Microsoft Managed Partners SilverBridge and DocFusion have entered into a strategic alliance that sees the DocFusion document generation solution integrated into the SilverBridge digital insurance suite, enhancing the digital offering for customers in the insurance industry.
SilverBridge’s focus is on modernising core applications and the digitalisation of processes in insurance businesses, while DocFusion is dedicated to realising the vision of a paperless business by replacing paper-based processes and documents at organisations with a digital approach.
“While it delivered the minimum required level of functionality, our in-house developed document generation tool Snapper is no longer best suited for the future needs of the digital business environment,” says Lee Kuyper, Group COO of SilverBridge.
“We started investigating the alternatives of our own development roadmap or potential partnership opportunities to enhance the value proposition of our digital insurance suite. The decision we have taken is to partner with a company with the best product for this area of our solution suite.
“Given the focus of Microsoft on developing a partner network, the organisation is in a prime position to identify companies with potential synergies. Through Microsoft, we know the DocFusion guys well and saw the potential value in the two organisations collaborating.”
This resulted in the innovative DocFusion document generation solution being integrated into the SilverBridge digital insurance suite. As such, SilverBridge will be phasing out Snapper and replacing it with DocFusion over the next 12 to 18 months and be exclusively using DocFusion for all new client engagements.
“The levels of functionality, flexibility, and usability in DocFusion are a perfect fit for our solutions that we offer to the market,” adds Kuyper. “They have invested into their solution for more than 14 years, so it made sense to partner with them and leverage their investment in the technology.”
For Ernest Kleynhans, CEO of DocFusion, the company saw this collaboration as the ideal way to expand on its value proposition in the financial services market.
“We are focused on the document generation component of the industry and already have a large customer base. But working with SilverBridge enables us to expand our market share with the SilverBridge end-to-end offering,” says Kleynhans.
With a core focus of helping clients within the sector manage risk while growing their business, the solution meets all required regulatory and technology components. What makes this an even more compelling offering is that both companies are proudly South African, taking their solutions global through mutual respect and industry understanding along with the support and assistance of Microsoft.
“One of the key value drivers of the Microsoft Partner Programme is the opportunity for partner to partner collaboration, thereby enhancing the offering of both parties and bringing more value to our customers. We are very excited about this alliance between these two long-standing Microsoft partners, SilverBridge and DocFusion, and the benefits their combined offering will bring to customers in the financial services sector,” says Lionel Moyal, Microsoft South Africa Partner Director.
With partners helping them define success for their business, Microsoft provides SilverBridge and DocFusion with access to Build With, Go-to-market and Sell with programmes, tools, and resources. Microsoft is committed to enabling its partners achieve more.
“As such, Microsoft has a strong Partner-to-Partner (P2P) drive as they see the value in niche companies collaborating with one another to deliver end-to-end solutions,” says Kleynhans. “They have an incentivisation programme that encourages partners to work together and our relationship with SilverBridge ticks this box perfectly.
“In a complex market and global economy, it makes sense to focus on your niche and partner with other organisations for mutual growth. It is all about creating an ecosystem of mutual growth,” adds Kuyper.
“As a long-time Microsoft partner, SilverBridge uses their technology within our product suite to enhance the value proposition we provide to our clients in the insurance industry. Additionally, the Microsoft P2P network delivers value for us as we seek to further enhance our product offering through potential partnerships. This sees Microsoft looking for partners who can deliver deep vertical expertise that enable their business to expand on its platform solutions in those strategic areas,” concludes Kuyper.