When you think about Switzerland, you think about great products with great quality. That is why today we have the honor to speak with Mr. Alexander S. Baltazzis from SwissNS, and learned more about his products and services.
We hope that you would enjoy this interview as much as we did.
Before the interview, we did a small research and we found that you are on the hosting market for 9 years now.
What is the idea and story behind SwissNS?
Since 1997 I have been working either on large ISPs or owned a similar company in Greece. Our standards were always high and when in 2013 I moved with my family to Switzerland I decided to establish
and continue providing high-quality services to existing and new customers. Our goal has always been in quality as opposed to quantity and we always want to establish long-term relationships with our customers and grow as they grow.
What were the challenges that you faced when you opened the company?
Switzerland is a very friendly country for startups. As an immigrant, I would say that the language barrier was the most difficult part but we were able to work around this by working with people and companies that can communicate in English (which in the CH corporate world are a lot of people and companies). Apart from that, I could not say that we faced difficulties and challenges. We knew our product when we started, we had already established clientele and continued providing high-quality services to our existing and new customers.
What are the main products and services that SwissNS is offering?
We divide the company into two main business units.
The first one is IT Security & Consulting where we selectively work with companies who usually have their in-house IT and consult them in the manner of security, business continuity, and resilience, on how to build policies and procedures and govern. We also perform a variety of security services (penetration tests, vulnerability assessments, etc).
The second one is what we call “Data Center Services”. We started by leasing servers from large data centers in Europe and operating several systems (VPS, Dedicated Servers, Shared hosting, etc). Since 2017 we started migrating these services to our own infrastructure in Switzerland while we added several new services (we issue SSL certificates under our own subCA, offer various security services like mail filtering, WAF, etc).
We noticed that you have more than 20 years in the Telecommunications, ISP, and Security Industry. What changes have happened in the IT industry over the past years, and what do you think is the next level?
The IT industry is an industry that is evolving almost every day. Throughout the years we have been more dependent on global IT but at the same time, the infrastructure that is used and the tools that we have available are much better and allow us to sustain the growth on demand. In my opinion what is most important currently is issues related to the security and resilience of an enterprise or a company which is often neglected but poses a sever threat to any company.
What is the most important thing that one hosting company needs to have in order to be successful?
I would say that you need to have 3 things.
- Reliability
- Good support
- Automation
Reliability is very important even for small companies and websites. We treat every customer the same way, for us an outage on a shared hosting server with a plan of CHF4 per month is as important with a customer with SLA. If you don’t have a reliable product/service you can’t sustain your customers and if you can’t keep your customers you spend much of your time finding new customers rather than operating your network and core business
Good support is what everyone wants for these services. I am not saying fast support because good support is not always fast. We have always been trying to fully understand the problems of our customers and their level of understanding and work around the problems with these in mind. Making customers feel that they are being taken care of is a key to building strong and long-lasting relationships
Automation is also extremely important in order to be able to cope with the high demand and still provide a high level of services.
Customer satisfaction is also very important for the success of one company. How is SwissNS handling this part?
As described above, we believe that Customer Satisfaction is at most important. We treat every customer individually and make sure that they understand the nature of their problem, we solve it immediately if it is caused by us but also try to assist them if they need to communicate with 3rd parties. I believe that the ratings that can be found online for our company show that we have been doing a good job in this for which I am proud!
Another thing that drives a company toward success is the team behind all the work. What are the core values that each team member stands behind?
I would conclude this into one word. Humanity. We have been working remotely since the launch of the company. Every member of the team is respected as well as his private time and needs. I never cared about 9-5 shifts, what I have been telling everyone is that they can work however and from wherever they want, as long as they are available for the tasks at hand and we deliver as expected. So far this has been working great for us and of course for all the team members who can have a meaningful part in their personal lives and families.
Where do you see SwissNS in the next 10 years?
Unless the market changes, we will continue providing reliable and quality services to our customers and continue investing and growing in our industry. I have always been viewing the hosting market as “Internet real estate” as we essentially least space for customers for their websites, applications, and emails. With that in mind, I would like to see us growing more in this area and benefit from the low rate of customers that stop using our services.
What advice would you give about picking the right hosting provider?
This depends on what you need hosting for. In principle, I would say that it is important to seak for providers with which you understand that you can communicate in case of need but also a provider that can work around his plans and offerings if your requirements are different from the ones of a standard hosting plan.
Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?
What I would like to point out after the changes that we all experienced with COVID and the transformation of how we work and use the online systems is to find ways to become more aware. Aware of risks, aware of privacy, aware of where their data are stored. The vast majority of users don’t pay much attention to these things and don’t realize the liability that they create to their lives by exposing themselves, their data, and potentially other users’ data.
The IT industry is evolving, the security tools that we have are becoming better but the weakest link of the chain has always been the end-user. Companies can assist on this with training and presentations but I believe that is the obligation of everyone indispensably to understand and safeguard their systems and data as best as they can.
