Exclusive Interview with Kalpesh Patel – CEO, Solution Analysts

In this exclusive interview, He shared his experiences in IT and several more things. Let’s check his success story and thoughts.

1.Tell Us about yourself how you start your career in the IT Sector?

After having a decade-long experience in the tech domain at various positions, I embarked on an ambitious journey in the IT sector back in 2011 with a focus on taking business automation to the next level.

Today, our dedicated efforts at Solution Analysts have paid off well as the company becomes one of the leading IT solutions providers in the USA and India. In my total experience of over two decades, I have mentored more than 200+ professionals and we have designed IT solutions for more than 300+ clients by using technologies like J2EE, Alfresco, Liferay, Android, iOS, PHP, and other emerging technologies.

2.Tell us in brief about your company and the leadership.

Solution Analysts was established in 2011 as a mobile app development company with a view to providing robust and dependable enterprise-grade IT solutions to the global corporate clientele for bringing automation and transforming complex or mundane processes.

I am happy to mention that to date, we have served over 300+ enterprises globally with 700+ advanced solutions in the domains of custom mobile apps, web apps, eCommerce, digital transformations, and enterprise software development. Ownership and Integrity are the two pillars, we have built our culture. We feel proud when our clients quote us a dependable technology partner.

Talking about leadership, I feel lucky to have a great team of enthusiastic and experienced leaders across different domains.

I personally like to mentor and empower them so as to ensure that they reach their full potential. I am a strong believer in “When you keep your team happy, they automatically ensure that clients are happy”. That’s the mantra that we follow at Solution Analysts and it shows in how we have grown the past decade.

3. What is your outlook for 2021?

One thing is for sure- the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as a catalyst and expedited the pace of bringing digital transformation across various industry sectors worldwide.

Today, every sector has got convinced that digital transformation and automation are not choices but a necessity to survive and thrive in this troubled time. To my mind, the IT industry will benefit to a great extent because of this trend.

The year 2021 will be a great year for all small, mid and large-sized IT businesses to address this upsurge in digital transformation demand. In the last year, when the pandemic was at its peak, the IT industry has shown maximum resilience and flexibility while continuing processes at the same or even better pace. At Solution Analysts, we are very excited to look forward to another exciting year and a new way of executing business.

4. How do you assess the role of research agencies like TopappFirms in bridging the gap between clients and service providers?

These days, tech-savvy clients tend to go through the portfolio, reviews, and other information online before selecting the service provider for their projects.

The Internet acts as a robust source of information, but it is necessary to have a reliable research-based report containing all the details so that clients can get proper information and insights. That’s where TopAppFirms comes into the picture.

Reputed research firms like TopAppFirms can give true and trustworthy information while bridging the gap between clients and service providers.

5. Any particular technology or industry you would be targeting? How do you plan to prepare your workforce for the upcoming technology upgrade?

We have been trendsetters and early adopters of new technology trends and innovative about project execution. To remain relevant and agile even during times like a pandemic and beyond, technology advancements have played a vital role in simplifying complexity and automating processes.

While we may be working remotely, we ensure that enough training and development and research are being done to keep our workforce ready with the requisite skills sets needed for various emerging technologies and digital transformations that industries may demand in the coming time.

For the Post-COVID era, we will focus on AI, ML, IoT and other emerging technologies to build high-end automation solutions. The pandemic has made it absolutely necessary for businesses to transform digitally so that they are able to function flawlessly at low costs.

6. What all services do you think you would add to your offerings in 2021?

At Solution Analysts, we always believe to be master of a few than a jack of all. Digital transformation and business automation are two main segments on which we will continue filling our vision in the year 2021 and beyond.

We may add technological expertise to remain technical abreast. Though we have excellent in-house Cloud/Infrastructure automation skills, we have been utilizing this as a part of our large service umbrella. We are planning to restructure all our offerings to start highlighting our expertise in Cloud along with the digital infrastructure.

This year onward, we are also planning to highlight our IIoT (Industrial IoT) expertise separately. As we announced on our 10th Annual Day, Rejig Digital will remain an IIoT-focused group and we will bring a series of business automation solutions under its name.

7. What are the challenges you see in the outsourcing industry and how much you’re prepared to face those challenges?

The outsourcing industry is thriving, but unfortunately, many service providers still rely on traditional processes while working on the client’s projects.

The clients are confused about selecting the right outsourcing partner amid the growing number of stereotype outsourcing companies. Also, Security has been a growing concern for a lot of clients.

In coming years, as the clients get more cautious about their projects, the outsourcing companies need to address the challenges related to security, processes, relevant technologies that are future-ready and logistical problems like time zone difference, integration of advanced technology, use of cutting-edge tools, and the likes to survive and thrive. Security and transparency will be two major challenges service providers will have to address on priority in the coming years.

8. How helpful are the Web and mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?

At Solution Analysts, we always strive to build robust, dependable tech solutions that help automate businesses in a cost-effective way.

Our mobile apps can give solutions to complex business processes and entrepreneurs can get a higher ROI, thanks to our subject matter expertise, vast execution experience of complex solutions and reduced TTM (Time to Market).

We provide the next-gen mobile app solutions to diverse industry sectors like healthcare, farming, fintech, etc. We integrate the advancements of futuristic technologies like IoT, AR-VR, ML and a lot more; making feature-rich mobile apps that can help our clients take their business to the next level.

Recently, we have made an app for a leading name in the global BFSI sector. This mobile app is not just a traditional transaction-based app.

It offers a plethora of relevant and interesting information to app users. It helps our client to establish and strengthen the brand while increasing its authority in the BFSI sector at a national and international level. We helped our client to convert banking into a lifestyle platform.

eNetra is another good example, I can take. While working for large scale enterprises to automate their business operations, we helped eNetra in their social cause and helped them build an app which works as an electronic eye for blind and visually impaired.

I can give many examples of the digital transformations that have brought revolutionary changes in the client’s business as our experienced developers have worked on diverse solutions across different industry sectors.

9. What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?

Since inception, we give ownership and integrity a top priority to maintain the client’s trust. At Solution Analysts, we never compromise on quality and app performance while meeting the deadlines.

Also, we communicate with the clients at every stage of the development process. Our client’s feedback is necessary for us to make a successful business app. From conceptualization to deployment and maintenance to marketing of the client’s digital platform, we take care of every detail to earn the client’s satisfaction.

Our transparent processes help us to retain our clients. I am very proud to share that my first customer and my first employee are still associated with us.

10. Tell us about your successful project?

In our exciting journey of over a decade, we have developed over 700+ mobile-centric digital platforms for the global corporate clientele.

While we have made many innovative and outstanding solutions to date, I would like to mention my favourite ones Habari by GTBank, Ally by Rejig Digital and eNetra from the array of best apps. [We have case studies of each of these projects published on our website in detail: https://www.solutionanalysts.com/portfolio/]

11. How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for Web development?

Web development is thriving with evolving technologies. Today, we have many platforms available thanks to technological advancements.

Our experienced web developers remain updated to the latest development trends for building web apps, and our team of business consultants stays in touch with the market trends. When the client comes with the project requirements, our professionals do extensive research in the first place.

Our team also considers factors like geography, target audience, a long-term roadmap of technologies, time-to-market, ROI, security, performance and other factors.

We also go through the business insights and needs provided by the clients. All these considerations enable us to assist our clients in selecting the most suitable and profitable web development platform.

12. What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in 2021 after COVID 19?

Since its inception in 2011, we have been working with many corporate clients across different industrial sectors ranging from start-ups to large-scale enterprises.

We judge relationships based on innovation and contribute to the client’s leadership capabilities and overall success. Our client becomes our brand ambassador over the period. Therefore, we don’t mind starting small and slow with a client.

We are certain that the client’s lifetime value would be multi-folded than the start value. We have high confidence in the quality of our services and delivery. We are sure that once the client works with us, they will continue business with us, so we don’t mind starting a business as low as USD 15,000 or so.

13. Please describe the operational structure of your company- from the moment a client walks in, to the product deployment.

Well, this is an interesting question. I would like to explain its answer in detail.

We have a systematic, well-defined, and client-centric process to follow from the moment a client walks into the product deployment. At every stage of the process, we have kept our clients’ perspective and expectations in mind.

Once the client walks in, our technical relationship manager asks about the purpose, vision, background, etc. to know what they want to do with the advanced IT solution.

We know this stage as information gathering. Once all the details about the client and the project are collected, the relationship manager passes it to our experienced business analysts. They do market research, find out similar solutions, and innovatively define what the client is looking at before coming up with a draft visualization about how the solution should look like.

We can say it is a scope of work or a business requirement document or wireframe or a design of what the client is looking at. Once this document or wireframe gets ready, we share it with the client. Mostly, clients are very clear about their requirements and objectives, so this process lasts for a week’s time. However, at times, it can stretch up to a month.

If it takes a month’s time, we allocate a technical relationship manager or analyst, a business analyst, and a designer to the client in a discovery workshop.

This is a kind of brainstorming workshop in which a series of visualizations takes place to understand how the digital transformation or automation looks like, what ROIs and KPIs of the app or solution should be defined, and how the client can make the most from technological advancements.

All the information gathered during these sessions are captured and then we ask clients to approve it before initiating the next phase called execution.

After getting the approval, we opt for either a ballpark estimate or a detailed estimate depending on the clarity we have. Once we reach an agreement or make a kind of series of discussion between our customer relationship managers and clients to make a final agreement, we kickstart the iterative process under the execution model.

At Solution Analysts, we have predefined, sophisticated, and flexible hiring models like the team augmentation model and fixed cost model. Usually, we suggest our esteemed clients go for an elite stage of processing, a team augmentation model.

It facilitates our clients to start their consumer onboarding process, marketing campaign, etc. together with the development. Here, clients can have the advantage of stop investment as well. The fixed cost model is useful with the complete clarity available from all aspects of the project.

After selecting the model, our delivery team starts working on the project and defines the timeline for various delivery milestones. After performing a series of tasks and subtasks, we usually meet all the deadlines and at times, even accomplish the project before the deadline.

Once the app solution is ready, we perform SonarQube analysis for code auditing and ensuring code security. We also perform manual and automated code review for ensuring a high quality of code.

Finally, we go for production deployment and follow the predefined checklist. We have an in-house DevOps team to check the capability of the cloud servers and optimize cost and features while keeping the security of the product at the core.

The DevOps team assists developers to deploy the code into the production environment and our QA team starts regression and smoke testing before the final release.

We offer free support for fixed durations depending on the project size and complexity. Our paid support is available on a 24/7 basis and involves various teams as necessary.

One of our teams remains in touch with the clients for customer experience, A/B testing, and to define what is working and what is not working.

Our clients can give wings to their branding and product promotion effort through our in-house marketing team.

Our marketing team builds campaigns from scratch and executes them in line with the execution process. We ensure that the client’s brand voice remains more user-centric and fine-tuned to what clients are looking at every time.

14. After service is a necessary part of development. How do you provide customer support to your client?

After service is indeed the most important aspect for the clients. For an IT company, after service can make a difference as it has a direct impact on the company’s reputation. We provide complete technical assistance during and after the development phase.

Though after service is considered as an additional service and clients have paid for the same, many IT companies tend to ignore their clients after delivering apps. We, at Solution Analysts, have never opted for such practice since inception.

Our 24/7 support can be extended after the delivery phase up to the entire lifecycle of the client's project. This is the time, our clients need us the most to support when their consumers are to be taken care of at the topmost priorities. We provide various options to our clients to choose from based on their business criticality and business hours.

15. Android or iOS, Native or Hybrid — which platform is best to use to build your app? What are your recommendations?

This is a bit of a tricky question. These days, advancing technologies have made the development process quicker and enterprise-friendly.

Whether it is Android or iOS, native or hybrid – Flutter, React Native, Ionic, Mobile Angular UI, Xamarin etc, choice of app development platform depends on various factors including user experience, business use case, maintenance, geographies, target audience and budget.

With the latest technological advancement, the user experience difference between hybrid and native is becoming more and more narrower. A single code base is always a very convenient approach to the long term maintenance and enhancement of digital platforms.

At the same time, native experience is becoming more and more advanced. As a rule of thumb, For business applications/utility applications that are not mobile device process-intensive, Hybrid is a default choice. Business use cases overwrite all rules though and that becomes the major deciding factor for technology selection.