EXEA MAKING A DIFFERENCE – wywiad ze Sławomirem Kozłowskim

Exea achieved AFAQ ISO 22301 for its datacenter located in Poland, in order to let clients have full confidence in the company’s business continuity management. Interview with Sławomir Kozłowski, Site Director.

Why did Exea need to be ISO 22301 certified?

Our purpose has always been to make our data center and its infrastructure as secure as possible. That is something our clients expect from us, as well as having excellent business processes, because those can guarantee the security of our services too. They also want a reliable and efficient personnel that can master the solutions we offer. On top of that, we need to ensure business continuity of all the processes at the level our clients need. We were therefore willing to achieve ISO 22301 certification so we could deliver an even more secure and reliable service. Before being certified, we always described in detail in each contract the nature of the solutions involved. However, the certification’s added value is its process, that ensures we take into account every possible situation and do not leave anything out.

How did you get ready for the certification?

We’re a rather small company, so every employee was involved in some way during the certification process. We came across some difficulties regarding our documents, even our way of thinking, so we had to adjust, especially in terms of the principles of the certification. We had thankfully already done a lot of things required by the certification, so it took only between three and four months to go through the entire process. We did not need to revolutionize anything but to improve our processing levels by altering our business model. We’ve been certified for over two years now, but we still need to make adjustments on a daily basis, just to make sure everything is up and running.

Does ISO 22301 help the company improve its expertise?

The certification is a very helpful guideline for our employees to maintain business continuity of our services. It is also appreciated by our clients because they can be sure that when we introduce our services, we know exactly what we’re talking about. In the data center, the colocation services and even the cloud computing world, many mistakes are made. Sometimes, marketing takes over and some companies are not totally honest with their clients. When we say we are ISO 22301 certified specifically for cloud computing services, it’s essential to our clients: it means they don’t need to check our background. They know our services are truly high level and we can answer their specific demands.

Has being certified already made a difference?

This certification is very important to us. Everything we do regarding our services is done with ISO 22301 in mind. However, the level we have reached based on the certification’s requirements seems to be enough. It brings a very good balance between our business benefits and our obligations. Being certified has definitely made a difference. Some clients now see Exea as a key player of the data center market. Thanks to the certification, we distinguish ourselves from most companies that offer cloud computing services. So we advertise having achieved ISO 22301 all the time, but it’s not as simple as it sounds because it implies being very precise with our clients. As far as we are concerned, the certification relates to the cloud computing and colocation services of the data center, which is our core activity. We like to emphasize this, as some of our competitors are also ISO 22301 certified but it applies only to their financial or legal department for instance.