Interview with Pankaj Arora, CEO - iTechnoLabs

Pankaj Arora  

CEO, TechnoLabs

Give us a quick overview on TechnoLabs. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?

TechnoLabs is a web service agency, offering global businesses with services such as Web Design & Development, Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing, QA & Testing, etc. The company started its journey 5+ years back with an aim to deliver the best web services to the client within shortest time span while keeping the budget lower.

What is your role in the management and development of TechnoLabs?

As the CEO of TechnoLabs, I am responsible for ensuring constant growth of the company with implementation of strategies that can help the team members to ensure quality in budget. I ensure having only the best people working on the projects, as per the specific requirements.

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry.

There have been multiple achievements I can think of.

We have shared successful launch and maintenance of many products. One of the partnership and product I would like to mention here is about loan disbursement product we have developed for one of our clients. It was a challenging product to work on such financial product, our team tends to work in agile methodology of product development and provide overlap with client time-zone. Our team was able to successfully complete the product. . After the launch of product our partnership has further strengthened over the years and we are now both developing the new features and maintaining the product at the same time. This reflects into our capabilities and brings in sense of achievement.

Another product I would like to mention here is reputation management system (Trust System) that we built for our client, for whom we have worked in many other projects. We created front end mobile application for both Android and IOS Application for the project, so that the user can make and track promises. The system would automatically depict the trust score depending upon how much promises user was able to keep. The product intends to gain the trust factor which was lacking among the friends online of the social media users. We were able to successfully launch the product.

 How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?

We follow an iterative, agile development methodology for the project development. We get a list of priorities from the client and define high level scope of the project and divide the requirement into high level user stories and tasks to put in average case estimation. We divide the requirement into milestones; each milestone is a set of functionalities, which can be tested by client. Timeline is defined based on high level estimation calculated for the given requirement.

During each Sprint, Prioritized user stories of Product backlog are selected and turned into Sprint backlog

Team works on the defined sprint backlog,

We follow daily scrum where each stake holder defines the work he/she has done a day before, what he/she is going to do, and if there is any impediment.

Team checks for the daily work,

At the end of the sprint, the team delivers product functionality. At the end of each milestone the client is provided with functionalities built to review and a review meeting will be held to capture what went wrong and right during the meeting.

There will be Sprint Introspection during the session, what went right and what went wrong will be identified and captured as a Lesson Learnt.

Sprint tasks include below given phases

Sprint planning and Analysis

UI & UX design for next sprint

Database design update

Front end and backend development

QA & QC

Deployment

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

I, along with the support of my team, analyze each project that we get from clients. We properly research on the project needs and depending upon the complexities and project needs, we also identify the features and different needs of mobile app to shortlist the most useful platforms for the app development for maximum performance.

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?

It depends upon the nature of the mobile app and the purpose. For example, if it’s going to be a highly complex app, then using Native technology is always preferred. Again, it varies as per the business needs.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?

We have below given pricing model based of kind of approach client prefers to go-ahead with

Resource Outsourcing: We tend to provide resource on monthly / Quarterly / Yearly basis, where client intend to have extended team and would like to hire resources. In this model client allocates work and manage.

Fixed cost project: We tend to provide overall costing of the project along with number of resources required.

Approximated budget is provided to client based upon the high level scope provided by client.

Time and Material: We intend to provide resource on time and material basis for getting quick or iterative work defined by client.

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

The mobile apps allow businesses to connect with their end users by given them access to their own exclusive mobile app. It encourages users to keep visiting their business with a single tap on mobile screen.

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

Transparency, dedication and commitment to growth are the prime practices that we follow to ensure delivering quality services because, we aim to work as a team with the clients.

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?

We have internal process for technological advancement wherein we attend seminars, training, conduct seminars, read and write blogs / articles, and keep yourself updated.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?

I think the future is dependent upon AR, VR, and IoT technologies. These technologies have the ability to deliver next-gen solutions to global businesses as well as the end users.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?

The future of mobile technology is brighter than we can think. The technology is growing faster than ever and it’s going to be a more preferred technology for the end users, which means it’s going to be the preferred choice of businesses to launch amazing things.