Cronos, Belgium's largest technology company
Although relatively unknown to the general public, Cronos Groep is nevertheless the largest technology company in Belgium. The Mechelen-based company is currently signing an unprecedented global partnership with Microsoft, and is in the clouds.
Founded in 1991, Cronos has an annual turnover of nearly 800 million euros. This is a real success story for this group, which has expanded rapidly by working on the digital transformation of companies. It has 6,500 employees, including 900 people hired in the past year alone. And their future prospects look very promising in the cloud computing sector (in summary: being able to use IT resources without owning them). The activities involved in this type of service generate growth of more than 100% per year, according to Dirk Deroost, CEO of Cronos Groep.
Signing a multi-million euro contract with Microsoft means that Cronos is now one of the few companies in the world - and the only Belgian one - with a Multi-Year Data Centre Agreement with the American giant. This is a non-exclusive partnership, since "we will continue to sell Amazon and Google cloud solutions, but this contract will make us the largest Microsoft Azure cloud specialists in Belgium," explained Dirk Deroost.