This year marks a significant milestone for Chrisons Technologies, which celebrates two decades of continuous growth and innovation in the fields of cloud solutions, cybersecurity, and communications.
Technical Director Kyriakos Aristodimou reflects on the company’s landmark moments—key dates and achievements that have firmly positioned Chrisons among the leaders of the Cypriot technology market.
With heartfelt emotion, he recounts the journey he and his brother Aris began in 2005 when they decided to build the company from the ground up. He speaks about their return from the United Kingdom to Cyprus, the challenges they faced, and the strategic choices that shaped the company’s identity. Most importantly, he explains how Chrisons has consistently stayed ahead of evolving customer needs, overcoming obstacles and embracing technological advances to deliver reliable, future-proof solutions.
This year you celebrate 20 years in the technology sector. How does it feel to see Chrisons reach two decades of continuous growth, especially at a time when AI dominates every field?
I feel extremely proud to have built this company, alongside my brother, Ari, from the ground up. Growing from zero to a team of over 30 people over the course of 20 years, establishing ourselves as market leaders in Cloud Technologies, Networking, Telephony and Security with specialist teams has been our life’s work.
All the same, I can’t help but feel as if I’m still running a startup! In the tech sector, the landscape is constantly evolving and at a rapid pace. We never stop learning and we can’t afford to be complacent in our field. We must remain flexible, so we can adapt to new trends and overcome challenges. We’re constantly educating ourselves, assessing, optimizing and collaborating both internally and with our clients to ensure we’re always delivering the most up to date, secure and compliant technologies to meet their digital transformation goals.
With AI becoming increasingly mainstream, it has become essential for both our company and our customers to identify the most effective ways to leverage these technologies to accelerate digital transformation. In doing so, we create not only unique customer experiences but also streamlined and improved operational processes across organizations
What were the biggest milestones of this 20-year journey—those that shaped the company’s identity and direction?
Moving from the UK back to Cyprus to officially begin operations in 2005 and becoming one of the first wireless networking providers in Cyprus. Our first partnerships with local Telcos and welcoming our first team members, some of whom are still with us today.
Expanding from networking to providing IT Services was our next big step towards becoming the leading CSP we are today. Opening our first office in Limassol, winning our first Cablenet award and joining the Microsoft partner network. Growing our team yet again and moving to a much larger space, combined with a focus on cloud services and then winning our first of three Microsoft Partner of the Year Awards for Cyprus. Drawing nearer to the present, we reduced our partner ecosystem, created specialized teams around each area of expertise we offer, expanded our team and upsized office, and began to host our first industry webinars and events. Very recently we successfully executed a major overhaul of our internal processes and systems, and began to invest more in marketing and business development.
Since 2005, how has the mission and vision of Chrisons evolved? What has remained unchanged, and what has transformed significantly;
Well, we started off as a niche player in wireless networking and have since diversified into IT services, specializing in supporting companies migrating from on-premises to cloud, hybrid cloud and multi-cloud environments.
We remain steadfast, however, in our mission to offer innovative, secure solutions and a high level of customer support.
Our operations and scope have shifted and evolved hugely as we scaled with purpose and intent. We went from offering general IT services, deployed by general IT engineers, like all local ICT companies, to supporting the growth and expertise of our team, and welcoming highly qualified new additions to create dedicated, focused teams with a high level of knowledge and experience in their domain.
From covering only computers, servers, and networking, we now predominantly offer cloud services, security, compliance, and business applications. From partnering with 20 plus vendors, to now specializing in solutions from 2 key vendors, alongside complimentary solutions by a selection of vendors who are specialist partners in areas which we do not cover in-house. Our valued partnerships and highly-skilled team enable us to offer a one-stop shop solution to organizations of all sizes and industries.
When and how did Chrisons begin integrating Artificial Intelligence into its services?
Although the hype around AI has only just begun, the global vendors we partner with have been shipping products with AI capabilities for several years now. While we too have recently accelerated our own AI adoption internally, largely through the use of Copilot, I still feel It’s important to distinguish between the hype and how AI can truly help your organization.
How do you tailor your products, solutions, and services based on industry and company size, given that customer needs vary? How do you ensure you meet each client’s requirements effectively?
The majority of our services do not vary by industry. Everyone needs identity management, endpoint management, Email, document management, servers on which to run business applications, security, compliance, case management, CRM, and more. We are responsible for tailoring and aligning solutions to meet the goals and needs of our clients as they scale and grow, and our experience across verticals helps us design the best plan for each of our clients.
Chrisons is known for its deep specialization in cloud and IT security. Which technologies or solutions are currently most in demand among your clients?
The major focus, lately, has been around compliance with new EU regulations such as NIS and DORA. As a result, these are the areas we’ve experienced the most demand in. With regards to products and services designed to meet these needs, Defender and Purview from Microsoft and Secure Networking and SASE from Fortinet stand out as the most complete in securing an organization’s digital landscape. I shouldn’t fail to mention here, that these products are award winners many times over, with Microsoft Purview having been recognized for its DLP capabilities, while Fortinet is widely regarded as the best security vendor worldwide, so we feel incredibly proud and confident in the solutions we are certified to implement and the vendors we partner with.
Who were the strategic partners that supported you along the way, and how do they shape the value you offer today?
Our most strategic partners are Microsoft and Fortinet. Both have helped shape Chrisons through partner and business development strategy alignment and support.
How have you invested in your people over the years? What philosophy guides your team, and how does it contribute to Chrisons’ success;
Education, Education, Education! All team members are encouraged and supported to achieve their personal and professional career goals through continued education, training, and skilling - all funded by Chrisons. We want every individual on our team to maximize their potential and to continue to feel empowered as they specialize in their current role, transition into a new one or enhance their expertise. We will continue to invest in our team by organizing internal and external training sessions and events organized by vendors and other industry experts as well as incentivizing the personalized learning and certifications objectives and plan created for each employee.
How important are marketing and events, such as the Cloud Tech Expo—in shaping your presence and relationship with the market?
We feel great pride in our events, and they mark a special occasion in our calendar each year, as an opportunity to connect with new and existing clients and markets. It’s very important to us to deliver inspiring and thought-provoking sessions and to hear the feedback of our guests first-hand. Our events also present an ideal platform through which our engineers can take the stage and showcase the products and services as they know them best. We love working together to bring each event to life and step away from the screen for a day and into a booth, meeting lounge or panel. Direct contact with clients is a vital aspect of a healthy, enduring business relationship and our events facilitate that. Moreover, our events have set us apart as thought leaders and excellent brand ambassadors for our vendors in the eyes of the local tech community.
What has the Cypriot market taught you over these 20 years? What are the main challenges businesses face in IT today?
Even though we’re probably one of the few local ICT companies to boast specialist teams, the scale of operations in Cyprus has prevented us from achieving our ultimate goal of deeper specialization, and this has been a major challenge of late. As our team continues to grow, however, and with the help of AI, we finally feel we are beginning to inch closer to this goal.
With regards to the local market at large, in my experience, Cypriot-owned and run SMBs’ major obstacle is their lack of awareness and true understanding of ICT and cyber security. Many still feel safer having a server in the office with minimal investment in security and cloud adoption or infrastructure. Lack of trust is a pain point I've identified time and again. They do not understand that in reality, cloud technologies enhance security. They are also missing the point that innovation is now happening in the cloud and as such, slow adoption or lack thereof, is keeping them from improving user and customer experience and missing out on potential new revenue streams.
What should we expect from Chrisons in the future? What is the next major step or vision for the next decade?
We are currently halfway through our big internal digital transformation journey, which involves the standardization of all our operations on Dynamics 365 and integrating AI in our daily operations. While this exciting process is underway, we are also making plans to expand our operations beyond Cyprus.
