Five years on from our 5th anniversary, and I am delighted to be here once again writing about the growth of Rencore. Throughout this journey so far, we have had some successful times, challenging times, and a lot of fun with the most amazing people that you could possibly work with along the way!
This first blog post in our 10th anniversary special series takes a retrospective look at the last five years of Rencore post-2018 celebrations. For those who want to see how we reached this point, please look at the following blog post, but for now, grab a coffee, take a trip down memory lane, and see how it all unfolded.
SharePoint Business Applications Partner Program – Rencore becomes Charter Member
Soon after the 5-year anniversary celebrations came another milestone in the SharePoint and Office 365 customization journey that we were famously known for at the time. Becoming a charter member showed that Microsoft recognized Rencore’s contribution to helping customers implement simplified business processes working with SharePoint on-premises, SharePoint Online and Office 365.
Report: How SharePoint administrators manage their environments and solutions
Still heavily focusing on the technical roles – developers and architects – we began to branch out and research the IT admin’s day-to-day challenges. Based on that research, we released the following report. In summary, we discovered that for many organizations, admins are a crucial part of an IT team overseeing the overall operations and health of their IT infrastructure. The wheels were in motion!
Rencore wins Best Management Solution and Most Innovative SharePoint Solution at ESPC 2018
Entering the final business quarter and finishing 2018 with a bang, the Rencore Platform was recognized as both “Best Management Solution” and “Most Innovative SharePoint Solution” at the European SharePoint Office 365 & Azure Community Awards. It signified our ongoing journey from a promising up-and-coming SharePoint solution provider to being a well-established leading player in the SharePoint and Office 365 space.
2019
Gartner recognizes Rencore as the SharePoint applications modernization specialist
SharePoint migration was a crucial topic heading into 2019, and our SharePoint customization migration solution was making waves. Gartner confirmed applications and customizations as common roadblocks when undertaking migration projects from SharePoint Server to SharePoint Online, and Rencore was mentioned as the company addressing this challenge.
Governance Report: Improving Governance in Office 365
Rencore teamed up with CollabTalk and the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University to research governance in the Microsoft Cloud. Targeting administrators, platform owners, CISOs, CEOs, COOs, and IT executive management, the findings gave a snapshot of governance practices within organizations at a time when moving from on-premises was becoming increasingly common. It was clear organisations had some big challenges ahead, and in twelve months’ time, it would become business-critical among organizations across the globe!
The Number 1 International SharePoint Influencer 2019
Awards were becoming an annual occurrence at Rencore. The first awards in 2019 started with our illustrious leader Matthias Einig, Microsoft MVP and CEO being voted #1 Top SharePoint International Influencer. Awarded by Harmon.ie., it was a fitting tribute to his continuous and tireless work in the SharePoint community. Our good friend and then-Rencoreite Waldek Mastykarz also came in second place.
Rencore wins Best Management Solution and Most Innovative SharePoint Solution at ESPC 2019
And again! One year on, we managed to win both “Best Management Solution” and “Most Innovative SharePoint Solution” for the second year running at the European SharePoint Office 365 & Azure Community Awards in 2019. This achievement further highlighted our status as a reliable, forward-moving software provider. It is one of those events that we always looked forward to on the calendar and have been actively taking part in since 2016 to this day.
2020
Corona crisis
The pandemic turned the world upside down for everyone, throwing us all into uncertainty and, for many around the world, tragedy as well. As an organization, the health of our employees and customers were a priority. Before the pandemic, Rencore consisted of a 50% fully remote-working team and a team located at our office in Munich. The remote working team culture was already in place, and so was the infrastructure to continue business operations and collaboration. Luckily, our vision to help organizations stay in control of their cloud collaboration technologies was well underway and would be put into practice sooner than anticipated.
Microsoft 365 and beyond
At the beginning of the new decade, Microsoft 365 started to replace the branding of Office 365 and bring more apps and functionality under one roof. As Office 365 evolved, it became more than the name suggests, and with it, the applications associated have become synonymous.
Rencore Mini Summits
Although we were well equipped to manage the day-to-day business at Rencore in lockdown, our events strategy had to change significantly from what was planned at the beginning of 2020. We fast realized we would not be able to fulfil our conference calendar. We quickly set about planning online events of our own to reach out to our community. At last, Rencore online mini summits were born. And with the help of some great speakers, the latest topics relating to Microsoft 365, and some fun themes, we managed to put on three magnificent events of our own and two more in 2021.
New decade: scaling Microsoft 365 governance
A step away from the SharePoint and Office 365 customization space had already begun towards the backend of 2019, and Rencore were fixed on becoming the cloud collaboration governance leader, helping organizations stay in control of their cloud collaboration technologies.
One thing we have always prided ourselves on is the quality of our educational resources, and part of that has been our monthly webinars. An early webinar in the year titled “How to stay in control of M365 in 2020” fielded many questions around:
- Privacy
- GDPR
- Content lifecycle management
- Interoperability without chaos
- Defining Microsoft 365 groups creators
- External access
- General rules and frameworks to adhere to and guide
Many of these points became part of common use cases for Rencore Governance going forward. Our webinars also became a big part of our customer-centric approach to building Rencore Governance.
2021
Launch of Rencore Governance
All the hard work and the ability to pivot quickly in 2020 meant that we were able to release Rencore Governance to the public at the end of the first business quarter in 2021. Reaching the goal of being cloud collaboration governance leaders was in sight as we quickly began helping organizations stay in control of their Microsoft cloud technologies.
First Partners onboarded
We were into the second business quarter and only a month after the general release of Rencore Governance when we onboarded our first partner as part of the new partner channel. Other organizations providing Microsoft 365 solutions were fast seeing the value in scaling cloud collaboration governance for their customers to save cost, increase productivity, and future-proof security and compliance efforts. The penny had dropped, and the ball was well and truly rolling.
First Rencore Governance monthly update video newsletter
Quickly following the general release of Rencore Governance came our monthly product update newsletter format. Consisting of a video, blog, and emailing, each update contains the latest feature updates released to Rencore Governance. We are well into our third year and have yet to miss a month!
First whitepaper in the M365 cloud collaboration governance series published
Our extensive research over the last years and the close collaboration with many customers leading up to the general release of Rencore Governance produced the top pain points troubling M365 administrators, decision-makers, and consultants around the world. What followed was a series of whitepapers aimed to address those challenges laid before them. To this day, our learnings and research never stop with our customer-centric approach to product growth.
2022
Michael Borell rejoins Rencore!
We often have a bittersweet moment when a colleague moves on. There is happiness for their new adventure but a bit of sadness that their contribution will be missed within the team. Luckily, we often say, “see you later” and not “goodbye” as in the Microsoft space, business relationships last beyond our day-to-day job roles, fondly bumping into each other and catching up at conferences, for example.
So, we were delighted to welcome Michael Borell back to Rencore as VP of Sales, and this would not be the last re-recruit either.
Cloud Platform: Rencore achieves fourth Microsoft Gold Competency
With our trajectory in the cloud governance space increasing rapidly, it was only inevitable that more recognition for our cloud governance solution would come our way. In 2022, we received the Microsoft gold competency for “Cloud Platform”, which took its place alongside our other three gold competencies: Application Development, Communication, and Portfolio Management, and our two silver competencies for Collaboration and Content, and Application Integration.
Rencore completes 4 million US$ Series A funding round to accelerate cloud collaboration governance expansion
The time between 2020 and 2022 was some journey. Like most start-ups and organizations, the pandemic posed some precarious moments. Despite global uncertainty, we succeeded in pivoting towards a massively growing business need for cloud collaboration governance. As a result, we successfully proved market fit with our cloud collaboration governance tool Rencore Governance and secured a series A funding with renowned German venture capital investor Capnamic.
And this was only the beginning: with our raised investment from Capnamic, we were able to scale our product offerings and significantly grow our team and partner distribution channel to further cement our place as a leader in the cloud collaboration governance space.
Team Event 2022
After a two-year hiatus, we were finally able to organize our off-site team event – and what an event it was! The timing was perfect as we welcomed many new Rencorites who fitted in seamlessly. Everyone was a pleasure to be around, and conversation was easy and comfortable. One of the primary concerns when growing is keeping the culture that Rencore has carefully built over the years. This was certainly not a problem and would help keep us powering on into the next year.
Rencore wins “Best Microsoft 365 Solution” at ESPC 2022!
And it would not be fitting if we had not won another award at the ESPC Awards. Rencore Governance was recognized as the “Best Microsoft 365 Solution” at the European SharePoint Office 365 & Azure Community Awards at the end of 2022 in Copenhagen. It was the first time the awards were happening after a two-year hiatus, capping off a winning run spanning across 2016, 2018, and 2019 for our software offerings.
2023
Our multi-award-winning tool Rencore Governance received SOC 2 Type 1 accreditation!
We started 2023 with a massive milestone with the announcement of SOC 2 accreditation for Rencore Governance. Firstly, achieving SOC 2 Type 1 and promptly securing SOC 2 Type 2 a few months later. SOC 2 accreditation serves as a key milestone in ensuring the safety and security of our customer data. It is also a major step in reinforcing our commitment towards compliance. Big kudos to our internal teams, who collaborated well to coordinate such a smooth process in a timely manner.
The hat trick
Still in the first business quarter and we acquired the services of three big players in the Microsoft space. Firstly, we welcomed back Microsoft MVP Erwin van Hunen whose journey brought him full circle, returning to Rencore as Chief Technology Officer. He was a popular team member who was sorely missed. Now he re-joins with vast experience leading at the C-level and now plays a crucial role in driving our organization forward.
Next came the huge announcement of Microsoft MVP Ragnar Heil who would bring reinforcements to our Partner Channel. Joining as Global Director of Partner & Alliances, Ragnar directs the rapidly growing Rencore partner channel, boosting Rencore’s successful trajectory in the cloud governance space. Ragnar helps SIs and MSPs around the globe to provide their clients with efficient, secure, cost-effective, and future-proof Microsoft 365 services.
Next arrived the man, the myth, the legend, Microsoft MVP Christian Buckley who joined Rencore as Director of Partner Management for the North American market – a massive coup for us as we begin to exponentially grow our Partner channel. From day 1, Christian contributed with his vast expertise and experience as a collaboration, productivity, and digital marketing subject matter expert in the Microsoft 365 space.
Enterprise tier
We have currently finished the second business quarter and passed the halfway mark in the business year. We onboarded more amazing people and had one more important piece of business to take care of before we celebrated. On that note, we were absolutely delighted to announce the availability of our New Enterprise Tier for Rencore Governance. You get everything you know and love about Rencore Governance, plus on top, a stack of new features, which you can see in more detail here.
The 10-year anniversary event begins
Well, this is where the nostalgia ends, as we take you into the present for the fun, competitiveness, and much laughter from our team event and epic party. But that’s another story altogether and you will have to wait until next time!
