In 2008 it was for Billy Bogaert logical to start his own company as a result as he was a successful IT-hobbyist.
Ten years later Dataplan Informatica, a well-known and respected name in the Belgium IT market stands for new opportunities and challenges in Belgium and abroad.
As a teenager and during his economic studies, he was always preparing and maintaining all sort of computer devices for his family, friends and friends of friends. During his first years as a professional working at 2 companies he immediately saw that the customer needs and demands should be handled in another, better way. “That is why I started my own company”. In no-time the company counted 5 employees and it kept on growing until 35 experts and geeks today”: says the Director.
Our products and solutions go from building a premises-based infrastructure with high standard materials and software, until the maintenance and monitoring of the environment. Dataplan has his own cloud environment called ‘MyDataCloud’ and so We deliver a redundant, secured working space with the ‘business data’ available anytime – anywhere – anyplace.
The approach is quite unique, because we always start from a more consulting perspective instead of just selling hardware and services; ”Because when we talk with the customer it is clear that the way they operate isn’t always the way they want to work; but are used of doing it in that manner”: says Billy; “ I mean high level it is all wellknown but if we start asking more indept we see that the modus operandi isn’t always in line with the needs. And this is logical because the business is running and during time several new things, needs and tools have been added but not thought through, not good or at all documented or the person(s) left the company, …”: says Billy.
So, the Dataplan approach is always the same and start with an “as-is” snapshot of that moment and depending on the needs and goals of the company to deliver five years estimated plan with a step-by-step time- and guideline.
“As we have a wide range of solutions, we can handle almost any demand”: continuous the Director; “but we don’t just do anything and we don’t just use any hard- or software supplier, if we don’t have a good feeling about it and/or the expertise, we just won’t do it! And that is because we really believe in a long-term partnership rather than the normal supplier-customer relationship.”
Billy goes on: “Our customers, can be seen in 3 main groups, from small companies that don’t have the time and indept knowledge to setup and maintain their IT needs; towards medium business that have their own IT responsible that needs expertise in a specific area or extra support from time to time; until the bigger player with its IT department and manager where we are able to deliver 2nd or 3rd line support for them, in some cases we are even the helpdesk depending on the specific needs”
To maintain the high standard of support to our customers and technical knowledge inside the team, Dataplan started to evaluate several markets abroad and came very quickly to the conclusion that Serbia is a perfect match with our companies philosophy and culture.
But there was more than just that for Dataplan to create Dataplan Informatika d.o.o in July 2018.
“During our talks with several business people and companies we noticed that our existing customers are more and more looking to other regions then only pure the Belgium area. “ , mentions Billy; “ and before we knew it we had
potential new customers and co-operations in Beograd, so we are more than willing to invest more in our story”
“So our tagline says is what we stand for – Intelligent solutions for smart growth – and in Serbian they told me that it is something like – inteligentna rešenja za mudar rast”, concludes the director; “ we really need to get the Serbian language in our DNA, because the first months have been a rollercoaster for us, but what a great country Serbia has been for us and the people are really willing to contribute to our story!”