As organizations expand, especially with the enterprise technology and solutions spaces, branching out to appeal to new niches and verticals can often seem natural.

For enterprise software company IFS AB, however, its magic sauce has been fine-tuning honed expertise it has acquired over years of knowledge within its chosen customer verticals.

“We have focused on where our strengths are — we haven’t gone astray, we haven’t tried to actually capture growth in any other vertical,” said Michael Ouissi (pictured), group chief operating officer of IFS. “We are really very religious about where we’re going, and we are going deep and trying to be the best version of ourselves for our customers and for those customers’ business transformation needs.”

Ouissi spoke with theCUBE industry analyst Lisa Martin at IFS Unleashed, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed IFS setting itself apart through a focused market strategy and conscientious thought leadership. (* Disclosure below.)

Tremendous growth proves the strategy’s success

With the company’s first financial half of 2022 having ended on June 30, the numbers are out — and its fiscal results show all-around growth. Annual recurring revenue improved by about 33% year-on-year and, just as crucially, cloud revenues for the company increased by 56% compared to the same half of 2021 — driven largely by sharp upturns in the annual contract values of the cloud and subscription businesses.

IFS Cloud now has over 400,000 users, most of which the company intends to retain in the long term through directive product improvements that align with customer demand, according to Ouissi.

“We are all about the depth of the functionality, and that means that we need to listen to our customers and what’s going on in the industries,” he explained. “We also need to not just listen, but to think forward. We need to have some thought leadership on what we think is going to emerge and then test that with our customers again. Our customers are at the core of everything we do.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the IFS Unleashed event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the IFS Unleashed event. Neither IFS AB, the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE