Halcyon Technologies: Setting the Tunes for Next-Gen Technologies Date:   Friday , May 02, 2014 The global automotive retail industry is certainly very huge, with a lot of inefficiencies like any other vertical. Applications prevailing in this market lacks proper systemic processes, leading to lengthy procedures which are mainly carried out by the dealers\' personnel manually. These inefficiencies call for the need of effective solutions that could help the industry overcome obstructions and streamline processes with lower operational costs. Sensing the need of the hour, and aided with his technical background Kartik Kakarala started Halcyon Technologies in 2004 with a purpose to address the complications of the industry that consumed valuable time and money. Today, Halcyon Technologies is at the crest of automotive retail and also a front runner in adapting and working on cutting edge technologies. Incepted in Hyderabad, the company currently has offices in the U.S., UK, Australia and Europe and serves clients globally. Before establishing the company in 2004, Kartik was working with Fortune 100 and Big 5 Consulting firms in the U.S. holding senior management positions. He realized that there were enormous inefficiencies in business processes that needed to be resolved for businesses to achieve utmost competitive advantage. This resulted in sowing Halcyon. Today, the company is a Global Software Solutions Company with broad range of services and products across different verticals including retail automotive industry, utilities, healthcare, banking and insurance. It is also one of the world\'s largest automotive inventory management companies with more than 1800 active dealers around the U.S. Its product \'RedBumper\' (RB), offers a powerful inventory management, appraisal and cost analytics system on the mobile platform, so the automotive dealers have these features available to them in the field and on the go. Over the years, Halcyon has fostered and cultured the expertise in designing and developing applications that are focussed on addressing the pain points prevalent in the industry verticals. The company takes pride in in putting together Centers of Excellence that are solely tasked with researching and adapting to technologies before they becomes the mainstream, thus providing their clients with innovative solutions. Halcyon provides consulting services and software products as solutions to help their clients gain the competitive advantage in the level playing field. \"Our clients really appreciate us providing solutions that not only address the pain points of the day, but are also so forward looking that they stay relevant and address the problems that would arise in the near future. Our COEs have their ears to the ground as it relates to their corresponding industry verticals and are able to predict the most wanted features in the next generation solution with a fair degree of accuracy. Presently, we are investing into the wearable technologies and several wireless communication technologies,\" says Kartik Kakarala, CEO, Halcyon Technologies. Challenges Triumphed Over Though Kartik comes from a business family, starting something from scratch was a daunting task to say the least. The road for Halcyon was never a rosy path. From gaining clients trust &credibility to bankrolling, hiring and retaining world class talent; the company had to go through the acid test. By taking one step at a time, learning, relearning, & unlearning several things, the company was able to cross all hurdles along its way. The founders staunchly followed the path shown by their father. \"There was not even a single day when we saw our father doing anything wrong to achieve big things. He showed us how to do business in the right way. Today after 10 years, we dedicate our success to our father,\" adds Kartik. Growing Along with Halcyon The organization possesses more than 500 person-years of management experience and more than 3,000 person-years of overall technology experience. Its success to a large extent can be attributed to its employees who are encouraged not to work with the company, rather grow along with the company. Halcyon follows a horizontal structure which has less number of layers between the development team and the management team. Following the agile methodology and an open door policy helps the company of over 280 employees to be adaptable and mouldable to the ever changing business environment. The company follows a principle of asking \'What is the pain point today and what would it be once that is addressed?\' that forms the basis of what Halcyon as a company has to do and achieve. The organization values all relevant ideas and new technologies without categorizing them as primary or secondary. It has developed dedicated Centers of Excellence for each vertical. \"We believe we are the only company in the world to have a Center of Excellence in the automotive retail sector. Though it\'s a very refined field, we are the pioneers in providing solutions to the entire world in the retail automotive segment,\" adds Kartik. What Next? Halcyon has recently started a company in the power sports segment which is still in its infancy when compared to the progress made by the mainstream automotive retail industry overall. The entire organization shares the same vision of being the best at what they do and be at the top in all the verticals they operate in across the globe. The company wishes to serve these niche areas with innovative products and services in coming future. \"With a huge client base and partners in place, our team believes that this vision is certainly attainable. We plan to expand our people base to more than 1000 employees globally and envision taking the company public in the near future,\" concludes Kartik.