5 October, 2025
Organisation: AIMMS | Industry: Software development | Customer with IT Local since: 2019 | Number of users IT environment, worldwide: 71
AIMMS helps leading companies around the world make better decisions in complex situations. It does so with intelligent products, software that involves a lot of mathematics. As Chief Product Officer, Jan-Willem van Crevel is mainly concerned with the strategy and further development of those products, but within AIMMS he is also in charge of the internal IT. The day-to-day execution of this lies with IT manager Frank. Since 2019, IT Local has been providing IT support at those times when needed, for instance during Frank's holidays or when additional expertise is requested. IT Local also takes care of backups and restore tests. Jan-Willem is very satisfied with the cooperation: "It gives me a lot of peace of mind that there is a good party we can fall back on and who solves things when necessary."
Highlights
Peace of mind on internal IT management through valuable support in the form of additional IT expertise and capacity
Worry-free holidays for IT administrator thanks to expert observation of operations
Assurance of quick access to data in case of data loss by providing Microsoft 365 backups and monthly restore testing
ISO 27001 certification achieved, thanks in part to restore testing and additional IT environment improvements
AIMMS provides intelligent software that helps organisations make better decisions in complex situations. Its mathematical models help planners, analysts and business teams who regularly have to make choices with many variables, rules and uncertainties, especially in supply chain, manufacturing, energy and services. AIMMS works worldwide for high-profile clients such as Heineken, ASML, DHL and HP. Of its 70-plus employees, most work at its headquarters in Haarlem, the Netherlands; about 20% work abroad. Since June, AIMMS has been part of Danish investor GRO.
Jan-Willem van Crevel is responsible for the product and cloud platform for customers within AIMMS as Chief Product Officer. He is also Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) and is in charge of internal IT.
Jan-Willem: "In the almost thirteen years I have been working at AIMMS now, the organisation has grown considerably and my portfolio has also changed. Because we serve customers all over the world, except Antarctica, I speak to people in all kinds of countries around the world almost every day. This morning Australia and the next call could just be in Brazil. Our clients are almost all Fortune 500 companies, such as Heineken, Akzo Nobel and Philips. When we go for a partner meeting, it's always a bit of a puzzle with all those time zones."
"A lot of maths, a lot of physics"
Before his AIMMS period, Jan-Willem was with another SAAS company, in marketing automation: "I founded that with some other people. I have an engineering background; a lot of maths, a lot of physics."
Making better decisions using maths
"Maths also drives our product, which is quite difficult to explain properly. The short version: thanks to our products, people can use maths to make better decisions in very complex situations, in situations where you have to weigh up a lot of factors and your head just can't handle it. Actually, we have two products. SC Navigator is an off-the-shelf product that gives you as a company insight into what your supply chain network should ideally look like and how you then leverage it. You can imagine that if you have a few thousand products, a few thousand customers, ten factories and ten distribution centres, you get so many options that software can really help you. The other product is a software product that allows you as a company to build your own custom applications. That could be anything. For example, Transavia has an application with our software to classify their crews on planes as smartly as possible."
IT Local: backstop for internal IT
The internal IT, which is where IT Local comes in, Jan-Willem considers a side job: "To put it in perspective: our Azure account for the cloud platform is of a completely different order, a factor of 20, than the amount we spend on internal IT. But of course that internal IT is important. My main interest is not to worry about it, because we are a product company that relies on product innovation and that takes up a lot of time. That is why we brought IT Local (then Clevir) on board at the time."
"It gives me a lot of peace of mind that there is a good party we can fall back on and fix things when needed"
Peace of mind... that's worth a lot
Jan-Willem wanted to have a backstop for the Microsoft 365 piece, but was also looking for an IT partner who really knows about Microsoft 365. A party that knows them and can get into the systems. Jan-Willem: "We employ one IT administrator ourselves, Frank. If he encounters issues that are too complex for him or for which he needs support, it is nice to be able to call on external knowledge and expertise. We don't buy a huge package of services from IT Local, but it gives me peace of mind that we have a good party we can fall back on and that solves things when necessary. A very concrete example: last week we had a suspected breach, then our ISO called IT Local to ask: can you investigate whether there is indeed an intruder and if so whether they have had anything to grab? Then it's nice that this is picked up immediately. To look for a supplier at such a time... that is very difficult."
"From day one, I felt the confidence"
In 2019, Jan-Willem had exploratory discussions with some other IT companies in addition to IT Local: "I was looking for a party that suited us and it had to be a small party. Nice and hands-on and dedicated... that solves something first and only later looks at SLAs and other things you can argue about. IT Local I trusted in that area from day one and I noticed that Remko and Pierre, my interlocutors at the time, wanted to work together with the perspective of a long-term relationship, just like me.
That also means being a good partner, because you get the service you deserve. I always wish our partners a well-stocked sandwich and nothing but success and that's because I don't want to look for new suppliers every year, a waste of time."
Support, Microsoft licences, backups and restore tests
As indicated, IT Local helps AIMMS in supporting their internal IT. Jan-Willem: "When Frank is on holiday, IT Local takes over his work and acts as Service Desk. He can then leave with peace of mind." Fully outsourcing internal IT is not something Jan-Willem sees: "That's because I have no experience of fully outsourcing workplace management. Then if someone needs a laptop or the printer doesn't work, does anyone get in the car? I just don't know and then it's quite handy that Frank is here. It's also nice that he can knock on IT Local's door if he doesn't know something or just wants to spar. A good example is the roll-out of the workstations in Intune. IT Local set this up at the time and prepared a few devices. Frank then picked it up further."
"Frank can go on holiday with peace of mind"
The services AIMMS purchases from IT Local go beyond support. IT Local also arranges the Microsoft licences, provides daily backups and quarterly restore tests. Jan-Willem: "Those backups are our ransomware-attack protection. Microsoft 365 does contain back-ups, but if someone ever breaks into the tenant, encrypts data and demands a ransom, there is a fallback, the back-up we have made every 24 hours via IT Local. And if you have backups done, you also have to do restore tests to make sure you can restore the data if necessary. You'll just see that if you have to use a backup you turn out to be missing something. I don't want to have to say to a customer: terribly annoying, but we thought we had good working backups. You can't come up with that, especially with the kind of customers we work with."
"We don't do ISO for that sticker on the door"
The importance of good information security
"Restore tests were also important in proving our ISO 27001 certification. IT Local contributed to obtaining our certification by organising and conducting those tests, but in the early days of our collaboration also by tightening up the internal IT environment. Incidentally, we are not ISO-certified because of that sticker on the door, but because we feel the responsibility and want information security to be well organised. Our customers store the data with us and they want things in order. If things ever went wrong... that could become very serious, especially with US companies that could mean the end of your business. Because we take information security seriously, we are now also going for SOC 2 certification."
Silent and highly enjoyable collaboration
Jan-Willem is pleased with the cooperation with IT Local. "It runs silently I would say. Don't worry about it: it works, it runs, IT Local does its thing and every now and then, once a quarter, we check whether everything is running smoothly and whether there are any projects. If something needs to be done, we shoot a ticket and it's taken care of."
"I don't have to worry about it: it works, it runs..."
"I definitely also feel that Frank trusts IT Local and that the cooperation with Pierre, whom he mainly works with, runs smoothly. Frank is someone who is very down-to-earth and mainly on the substance: he checks whether the IT Local people do what they promise and whether they help him when he needs them. If we haven't received the quarterly disaster recovery test, that's what it's about.
We don't end up selling a product anymore thanks to IT Local, but if our employees can do their jobs here because the IT is perfectly organised and money is not constantly being stolen because information security is not right, then I am very satisfied."
How can we help your organisation further?
Has this case inspired you and do you see links to IT challenges facing your organisation? Then give us a call or send us an e-mail! We will be happy to free up some time to see how we can help you further.