Posted by “Customers are looking for specialists in the respective domain. They want to work with companies who have done that, experienced the challenges and have enough case studies to back their expertise,” says BCT’s Ramprasad.
The pandemic crisis has certainly influenced and impacted enterprise customers’ mindset in the way they are engaging with their partners, whether it be on the services side or software product development side.
And this has led to demands for specialist software product makers or tech companies that are more experienced and highly capable of building software products in shorter time frames.
With over two decades of experience in software product development, BlueConch Technologies (BCT) has built over 200 software products and is considered amongst the top software product engineering companies globally.
In this interview, BCT’s President Ramprasad. S. talks to TechHerald.in on how the pandemic has impacted the software product engineering space and the change in enterprise customers’ thought processes, the company’s overall business during the first half 2020 and the recent re-branding exercise. He also discusses on BCT’s business plans including hiring and expansion into new markets and much more.
Edited excerpts…
Q1. What’s the reason behind re-branding Xpanxion International Pvt. Ltd. as BlueConch Technologies? And how much the re-branding will have an impact in terms of overall business?
Ramprasad: Xpanxion was incorporated in 1997 with headquarters in Alpharetta, Georgia – USA. In the year 1998, formed the offshore development centre in India with focus on product development. Xpanxion’s India entity was a spin-off of a global product company that focused on enterprise retail POS solution for major fast-food restaurant chains.
While the India centre was focusing on building next-gen software products, rural centres in the USA continues its focus on delivering an enhanced customer experience through real-time and hi-touch engagement. In 2014 UST Global acquired Xpanxion.
Still, our value proposition and GTM was primarily driven by rural outsourcing. However, we kept on convincing our customers about our stronger product and platform engineering capabilities, through our delivery and product development mindset.
In 2020, each of these GTM strategies have grown strong to justify independent and yet collaborative GTM drivers. We decided to spin off the global products and platform engineering arm as BlueConch Technologies. At BlueConch Technologies (BCT), it is business as usual for us. We had and will continue designing and developing hi-tech and next-gen revenue-generating software products and solutions for our customers.
Q2. BCT is mainly into the software product engineering space and operates in the US. So how has been the company’s business this year, particularly in 1H 2020 amid the pandemic?
Ramprasad: The pandemic has affected almost all the industry pretty badly. We are watchful and assessing the situation very closely. At BlueConch Technologies, we take pride in calling ourselves as a people-first company. Even in this difficult situation, we have not left even a single employee alone. And our employees have also shown faith in us. We are seeing the lowest attrition rate so far in 2020.
From the customers’ standpoint, our relationship is even stronger, apart from building the software products we are now working closely with them in defining the products roadmap for the years 2021 and 2022.
Q3. Given the global pandemic crisis, what sort of demands are you getting from enterprise customers in terms of products development?
Ramprasad: The way we see it, the current pandemic situation have changed the thought process of enterprise customers in engaging with partners. They are looking for specialists in the respective domain. They want to work with companies who have done that, experienced the challenges and have enough case studies to back their expertise.
The expectations have changed from a long PDLC (Product Development Life Cycle ) to shorter milestone-driven development approach. Customers are now taking a partnership-driven approach with the development companies and are demanding for reduced time to market for their products. They now talk about innovation than the traditional approach to developing products.
We at BlueConch Technologies were always considered as the leaders and specialist in software products development space. Our in house developed, agile tools and solutions leveraging disruptive modern technologies and best-in-class hyper-connected, agile work environment have given the extra comfort to our customers. They rely on us and are ready to share a nice experience with the community.
Q4. BCT has built over 200 products over the past decades. So can you brief what kind of these products are predominantly and the industries they serve?
Ramprasad: For 24 plus years we have built more than 200 software products for our customers across different industry verticals. We have helped companies in high-tech, retail, BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing and various other industry verticals. Our products and solutions touch 250 million lives every day.
Due to confidentiality and data privacy rules, we cannot name our customers and their products without their prior approval. We are 100% GDPR compliant and are ISO 27701:2019 certified organisation.
Q5. What’s the customer base and what has been the company’s growth last year compared to this year? And has the COVID-19 crisis impacted or forced the company to change its hiring plans?
Ramprasad: As we mentioned earlier we work with companies in high-tech, retail, BFSI, healthcare, manufacturing and various other industry verticals. From the last couple of years, the growth has been pretty steady for us.
We have added news logos in our portfolio and have extended the relationship with our current customers. We focus on delivering high-quality output along with building a strong relationship with our customers. And that’s why more than 40% of our current customers are with us for 5 plus years.
We have not stopped hiring even in this current COVID-19 crisis. Where most companies are either letting their employees go or cutting down their salaries; we are adding more people at various levels.
We have recently hired fresh engineering graduates from top-notch engineering colleges across India. Our lateral hiring is also showing an upward curve. We are looking for talented senior technology professionals exhibiting strong entrepreneurial spirits, professionalism, teamwork, respect, pride, ownership and stewardship.
Q6. BlueConch Technologies operates mainly in the US but are there any major plans to enter to other markets and set up base outside the US headquarters?
Ramprasad: We have extensive growth plans in the USA and other parts of the globe, especially in the Eastern European countries.