really make a difference.”
The changes that have grown Showpad over the past decade can be valuable lessons for other companies that also want to make the transition. In doing so, a phased approach is essential to exude continuity, but it is also important to partner with a reliable cloud company and invest in employee certification. It helps to be able to innovate faster and to become more competitive in the market.