Catching up with Philip Lacor, Vice President of EMEA, Dropbox

There’s been plenty of media interest surrounding Philip Lacor’s hire at Dropbox, magnified by a good amount of discussion on social media channels too. But for the man who’s taken on one of the company’s most senior roles, what’s been his biggest learnings about the cloud so far?

“Without doubt, businesses that are preparing themselves for a connected virtual workplace will be best placed to win” he told us. “From what I’ve seen in the last two months, from the people I speak to, and from our customers too, it’s clear a connected virtual workplace saves time, makes people happier and leads to more productivity. Achieve that, and you’re in a better and stronger position to improve profits.”

We caught up with Philip, who joined Dropbox as Vice President, EMEA. We wanted to understand where he saw the European business going, and what we can expect next:

Why is Dropbox such an exciting company right now?

Everything we do aims to empower, simplify and speed up processes for end users and IT administrators, and frankly, our journey’s only just started. We’ve grown incredibly quickly – especially these last few months, which have seen us win lots of exciting new customers like The United Nations Development Programme, The adidas Group and SSP, The Food Travel Experts in 125 airports and 270 rail stations worldwide. We’ve been doing all of that whilst smashing some big milestones.

Like I say though, there’s plenty more to come, that’s why I’m here. For the business customers, our road map is developing fast, and we’re announcing lots of new exciting features to Dropbox Business. We’re adding features which empower users and put the CIO back in control. In my view Dropbox Business is offering the highest levels of user experience, paired with enterprise control and security.

And, for Dropbox customers, we recently announced an exciting update to Dropbox Paper – now in open beta – to help fast-moving teams collaborate on docs and re-imaging the way people work together.

What is Dropbox doing differently?

We are simplifying the way people work together by keeping things fast and simple; simplicity is in our DNA. For our business customers this simplicity and speed leads to higher adoption.

On the other hand, fundamental to everything we do, is being trustworthy. This is reflected in our Integrated Threat Response (ITR) detector. If you don’t have security and trust engrained in your business, alongside a great user experience, you can never reach the same levels of adoption.

What do you hope to help Dropbox achieve in the next 6-12 months?

I want to accelerate the growth of our channel. We are scaling in EMEA at rapid speed and hope to achieve similar results through partners such as Ingram Micro and Dell. As part of this I want to be personally involved in as many customer and partner relationships as possible. EMEA is an important part of Dropbox Business – 35% of the worldwide customer base is in EMEA, so we have a great platform to build from.

In your eyes, what’s the average workplace going to look like in 5 years’ time?

It’s very hard to predict the future of workplace technology. As a company Dropbox is just eight years old and workplace sharing/collaboration has come on leaps and bounds in this time.

As we move forward, I predict we won’t be talking about isolated workplaces; the virtual workplace will bring people together, with colleagues, agencies and partners sharing, connecting and collaborating. We will all work in a connected virtual workplace.

What is a company that uses the cloud properly able to do?

Companies that use the cloud will simply become more competitive and more adaptive. And being more competitive leads to high growth, better market share and more profitability. Collaboration is the driver, it does a number of things; it simplifies processes, removing ‘clunky-ness’ from the workflow. It increases competiveness, through more innovation and creates an open ecosystem that speeds up processes through real time access. All of that leads to new ideas that help drive business growth and workplace productivity.

What would you say to anyone not utilising the cloud yet?

Why not? What are you waiting for? It’s fast, it’s simple, and with us, it’s secure. Come and talk to us.