30 | SME News IT Awards 2023 Most Innovative Cloud-Based App Development Company 2023 - West Yorkshire Based in Yorkshire, Bespin Labs is renowned for its leading product, Patronum, which was designed exclusively in the interests of the Google community, as is intuitive and powerful in operation. We find out more about Patronum, and indeed the company behind it, as we speak to Paul Lees following a win in the IT Awards 2023. Bespin Labs (Bespin) was created by Paul Lees, CEO and Founder, to develop Google Cloud solutions. It began an Official Google Cloud Partner in 2018 and launched its first product, Patronum, in 2019. Patronum is a unique solution within the Google Workspace (G Suite) marketplace. It provides a comprehensive toolset that helps Google Workspace organisations better manage the starters, leavers and movers process of their Google Workspace users. In addition, Patronum also helps organisations better understand their Google Drive sharing exposure, and respond to any file-sharing risks. Meaning Guardian in Latin, Patronum initially offered a great opportunity for a Google backup and archive tool, as the choice of software in this space was restricted to general product vendors without a special interest in Google Workspace. So Bespin set about building one. “The aim was that Patronum was going to be the “Guardian” of Google Workspace,” Founder Paul tells us. “ However after only a year into development, a strong product from a competitor emerged. We realized our own product would have a broadly similar feature set and it would be tough to differentiate in the marketplace.” In response, Paul decided to pivot the software development away from Google backup and focus instead on improving user lifecycle management in Google Workspace. He took the existing user interface with his team’s knowledge of Google APIs and added key features to address tasks he knew Google administrators were finding difficult. Organisations dependent on Google Workspace needed a software interface to manage user life cycle changes and empower managers of frontline workers. Today, after refinements and the regular addition of new features, the product is a market leading Google Workspace user lifecycle solution, and Bespin runs Patronum on Google Cloud Platform which gives it the confidence to scale and grow the user base rapidly. “At Bespin Labs, we have created a collaborative culture where fairness and transparency are fundamental,” Paul states, speaking of the firm’s work ethos. “Our customer-first approach is at the heart of everything we do, from feature requests to pricing strategies and has helped us secure a variety of customers from large multinationals to small niche retailers.” Paul firmly believes that placing the customer at the centre of everything that Bespin does is the business’ unique selling point, helping it to differentiate against its competitors and mark it out as the best choice for clients. “By understanding our customers’ challenges better, we are able to deliver innovative solutions that delight our customers,” he elaborates. “It’s always a great feeling when we present Patronum to our customers and see that knowing smile when we’ve hit their pain points and done so simplistically.” Regarding internal culture, Paul elaborates to tell us how he strives to uphold the core values of fairness and transparency within the organisation, something which he describes as the “fundamental building blocks” of the business. When it comes to recruiting new team members, these building blocks are the key attributes that are prized above everything else, in order to ensure the successful running of the firm. As the IT industry is a vast and complex space, Bespin focuses on making things simple through the design of its products. The user interface is designed to be a joy to work with, and the user experience has to be a delight in order for the products to succeed. “We have a team whose sole purpose is to create the very best user experience within our applications,” he enthuses. “Processes may still remain complex and messy, but through better user interfaces these can be made into simple clicks.” It is this attention to detail and customer-centric ideal that has set Bespin aside and gained it recent recognition in the IT Awards, where it was named Most Innovative Cloud-Based App Development Company 2023 - West Yorkshire. This esteemed accolade is testament to the dedication and hard work of Paul and the entire team, and how they strive to ensure that the needs of the customer really do come before anything else. Contact Details Contact: Paul Lees Company: Bespin Labs Limited Web Address: www.bespinlabs.com “We encourage collaboration and there are no wrong answers, just ideas and solutions, the best ideas always make it through.”
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