Interview with Darshan Kothari, CEO - Vardhaman Infotech

Give us a quick overview on Vardhaman Infotech. When and how did you begin this journey and what were your motives to be successful in app development?
My motive isn't only to build brand and recognition but also to cultivate customer loyalty and foster other startups to nurture their business visions with unparalleled solutions leveraging technology with unique digital solutions.

What is your role in the management and development of Vardhaman Infotech?
I am the Chief Executive Officer at Vardhaman Infotech. Though the role sounds prominent, I also manage and support my team in setting meaningful goals, managing budgets, recruiting, supervising, and appraising my staff, and so on.

Tell us about your biggest achievement in the industry
Every work I do is a huge achievement, thus giving me opportunities to work with different clients from all over the world. My most unforgettable achievement would be our company coming up with the world's first KALQ Keyboard.

How do you schedule the development phases of the apps to promise the timeline to your clients?
We tend to be very stern on meeting our deadlines. Making sure our vendors, developers and the team follow a strict schedule on the development process. I would have my team block off important tasks for the day. Each step would be communicated with the client to make sure they are aware of the progress. This is good in a way so that the client can also provide some feedback. Better to know early if we are headed on the right direction than at the end.
If by some unfortunate circumstances we miss a deadline, we analyze what went wrong so that we avoid it in the future.

How do you help your clients in choosing the right yet profitable platform for app development?
The first point is to understand why the client is creating such an app. Is to just make the business communication with the company easier or is to make money and generate profits from it? With the vast amount of choices starting from scheduling a doctor's appointment to playing poker and winning rewards, every client would want a unique impression of how their app should be.
Choosing the right profitable platform is the most critical part of the whole app development process. Whether it's a native or hybrid application, or a web app, our duty would be to make sure that the app comprises our main factors:
a)    Ease of Use
b)    Speed and secure
c)    Cost effective
d)    Futuristic
e)    Highly-Interactive
Though Hybrid apps are cost-efficient, they are likely to have possible performance issues. If a client, for example is looking for animations on his mobile app, it’s likely not advisable to build a hybrid app as things tend to freeze and quite difficult in an hybrid app environment. It also doesn’t keep up with recent updates. Though Hybrid has exceptional pros of flexibility and adaptable UI/UX designs, it still wouldn’t be my favorite suggestion to build an app through it.
Native Applications may be a bit of a high cost investment initially however, with a good development team and top notch architects you can create a highly-interactive application with great design and user experience. After all, everyone would expect an application that has better security, that's reliable, ability to operate offline and mostly the look and feel of Native apps are great and leads to better customer satisfaction and retention rates.

How do you scheme your pricing model? How do you fix your budget?
We follow a headstrong pricing model. However, we don’t just quote a price out of the blue but we will make sure that the basic factors are followed before we quote a price:
a)    When you have a clear scope and don’t want to bring any changes upon commencement of the project
b)    If the project details such as requirements, budget, output are well-defined
c)    If you want to study the work model of an outsourcing agency before awarding the project
d)    Negotiated and planned in advance
e)    Breakdown of the workflow before developmental works
f)    Anything and everything is specified before and during the work which brings structure to the entire project

How helpful are the mobile apps developed by your team, for enhancing your clients’ business?
We make sure the mobile apps we develop are a prodigy to any business’s investment. Almost every business, regardless the size of market, wants to develop a mobile application to get a wider outreach. Making a mobile app platform reflects the company. Our vision is to nurture our clients to uphold those visions and help them thrive in supporting their business needs.
Our developers evaluate the type of application the business is looking for and offering a wide array of possibilities and developing an app of real value.

What according to you are the best practices to attain client satisfaction?
Understand your clients
Commit to them wholeheartedly
Boundless Loyalty
Following these three methods not only reflects your company’s standards but also yourself.

How do you update your business system to be in pace with the technological advancements?
I would say that the biggest challenge would always be convincing the team that the new work is worth doing and not technological advancements.
Technological changes, though sounds strenuous, it still is a great advantage to widespread our understanding to broader goals and commitment. With the right skills at the right places, these advancements would allow me and my team to better understand our clients’ requirements.
Though some do have skepticism from the work our developers are already accustomed to, we still give them the classic methodology of how these new advancements would be effective in this generation.  I believe in leveraging the change in technology by improving our products and skills that not only improves market profits but the “New & Better” is always what people are looking for.

What are your thoughts about AR, VR and Internet of Things (IoT)?
AR/VR and IoT have created the Wow-Effect recently. Of course, featuring realities can definitely make us stand out but, I wouldn’t mind thinking twice if I’m going to be segmenting AR/VR and IoT on my promotional campaigns. Even though these technologies are highly appreciated, it still makes a huge change with the cultured business landscape and clashes with the old generation. I feel like with such advancement in a technological dependent life, it might soon become a possibility to lose the basic skills of human interaction.

What do you think will be the future of Mobile technology?
Mobile Technology has drastically evolved as a new necessity of livelihood in last 10 years. It started from brick phone to flips, button systems to full-on touch screens, single to dual and triple cameras and so on now. My smart-phone is working with the same processor that was used in a computer in the year 1969 for moon landing.
There are no doubts that soon mobile phones will come up with intense features like DSLR phone cameras or flexible screens, an even faster-charging wireless technology and so on. Surely the word “Connectivity” will have a whole new definition.