Nextbitt bets on sustainability to become an international benchmark in five years

A Portuguese technology company specializing in the management of physical assets, created in 2015, its ambition is to attract more and more international projects, based on a growing focus on sustainable management criteria.

Companies' physical assets - such as buildings and all the equipment installed in them (including fleet maintenance) - are associated with contracts that "generate millions", representing "transversal costs" that can reach up to 40% of an organization's total costs. Professional management of these assets can therefore mean process optimization, cost control, productivity gains and better results. This is the idea that Miguel Salgueiro, founder partner and chief business officer of NextBITT, tells Dinheiro Vivo, indicating that greater efficiency in the management of physical assets leads to a reduction in the carbon footprint and thus greater sustainability gains for companies.

NextBITT is a Portuguese technology company specializing in the management and optimization of physical assets , operating in the areas of asset management, facility management, field service, Internet of Things and sustainability. The first three pillars represent the company's focus areas, while the fourth pillar is a consequence of the potential of the management platform developed by NextBITT. The sustainability pillar, meanwhile, is the goal of all the digitalization work carried out in the management of physical assets, according to Salgueiro, to "make environmental management in companies effective, greatly reducing the carbon footprint". Sustainability is the current focus of NextBITT which, with this commitment, aims to become an international benchmark within five years.

Sustainability is "a big focus", so through the environmental, social and governance (ESG) management criteria, the manager of the Portuguese technology company wants to "offer a safe, effective and easy-to-use solution in an increasingly competitive market".

"Up until now, the heritage stage hasn't been given enough prominence in organizations. Now we have technology. And why is it important to inventory buildings? To know exactly what your building is worth. When assets are sold, one of the analyses made is the type of intervention the buildings have undergone. You have to know who is inside, what is being spent on, where and when. Then we have the capacity to integrate everything into a single platform. We're talking about something that today allows us to know everything that's going on in a building or warehouse, due to the increased digitalization of organizations, which allows us to have a reliable history, updated on a daily basis. There's a platform that gathers all the organization's information, the results of which help make decisions on whether or not to act," explains the NextBITT manager.

How have the last few years been for Nextbitt?

Nextbitt's operation has been positive, according to Miguel Salgueiro, and the years of the pandemic have generated more opportunities, due to the growing digitalization of organizations, which has ended up accelerating the business. "We grew by more than 50% in 2020 and 2021," he notes, stressing that they have "always recorded double-digit EBITDA [earnings before taxes, interest, depreciation and amortization]". "The business pays for itself," says the manager.

Last year, turnover reached three million euros, a year-on-year increase of 60%. This proves that Nextbitt has "more than doubled its turnover in covid times", according to the founder partner. "The solidification of the projects," replies Miguel Salgueiro.

"Growth has been achieved by consolidating existing business areas and strengthening our international presence," he adds, noting that changes in the"mindset " of companies have helped. It has changed not only because of the need for digitalization, but also because of greater commitment to sustainability. And that's where Miguel Salgueiro's plans for the coming years come in.

"It's not easy to make predictions," he says, noting that the impact of the war in Ukraine makes any estimates even more complex. Even so, he reveals that the company, "from a conservative point of view", had in February anticipated a 30% growth in turnover by 2022.

In the medium term, the outlook is broader, with the manager betting on "growth of well over 50% in the next five years", based on the "confidence of players who saw Nextbitt as an asset".

According to Miguel Salgueiro, this confidence has been reinforced by the technology company's commitment to the sustainability pillar. "Betting on ESG allows us to aspire to be a major international reference," he says, indicating that there will be news in the "next two months".

The reported growth "has been achieved by consolidating existing business areas and strengthening our international presence. In fact, with a greater focus on sustainability, Nextbitt's "main priority" is internationalization. The focus on internationalization is based on the development of projects in Spain, the USA, Angola, South Africa and Brazil, according to the manager.

But this ambition will not involve opening offices in other countries. The operation is global from the outset, with the company providing services to "any geography" from Portugal. In other words, the focus on internationalization is on winning projects in other markets. The manager guarantees that the technology company has already developed more than 40 projects, both nationally and internationally. The aim now is to win more.

Created in 2015, Nextbitt is now also a reference partner for Microsoft and Altice. The Portuguese technology company currently has 40 employees and expects to exceed 50 by the end of 2022.

Source: Dinheiro Vivo