OBI4wan and HowAboutYou continue together

HowAboutYou has been one of the most important sales and implementation partners of OBI4wan’s software solutions for 9 years. HowAboutYou, as market leader, now serves 440 governmental clients and other organizations in the public domain with the tools of OBI4wan: online media monitoring, webcare, publishing, live chat and chatbots. The customer base includes 270 Dutch municipalities, the majority of the Dutch safety regions, provinces and housing corporations. The company furthermore serves over 40 customers in Belgium. OBI4wan itself serves a broad international customer portfolio within the commercial sector and sees good opportunities to further expand its product- and services offering in the public sector through the acquisition of HowAboutYou.

Charly Zwemstra, Managing Partner at MAIN Capital Partners, explains: “The strategic combination of OBI4wan and HowAboutYou is a logical next step in the collaboration between the two companies. We expect that the further automation of customer contact will become a key focus point of (semi-) governments. Through the acquisition of HowAboutYou, OBI4wan can respond even better to this development and OBI4wan as a company is taking a new strategic step. Moreover, the municipal market is becoming increasingly important in society”.

“Maybe we should have done this much earlier,” states Frank Bruijninckx, director of HowAboutYou. “In the conversations of the past few weeks it has become perfectly clear what is to be won by bringing the two teams together. HowAboutYou was already directly involved in the development of OBI4wan, however combining the companies in one organization is much more efficient. This is valuable to our customers, enabling us to fulfill customer demand even faster and better. The good remains: our extreme customer focus, excellent service and support, with knowledge of the public domain. We will keep the name HowAboutYou for the time being and I am going to lead the company myself and will become a co-owner. ”

Alexander de Ruiter, CEO of OBI4wan, adds: “The merger is the culmination of 9 years of successful cooperation within a fantastic market, in which we have built up a good position in the public market. In those years we have worked hard on our customer base and our platforms. Bringing it together now will lead to even more customer focus and more efficient processes towards customers and clients. We look forward to continuing to work together to optimally serve these customers and clients ”.

Both organizations will be integrated in the coming period, with excellent customer service as the starting point.