SMA Solutions, a provider of IT automation and business analysis tools for data centers, announced some key 2014 milestones and an aggressive 2015 growth target.

Michael Taylor, the company's founder/CEO, said, “2014 represented an important step forward in what we do at SMA, which is offering real business solutions to customers in a wide range of verticals around the world.”

A major role in this effort was the introduction of the company's first new product in 20 years, SMA Ascern, a business-intelligence tool that performs real-time monitoring, trending, forecasting and analytics.

Originally launched to U.S. financial institutions, Taylor said SMA Solutions' 2015 emphasis is the introduction of Ascern across the Kingwood, Texas-based company's entire customer base.

In addition, SMA Solutions saw significant success in 2014 with OpCon, its flagship enterprise automation solution. According to Taylor, for the fourth consecutive year, the company added more than 60 new OpCon customers and grew in excess of 12%.

Some 200 entities in the credit union space license OpCon. A handful of clients are CUSOs including Synergent, a subsidiary of the Maine Credit Union League, which runs a Symitar Episys service bureau that uses OpCon in its data center.

SMA Solutions also hopes to repeat its success in 2014 in the European IBM market, especially in the insurance, investment, and fashion industries, in the U.S.

“Our target for 2015 is 15% growth,” Taylor said. “I'm confident that our U.S. market presence will remain strong, and [we] anticipate important contributions from our Milan and Netherlands offices, as well as emerging business in Australia and New Zealand.”

However, SMA Solutions does not want to sacrifice service to achieve growth.

“We do offer the best service in the industry. I intend to keep it that way,” Taylor said.