INTELIQUA accelerates international growth with AWS Global Passport

INTELIQUA, based in Athens, Greece, was founded by CEO Vagelis Karalis and Chief Operating Officer Fani Charmpi. “We noticed a gap in the market for a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution to help business-to-consumer companies, especially in retail, better understand their customer’s behavior. That was the inspiration behind INTELIQUA.” Since then, Vagelis and his team have been on a mission to help businesses drive repeat sales and foster brand loyalty.

Eliqua.CX, the company’s flagship platform, empowers brands through loyalty programs to build robust first-party data. That data can be used to create highly personalized marketing strategies and campaigns that drive profitability and customer loyalty. INTELIQUA primarily serves the retail industry and has a global footprint spanning eight countries across South-Eastern Europe and the Middle East. “We’ve been on a journey, growing our business and becoming a market leader in Greece and beyond, and we now have plans to expand further,” says Vagelis. That journey started organically.

As INTELIQUA’s customers expanded into new markets, it followed. “Our first expansion into the Balkans was due to an existing customer in Greece opening new stores in those regions.” INTELIQUA had to continue to support these customers, which meant making its solutions available in those regions. The team quickly began looking for opportunities to consolidate their market presence, win new customers, and pursue further expansion elsewhere.

When the INTELIQUA team decided they wanted to continue their expansion into new international markets, they faced significant hurdles. "Starting from a relatively small market like Greece, you face challenges. You cannot grow significantly or access the funds and resources to expand globally,” says Vagelis. “It’s a totally different story when you’re starting in Greece compared to a company with the same value proposition starting from the UK or the US.”

He continues, “There is a lack of local knowledge of the target market. For instance, going to the Middle East or Western Europe, you need to understand how companies work there and how your market is growing in that region. You also need a solution that can scale.” It was while considering these challenges that the team sought external support from AWS.

INTELIQUA is a strategic partner of AWS, a relationship built on deep collaboration and innovation. Scalable AWS infrastructure powers the Eliqua.CX platform, helping INTELIQUA optimize costs, manage their own security, accelerate time-to-market, and deliver advanced analytics capabilities. To accelerate its expansion and reduce risk, the company participated in the Global Passport program.

Supporting software companies that need to grow internationally, enter new markets, and reach new customers, the Global Passport program covers the full scope of AWS resources and AWS Partner programs to better respond to strategic, operational, technical, and go-to-market challenges.

The local AWS team in Athens first introduced the INTELIQUA team to Global Passport. “The timing was great because it came when we were ready to raise funds and initiate our plans for expansion,” says Vagelis. Following a successful validation process, the team was invited to a half-day, in-person discovery workshop in London.

“The whole workshop was great because it was interactive, it wasn’t just presentations,” says Vagelis. During the session, AWS experts shared insights on INTELIQUA’s target regions as well as key technical, compliance, and go-to-market considerations. Together, the group began formulating a plan.

“It really helped to confirm a lot of what we were thinking and revealed some gaps too,” says Vagelis. “For example, our team was asked to give a 30 second pitch of INTELIQUA and each of us responded totally differently. We realized that if we’re having this misalignment across the C-suite, imagine what’s happening three floors down—it was a real surprise.”

He continues, “We realized that when you’re so focused on your daily efforts it can be difficult to step back, see the greater picture, and prioritize effectively. A third party can help you to define a well-structured plan, identify next steps, and execute.”

After the workshop, the AWS team shared three key outputs to help kickstart INTELIQUA’S expansion journey. That included:

• A comprehensive business report
• A technical framework and compliance roadmap
• A joint go-to-market plan

A few weeks later, the team took part in a one-hour follow-up session to revise and assign owners to each recommendation. The result was a tailored growth plan to help INTELIQUA generate revenue in new regions and offset the costs of expansion much faster. “We now have an updated three-year business plan that we can follow and share with investors,” says Vagelis.

Going forward, INTELIQUA is working towards further international expansion and new products. “We are working very closely with the AWS team and within the AWS ecosystem,” says Vagelis. “Competition is high, so being able to execute your plan, penetrate the market, and avoid mistakes is critical.”

As AI technologies continue to evolve and with new growth opportunities on the horizon, the future looks bright for INTELIQUA. “With the support that we get from AWS, we will be able to enter our target market in the first part of 2025,” says Vagelis. “AWS infrastructure gives us a significant competitive advantage because instead of developing everything from scratch, we have a partner that helps us serve the market much faster with ready-made solutions.” Discover how AWS gives software and technology companies the freedom to grow their businesses on their own terms.