Photo: Radar Group
Joakim Djurberg from the Swedish Radar Group has written a great article about our expansion in Sweden.
Read an AI-translated version of the Swedish article here:
They want to give you the key to smarter cloud cleanup – Norwegian Bsure sets its sights on Sweden
Skyrocketing costs and poor control over the number of users – many companies can likely relate. The founders of Norwegian Bsure certainly could, which is why they developed a product that, based on digital identity, can thoroughly clean up cloud invoices.
Moving to the cloud can lead to both increased risks and higher costs – especially if you don’t know who has access to your company’s IT environment.
It sounds simple and obvious, but since this has proven to be a more common problem than it should be, it’s precisely the issue that Norwegian Bsure addresses – from two different angles.
By focusing on digital identity, the company has developed a service that provides a clear overview of which identities have access to the system. At the same time, it also shows which users are active and which are inactive. Having a good overview of inactive users makes it easy to see how much money a company is unnecessarily spending on licenses.
“Your digital identity is your key to the workplace”
The company was founded by a group of five with a background at Visolit.
– There, we worked on process improvements, both to strengthen the company itself and to help others. Licenses and identities were quite difficult to keep track of, and then a new problem emerged. As more and more cloud services became available, IT departments faced entirely new demands, says Henrik Skalmerud, CEO and co-founder of Bsure. He emphasizes that you must be just as careful with your digital identity in the cloud as you are with the key to your office door.
– Your digital identity is your key to the workplace. When it’s thrown into the cloud, it suddenly becomes accessible to the whole world. That’s something you need to keep track of.
The other four founders are Hallvard Eide, Olav Helland, Gunnar Weld, and Frode Arnesen. Initially, the five founders started talking to companies within their network, and things have taken off from there. Hallvard Eide says that interest tends to be sparked when people see how the application works.
– When you can simplify things for companies while also helping them save money, it creates interest, he says, referring to how Bsure’s application provides a clear overview of who is in the system and when each user was last active.
– Visibility of data is important to us. It brings out latent needs, and when people see how things look, they realize that things are not always as organized as they should be.
Focus on Microsoft customers
Bsure’s product is an add-on to Microsoft Entra, so the target audience is organizations that use Microsoft. The general assumption is that companies, on average, overpay for their Microsoft 365 licenses by 20%.
– We complement what customers already have, so there’s nothing they need to configure. What we help with is showing the status and what you’re using, says Henrik Skalmerud. He notes that a common question from customers is how the system aligns with GDPR.
– From the start, we were clear that we wouldn’t have access to customer data. Instead, customers get an application they install themselves, which provides a risk and cost analysis. We call it privacy by design.
Currently, the company has six employees, and including consultants, they have a team of twelve. Next up is expansion into Sweden.
– Right now, we are hiring someone to handle sales in Sweden, says Hallvard Eide, adding that the response from the Swedish customers they’ve spoken to so far has been very positive.
Many municipalities as customers
One way to enter the Swedish market is by engaging with KommITS, an organization that serves as a meeting place for municipal IT issues. It’s no surprise that Bsure is taking this approach. While the company also has private sector customers, Norwegian municipalities have been something of a home turf.
– We have gained a strong foothold with municipalities in Norway and have many ongoing conversations there.
Why do you think that is?
– All municipalities in Norway have the same societal mission – the only difference is their size. Once you understand their work, it becomes easier. We know how work processes function in a municipality, which allows us to speak their language and understand their challenges.
After Bsure secured its first municipal deal, the impact spread quickly.
– Once we demonstrated the cost savings, the first municipality recommended us to the neighboring municipality, and then that municipality started talking about it as well.
Hallvard Eide says there are several key points that typically resonate with customers.
– We focus on common challenges with identity management in the cloud and present the customer’s situation. From there, we encourage customers to review their existing processes to see how they can be adjusted with targeted efforts. We then continuously help monitor who is in the system.
It means a lot to customers
Beyond municipalities, Bsure’s customers come from a variety of industries. The company’s largest customer is a U.S. university with 300,000 users. They have also started making an impact in the U.S. market, attracting interest from external investors. According to Finansavisen, Bsure has secured $1 million from American investors.
Both in Norway and as part of their Swedish expansion, Bsure has searched for competitors. However, Hallvard Eide says they haven’t found any company doing exactly what they do—most competitors focus either on Identity Access Management (IAM) or Software Asset Management (SAM).
– There are companies out there, but we haven’t seen anyone putting identity first. We recently participated in a procurement process with a Norwegian municipality, and they are now in a phase where they are searching for competitors—but last we checked, they hadn’t found any.
Bsure operates on a subscription model, where customers pay based on the number of users. Hallvard Eide is clear about what he believes is the company’s strength: how easy it is to get started. He also highlights several factors that tend to be particularly appealing in discussions with customers—not least the fact that customers pay less for every user removed from the system.
– The more we remove, the less you pay. That means a lot to customers. We also don’t have any binding contracts or installation fees. That’s usually appreciated. One customer even commented on this by asking, “You’re pretty confident in yourself, aren’t you?” to which I replied, “Yes, I am.”
How much do you typically say a customer can save by using Bsure?
– We usually say that 40% of users could be inactive and that companies can typically save 20% on their licensing costs.
