International expansion has been on everybody’s mind here at Cloud Plus lately. With the office in Manila well established, Jules is now busy setting up a European base in the beautiful medieval city of Prague, capital of the Czech Republic – adding another time zone to support our planned 24/7 ‘follow-the-sun’ model. The Mexican city of Guadalajara may end up being the final piece in that model, but more on that another time.

Why Prague?
Having had great success with the now two-year-old Manila office, we thought we’d extend on this and establish an office in Europe. Prague was a stand-out location. It is centrally located, politically and financially stable, and safe. It has a good talent pool with plenty of new graduates coming through. It is also a great city to visit – something we think is very important as we hope that staff and channel partners will be regular visitors.

Another reason for choosing Prague was that it is already home to Veeam, who are strategically important vendor partner for Cloud Plus. We are planning to do a lot more with Veeam in the years ahead.

And so we’d like to say ‘Vitej’ to the new (and growing) team!
Because Jules has always been actively involved in product development, R&D and engineering, it was a given that he would be the best person to establish the Prague office. With his family settled in and loving their new European adventure, Jules has set up a permanent office in Prague and has already hired a number of key staff.

To date we have welcomed Ash Pradhan to head up Products and Pavel Luska to head up Voice Engineering. We have now also placed an Executive Assistance / Office Manager and are actively recruiting for a number of engineering roles. In the New Year we plan to kick off recruitment for a couple of NOC Analysts in Prague, and the expectation is that we will have around 10-12 people in Prague by the end of 2018.

What’s the Prague office like?
The new Prague office has 200sqm of office space and should allow for up to around 18 staff before we have to consider next steps. Like the Brisbane office it will have a well-equipped gym and a shower has already been installed. It also features a 20sqm deck, which in true Aussie style, will host plenty of BBQs in the warmer months!

Other updates
It’s not just the Prague team that’s been growing! Some months before leaving Australia, Jules hired Executive Officer Katie Brown to help manage the local operations as he made the move to Prague. And there have been quite a number of other new hires in both Australia and Manila to ensure that we’re well equipped to scale with our growth.

While initially the international offices are all about staffing, we’re intending to progressively start trading overseas. Our footholds in Asia, Europe and, down the track, the Americas, will provide a launch pad for future trading operations. The team is already looking into setting up infrastructure in Europe to cater for opportunities that are currently in the pipeline.

Stay in touch
Interested in hearing more about Cloud Plus’s expansion into Europe and the Americas? Want to keep up with news of what’s happening in our offices in Australia and Manila? Stay in touch with our news right here, or follow us on LinkedIn.