Interview with Abhishek Tarafder, General Manager - Matrix Media Solutions (P) Ltd

Give us a quick overview on Matrix Media Solutions. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?
Matrix Media Solutions is a professional Web and Mobile apps development company based in Kolkata, India. We provide technical consultancy and offshore development services to our clients worldwide. Our primary focus lies on the demands of our clients, as our skilled in-house resources strive to deliver services with 100% customer satisfaction.

I joined the Matrix Media Team in its nascent stages in a 25-seater office catering to primarily web-based services at that time. With the years, we became more focused on our offerings and built our app development team taking our customer feedback and needs in mind. In the online space, most of our customers didn’t get the same level of service which they were used to and wanted us to be an umbrella provider so that they didn’t have to go anywhere else. From its nascent days, we have always tried to provide quality products at a very competitive price which have helped us stand out in the crowd.

What is your role in the management and development of Matrix Media Solutions?
Entrusted with a leadership role, I responsibly look into day to day operations of Matrix Media Solutions. As we grew our team through the years, I have been instrumental in various roles of Project Management & Planning, Resource Acquisition & Allocation, along with assisting the Quality Assurance Team and also providing pivotal support to the Business Development Team. 

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry
The software industry has, in the past decade, seen the bubble rise and burst on at-least 2-3 occasions. The biggest achievement of the entire Matrix Team has been demonstrating a constant growth curve even in those years. With quality service line and a huge number of happy customers, we have been able to scale our team of barely 15 members, to over ten times into a group of 150+ professionals who still work with the same integrity and client satisfaction motto as during our initial days.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?
At Matrix Media, we give special importance to the planning phase of the project. Our most experienced resources spend a lot of time in the brainstorming sessions to precisely define each and every aspect of the current phase of the project. The initial designs and looks of the apps are then decided and, once the same is confirmed, we break up the tasks into various milestones. Our team strives to achieve these milestones and, before periodic deliveries are rolled out to our clients for review and feedback, the Quality Assurance Team ensures the project parameters are never compromised. With realistic timelines being proposed right at the start and ensuring proper task calendaring, our Project Managers ensure the timelines are strictly adhered to, causing no inconvenience to our esteemed clients.

How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?
At Matrix Media, we always keep a long term relationship with our clients into account and never suggest solutions that may profit us. With our experience of serving clients worldwide, we tend to get the hang of what works best for our clients. We share our views with them, letting them know what our approach would be if it was our own product, what technologies we would have preferred, how we would position the product and how we would approach it. A successful production can never happen if the client and their technical partners don’t work in tandem. The Matrix Media Team is just an extension wing to our clients who can rely on us to take things forward in the right direction.

Which would you suggest for a successful and profitable business progression, Native or hybrid apps? How do you define the factors that influenced you to make this choice?
If the purse permits, we always suggest the native apps as it scores high on the two most vital aspects from app users’ perspective: User experience & Performance. In today’s world, with the availability of so many apps, you have to ensure the end user expectations are being met else it will go off the phone as fast as it had been downloaded.
User experience is very important for mobile apps. You will never get a second chance to make the first impression and with the native apps, the end customers are treated as first-class citizens.
On the performance part, hybrid applications are gaining ground but they still fall short compared to their native counterparts. Native apps directly communicate with the device hardware and, usually, all the static content is downloaded once the app is installed enabling it to give its users the much-needed leap forward.
However, there can be scenarios where timelines and cost of the product plays a pivotal role as we choose the right step forward. In such cases, the choice of Hybrid apps does make sense and gives the client the required edge.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?
The pricing model in Matrix Media is very simple. Every technology and resource complexity has fixed hourly rates. The planning and timeline estimation, done in the initial phase, help us judge the project phase pricing. The payments are associated with delivery milestones, ensuring our clients are always in the loop and know what they are paying for after achieving the desired results.
For long ongoing projects, we also offer outsource resource hiring models which allows our clients to virtually have their own dedicated employees working under our payroll. The headache of recruiting the right resources and maintaining all HR tasks are directly taken care of by us and all our client needs to worry about is the monthly cost. Again, this cost is significantly lower than what they would otherwise be spending in their own country or even in the hourly model, using the entire 160 hours of a month for that employee.

How helpful are the mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?
As mentioned earlier, while developing an app, the Matrix Media Team considers itself the technical partner for the project. We take ownership of performance for the app we develop, striving to hold on to the high-quality standards which we have set for products coming out from our house. Many apps built by us have been recognized and awarded as the best apps in their segment at various platforms while others have received rave reviews, helping our clients immensely as they expanded in the online sphere.

What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?
With over 15 years in the industry, I understand that you have to be true to your work if you want to have happy clients. Communication plays a great role and the right intentions to take note of client feedback seriously help a lot. Being truthful to your client helps a lot and, as a principle, we always give the true picture to our clients, never trying to hide any sudden obstacle which we may be facing. Keeping faith in your clients and providing them with quality products builds on their faith in you.

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?
Technology is ever-changing and, in today’s world, you just can’t hold on to what the right thing was yesterday. We give immense importance to these rapidly changing technological advancements and even have a dedicated team to constantly train and upgrade our workforce with the new trends and best practices. Training plays a vital role in the lifecycle of developers at Matrix Media Solutions as we firmly believe our clients do deserve the best resources to deliver the best products.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?
AR, VR & IOT is now becoming an essential branch of app development and there is no way you can stay away from them. Matrix Media is also a part of a few exciting projects in this field. In the years to come, we estimate a huge paradigm shift for the next generation of apps where you have to have these technologies clubbed in for sure.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?
What we see today is just the tip of the iceberg. Mobile technology will grow immensely in the years to come and predicting a future for such a wide topic is really a tough one. For me, AI /AI-enabled apps hold the key to the future of mobile technology. With the growth in Chatbots and AI systems, everyone will be using Chatbots to handle conversations over information that can be easily obtained by using an AI-infused system. Bots will simply replace any manual performance and, therefore, customer service costs will also be reduced. There’s so much to be explored and a lot the coming years will be offering as the field grows.