Interview with Ajay Garg, CEO - Rootsquare Technologies

Give us a quick overview on Rootsquare Technologies. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?
Rootsquare Technologies (RST) is a most rapidly growing, innovative IT Services & Consulting company founded in 2012, in India, providing consulting, development & maintenance covering Information Technology, Software development, System Integration & Custom Applications development through its offshore, onsite & dedicated delivery teams and is driven by domain expertise, commitment and Client's fulfillment. Today, RST has diversified portfolio serving around the global customers with highly experienced technical and functional team.

RST has more than 30 world-wide satisfied customers with  diversified technology's and provide services to start-ups, mid-sized and multi-billion dollar companies across APAC, US, UK / Europe, and the Middle East.

With an in house team of approx. 40 associates in most demanding technology spheres enables RST to fulfill the customer aspiration with utter commitments. We align our internal processes and methodologies completely oriented to Client requirements and businesses. Through our comprehensive consulting & management expertise, innovative problem solving methods and timely delivery which enable ideal partnership for an array of IT services.  Over 15 of our 30+ clients consider us a strategic partner.

Our vision is to create a mutually beneficial long lasting entrusted business relationship with our clients to help them unlock the potential of global delivery, by creative world-class mobile and web apps basis on their need. Our values (Quality, Customer Orientation, Team Orientation, Discipline, Ethics and Result orientation) are bringing us towards the successful app developers.

What is your role in the management and development of Rootsquare Technologies?
Founder, CEO and Technical Head

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry
What we consider as our biggest achievement in the industry is that, we delivered an Enterprise level SAAS based E-Procurement platform successfully, meeting all the expectations of our client. This took almost 1.6 years duration and team of 18 professionals from the start to the delivery of the project.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?
We suggest Waterfall or agile process to the client for the execution of the project. For agile process, a set of certain tasks are divided into sprints (1 sprint - 2 weeks) and daily stand-up meeting is scheduled to track the progress. And in Waterfall model, we go through different phases for the complete execution and delivery of the project i.e. Requirement Gathering and Analysis, SRS preparation, Mock-ups and designs, DFD, Strategizing & DB design, UI development, Modules development, Unit Testing, System Integration, Integration and Quality Testing, UAT and Bug Fixing, Production Deployment, Trainings & Handover, Post product support and maintenance.
To promise the timeline of any project/apps, we go through the high level requirement or reference app shared by client and go through that. We have technical expertise with more than 10 years of IT industry experience in the development and execution. So based on requirement doc or referenced app, our expertise divide the whole requirement into modules and analyze that how much time each module will take for UX/UI or development. We know that we can complete Requirement Gathering / Analysis, Documentation, UAT & bug fixing and production deployment in this specified duration based on our experience with delivery of other projects and we add the development / execution time with other activities to share the actual timeline to customer for the delivery.

How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?
We propose clients for app development platform based on their requirement, Targeted user base, Locations, Complexity and budget. More complex apps are always suggested to choose stable and secure platform. If a stable platform is not chosen at the beginning due to budget then the maintenance cost always go higher due to the versioning or sdk changes.

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?
Native or hybrid apps are suggested based on the client requirements, Targeted user base, Locations, Complexity and budget. For enterprise / complex, higher user base etc. native app is recommended. Hybrid apps are suggested when there is not too much customization required for feature implementation, low budget, single location or small user base etc.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?
We have set our man day rate for any work or according to resource engagement so based on project duration and resource role / responsibilities and man day rate, project budget is being calculated.

How helpful are the mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?
We always discuss with our clients to understand their requirement, business model and suggest what should be improved / added to serve better and outsmart the competitors in business and how they can reach more users to generate revenue. We found that our approach has been praised by our clients and we are getting more recommendations. When we sign a project we not only act as a technical partner of our clients but also advice them to generate revenue with better approach.

What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?
Efficient and proper communication throughout the project lifecycle, listening to them, offering suggestions if required, getting client feedback throughout the project journey and implementation, being polite and delivering the project on time.

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?
We always follow the industry’s best practice and advanced technology. We regularly update our team knowledge through training sessions, seminars, researching and learning the trends.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?
In today’s era, as everything is moving towards automation, intuitive and attractive graphical presentation for marketing and branding is necessary. Hence, IoT and AR/VR are playing a vital role to reach that level to control most of the objects using the apps. Clients across the world are slowly moving towards IOT. AR and VR are not so popular across the industries but the industry giants have started using this technology for a few processes or increase their sales.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?
As IoT technology is aggressively developing now-a-days, the future of Mobile technology is bright and growing. From children to senior citizens, everyone is using the mobile devices to keep themselves updated, for learning, banking processes, gaming, utilities, payments, real estate and many more. So I believe that our everyday activities and daily routines will be mobile phone dependent in future.