Olimpia IT leverages Microsoft Azure to make people's day-to-day lives easier

Olimpia IT is a technology company that develops platforms and businesses for the transformation and digital protection of Colombia. Through digital solutions, the Colombian organization allows it to move the procedures, services, and applications carried out in person to the digital world, avoiding fraud and impersonation risks.

As a company that offers solutions for people's daily needs, Olimpia IT needed technology tools that allowed it to quickly respond to the changing environment. "All digital solutions have a challenge: achieving rapid scalability and flexibility in the short term," says Aura Santisteban, Chief Product Officer for Olimpia IT.

Azure: speed and flexibility

Until 2020, Olimpia IT maintained all of its infrastructure on-premises. By handling high volumes of information within regulatory frameworks, and with the premise of delivering solutions and updates quickly, the company decided to start looking for technology alternatives that would allow it to meet its objectives.

"As a result of the pandemic, we began to notice an acceleration in the use of our solutions, making it difficult for us to manage scalability and respond to demands," explains Sergio Acuña, Digital Identity and E-Signature Product Director. "As we began exploring Microsoft Azure technology, we realized that with it we were able to have faster product development and greater flexibility to adapt to what each solution required," adds Santisteban.

Azure is a cloud computing platform that provides a large number of services. For the development and operation of its solutions, Olimpia IT makes use of different features such as Azure Logic Apps, which provides API connectors managed by Microsoft and integrated operations in order to connect and integrate applications, data, services, and systems easily and quickly. The company also uses Azure Functions, which makes it possible to write less code, maintain less infrastructure, and save costs.

They also use Azure App Service, an HTTP-based service to host web applications, REST APIs, and mobile back-ends; SQL Database as a database to ensure high availability, common backups and maintenance operations; and Azure Active Directory B2C to securely manage access to Azure services and resources, among others.

Digital solutions to positively impact users' quality of life

Olimpia IT has created different solutions that make it easy for citizens to make their day-to-day lives easier. One is "My Signature," an application that allows deals, agreements, and businesses to be closed quickly, streamlining document management, signatures, and administration in one place, and which is integrated with Microsoft 365. Through "My Signature," the company carries out the execution of agreements with full legal validity through digital environments.

Another application is the "Electronic Payroll," which came about as an add-on to the electronic invoicing solution. Through this tool, businesses can transmit their invoices and payroll digitally and securely in compliance with applicable regulations. 

The Colombian company's portfolio of solutions is also quite diverse. In addition to those mentioned previously, Olimpia IT also offers an application called "My Video," whose objective is to attract the attention of users and clients by sending interactive communication through personalized videos. "What we are looking for there is to lighten the workload and operational burdens that organizations have in terms of building customer loyalty, improving indicators, and increasing conversion and effectiveness," explains Santisteban.

They are also working on a solution that will allow for the digital signing of promissory notes in a digital credit ecosystem. Olimpia's mission is to positively impact citizens' everyday lives. "Today we have more than 18 million Colombians in our databases," adds Federico Vergara, Software Architect at Olimpia IT.

Turning technology into solutions

"Our goal is to create innovative solutions,” says Santisteban. “Technology is our input, and beyond making use of it, the challenge is to turn it into a solution.”

Vergara concludes that "the technology that has enabled us to get to know and deploy Microsoft has been a source of support. In the near future, we will add biometrics, data analytics, and data science to deliver competitive advantages to the market."