Charlotte, March 2nd, 2022

Rapidops is a technology, transformation, and analytics company. Founded in 2008, it help clients design, engineer, and launch advanced digital products and platforms that enable them to thrive and achieve more for their customers. The agency operates in retail, manufacturing & supply chain, healthcare, and technology industries, working with global companies.

Jayesh Mori is the Chief Executive Officer at Rapidops, which he co-founded with two college friends. In an interview with TIA, he described the first steps and the expansion of the agency, based in the US and India. For Mori, Rapidops is a digital partner that offers phenomenal quality products and truly commits to the client’s needs and demands.

To kick things off, please can you describe a little bit about your city and why it is a great place to work?

Rapidops has established its presence in multiple cities. We are headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and another branch in Ahmedabad, India.
Talking about Charlotte, we chose our headquarter there because it is a major commercial hub in NC and is one of America’s fastest-growing cities. Plus, it has a sustainable cost of living, fantastic weather, and a great talent pool.

A fun fact about Charlotte: it is the second biggest financial hub after New York, making it the best place to establish and grow your business.

Ahmedabad, situated in the western part of India, is also one of the fastest-growing cities and is turning out to be the most sought-after commercial hub.
Within Ahmedabad, we are one of the best companies to work for. Having that brand name plus the work culture has been a tremendous differentiating factor for our brand’s popularity.

How did you get started in the industry? In 2008, you started to run the company. Tell us about the day the idea was born.

I co-founded Rapidops with two of my college friends. The idea was to develop a next-gen CRM platform that did more than merely manage customer data. We wanted to build a system that offered 360-degree customer experiences using that data. Being engineers ourselves, we knew we would require a talented team with a high-end skill set to bring this idea to fruition. We started out by trying to loop in various companies to bring our vision to reality, but we didn’t find the right one even after multiple attempts.

At that point, we built the CRM ourselves, launched it in the market, and figured out a way of penetrating the industry to establish our brand. The personal experience of allocating time, resources, and budget gave us an insight into what really goes in creating and marketing a product. From that point onwards, we found that there are a lot of founders and even large companies who face the same dilemma while trying to turn ideas into genuine successful digital products.

That was Rapidops’ beginning, and now, looking back at the journey, I am happy to share that we have great projects in our pipeline, an incredible list of satisfied clients, and a talented team that is continuously building successful products.

Working with the right agency can be a valuable partnership. What attributes do you want people to associate your Rapidops with? How do you align business decisions with your values every day?

I absolutely agree with the opening statement. Working with the right agency is not only valuable but also the most critical factor because the difference between experiencing success or failure with your digital product depends heavily on that relationship. We have worked very hard on inculcating the philosophy of being the best digital partner for our clients and ease their digital adoption journey by building critical problem-solving products and services.

As I said earlier, we were fortunate to figure out what it takes to build the right product and deliver the right digital services. So, we took those learnings and translated them meticulously into our work culture. Many of our team members are agile coaches and renowned speakers on the process of delivering great software.

We have often heard from our clients that Rapidops is a digital partner that offers phenomenal quality products and truly commits to the client’s ROI versus simply giving access to talent. Our company is known to have the best approach when it comes to product delivery. So, yes, these are the attributes we want people to associate Rapidops with.

When it comes to aligning business decisions with daily values, I think that everybody working with you must be on the same wavelength. Such a working environment allows the workforce to understand the output of investing the right time, energy, and resources. This helps create a great product that enables better ROI to the client and makes them happy with your service. If the client is content, then our process of building a next-gen innovative digital company is fulfilled. And we do reward the workforce for their tremendous results at regular intervals so that others can get inspired to be bold, dream big and share our visions and values. We want our people to seek excellence in everything they do, but at the same time, we want our team also to embrace humanity and make sure we are caring and empathizing with the clients and society.

You speak to your clients and potential customers every week. In your opinion, what’s the most important factor that leads companies to create successful overseas digital experiences and to engage at a global scale?

Even though I want to have conversations with my clients every day, but given the size of our company, I miss out on that often. However, I make it a point that we talk at least every month.
Given that the world is going remote, these overseas boundaries have now blurred. So, I think in this modern business scenario, a more apt term would be global delivery or global experiences.

In my opinion, you must be committed and work towards building a trustworthy relationship with your clients. To create such a relationship, you must have complete transparency and exceed their expectations by delivering high-quality global digital experiences.

Can you walk me through your development processes? Do you handle all development work in-house?

Rapidops uses Agile and Lean development processes, which helps us incrementally deliver products. Because of this, the development process that might take months can be achieved in a matter of weeks or even days.
With over 13 years of experience, we ensure that every project taken by us aligns with the client’s expectations and vision. Assuming the client’s needs and expectations are a significant drawback in our field.

So apart from bringing engineering, design, or product management talent to the table, we mix it up by going deep into their thought process and adding our experiences to it.
And yes, all the product development work is handled by our capable and talented workforce, and we do not use any subcontractors or third parties.
The reason to do so is that we can then actually have better control over the quality measures and deliver fully functional products to the clients in a timely fashion.

How does your team check and measure response time before launching a project for a big brand?

When it comes to checking and measuring the response time, my team ensures that they have sufficient bandwidth to give complete focus to the client and their project.

It is crucial to have the right talent available in the team to give life to the client’s vision. If we miss that, we won’t maintain the highest quality standards and the premium service that we usually offer to our clients.
Before starting any project, we try to get in-depth insights and understand the client’s vision, customer, and their challenges. This helps us estimate the skill, time, and resources to complete the project.

We make sure that our communication and time management framework are well-defined and streamlined so that we always provide better services to the clients.
In fact, I am super proud of my team. They have never missed any deliverables, and our clients will agree to that statement.

Accessibility can be difficult to acknowledge. How do you ensure that your clients understand what you are recommending? How do you ensure all users are considered during projects?

Absolutely, and we always try to make the world more accessible through our digital products. Everybody has an equal right to information and services, and we always push this ideology to our clients and try to build this philosophy into the products.

In the current market, where it is getting difficult to make products that keep accessibility in mind, we always explain the implications of not making easily accessible products to our clients.
Taking it a step further, we have also trained resources on our team that guide customers on how to design products that work for everybody. We have built and launched our own products with the same ideology and use it as an example to demonstrate the importance of accessibility and dock the clients to that idea.

Of all the recent projects your company has produced, which one are you most proud of?

This is tricky because they have all imparted good learning to my team and me. So, all of them are my favorite projects. But if I have to pick one for answering this question, then it would be our latest project.

Our machine learning product engineering team designed and delivered a fully automated drone delivery platform using cutting-edge technologies. I rate it as a favorite because this talented team delivered this challenging and innovative project on a very tight deadline.

How do you keep up-to-date with the latest foreign trends and driving forces?

Well, we do have our foreign office, so it comes naturally to us. Plus, we have professionals in our team who are fast learners and stay in the loop with the current trends and market driving forces. Many of our team members keep traveling to clients’ locations or stay in touch with the remote offices, which lets them remain well-versed in the current market trends in foreign countries.
To top that, we also have training programs that help our workforce understand the cultures, backgrounds, and challenges customers face in their daily lives.

The COVID-19 crisis accelerated an expansion of digital marketing towards new firms, customers, and types of products. How is the pandemic impacting your project pipeline?

I think Covid-19 has broken a wall of doubt for many businesses and has flooded the market with digital opportunities. Given our good track record, our knack for keeping up with the latest technological trends, and a dynamic talent pool, we have a well-balanced pipeline.

We are seeing a good influx of queries and projects that are majorly targeted at modernizing legacy systems or bringing better innovation to increase scalability and boost business growth. I can say that our pipeline is growing steadily, and we are seeing more and more projects aimed at big data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. There is a huge demand for innovation in retail, B2B, B2C, and even manufacturing. We are continuously helping many executive teams of both mid and large enterprises create innovative strategies.

Do you have any recommendations for startups that look for digital transformation, but their budget and resources are limited?

First of all, I would like to say that being a startup has its own advantage. You do not have a considerable footprint compared to mid and large-sized enterprises, so it’s easier to transform yourself than organizations that need a different change management strategy to successfully transition thousands of employees and twice the resources.

I think one of the most essential things that startup owners must prioritize is to know what results they want to drive from their transformation initiative. They should think about what they really understand by digital transformation. Do they know which modern technologies will positively impact their business process? If they have clarity of such a level, they can achieve digital transformation better, faster, and budget-friendly. Once you know what you are looking for, go ahead and try to find the right digital solutions partner who can ease the process matching your needs vs. the market and its constraints.

As someone who enjoys challenges, is there any lesson you’ve had to learn multiple times?

I love challenges, and I think they define human beings. One of the lessons that I consistently learn and apply in life is that by working hard with meticulous smartness, staying focused, and delivering the best, we can win over any challenges. No matter what it takes, never shy away from hard work and bring your best to the table; nothing but the best.

From your personal standpoint, what global issues are you most passionate about and why?

Well, there are a lot of global issues that are worth thinking about, but three challenges are closest to my heart.

Number one is the climate. I think each of us must take the issue of climate change seriously because if we fail to do so, our upcoming generation will not have a sustainable environment to live in or might not have a future altogether.

The second issue is diversity and inclusion. I don’t just mean this regarding race, ethnicity, or gender. I think diversity and inclusion should counter income disparities and standard of living. Unless we deal with these issues, the great divide within our society won’t cease to exist. Everyone should get fair chances to live and achieve their dreams in this modern time and age. If we cannot create such opportunities as a collective society, we will fail on a humanitarian level.

What’s one thing you can’t live without?

My laptop!

Can you name a fun-fact people would be surprised to learn about you?

I am a self-taught designer, and I love to utilize my spare time learning design.

Thanks Jayesh!
 
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