Mobile apps are everywhere today and multi-channel strategies that bring apps to every device and screen size are changing the way we work and play. Raj Koneru, Founder & CEO of Kony, a mobile enterprise application development platform (MADP) provider foresaw this shift in trends long before it happened and built his company around it. A serial entrepreneur, Koneru is the man behind Intelligroup, Inc. (NASDAQ: ITIG, OTC), an Information technology (IT) services, solutions and consulting corporation. He always had the knack for identifying technology evolutions and building successful tech companies around them. Early in 2007 Koneru understood that 'mobile' was the next big thing that the industry lacked a platform for building applications and that applications were going to be a requirement for enterprise mobility. Keeping this in mind, he built the underlying technology for what would become the KonyOne app development platform, which provides mobile and multi-channel applications and offers a suite of customizable pre-built apps.

Kony also specializes in delivering a comprehensive enterprise mobile management (EMM) solution for provisioning, deploying, managing and analyzing applications. "The platform makes it possible for enterprises to build applications once and deliver them across different channels such as mobile, tablets and desktops and provide a high-quality user experience customized for every end point," says Koneru. For example, when a global financial services company with 200+ million customer accounts and operations in over 140 countries was looking to create a global mobile solution to provide customers with localized banking functionality on virtually any mobile device, Kony became the company of choice. Kony Solutions' unique "Write Once, Run Everywhere" technology helped the client build a suitable solution that was customized for country-specific rules in over 30 countries across three platforms.

Building Apps and Defying Norms

Founded in 2007, Kony was one of the pioneers to defy the norm and build a successful product company which has its development in India. Counting this as one of their major strengths Koneru says, "All of our engineering, IP development and product development is done out of India. We have 600 engineers in India who enable us to grow our product suite significantly".

Kony is one of the leading enterprise-grade platform providers in the world. The applications created and packaged by the company cater to both end consumers and enterprise employees. Customers have the flexibility of taking an app built on the platform and customizing it. Kony has designed an easy to use, drag-and-drop development studio, a true write once, run everywhere app platform, and provides a unified way for IT administrators to manage mobile chaos.
Kony's apps and development platform give enterprises the efficiency and flexibility of the broadest possible device and OS compatibility, across all channels, major operating systems and multiple deployment modes including HTML5 and mobile web, hybrid, native, and mixed-mode. "We strive to provide the most robust and scalable platform to support enterprises in their strategic multi-channel development and deployments. With our suite of products, our clients can actually streamline and accelerate their entire software development cycle," added Koneru.

Apart from developing cutting-edge technology, the company has strengthened its capabilities by partnering with giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft. This helps the company ensure that any app created by its clients is compatible for all devices and users. Kony also has strategic partnerships with companies such as Accenture, Cognizant, Infosys, Wipro, IBM, UST Global, and dozens of other leading systems integrators around the world.

Growing Leaps and Bounds

Whether it's increasing customer satisfaction, streamlining business processes, deploying new revenue streams, or increasing productivity, Kony has empowered hundreds of customers to capitalize on new multi-channel and mobile opportunities.

Headquartered in Orlando, the company has seen almost 100 percent growth in the past year. Having been operational since 2007, the company now sees traction in almost every vertical, as mobility is vertically agnostic. With a focus on large enterprise customers, the company caters to industry verticals such as financial services, travel and transportation, health care, insurance, oil & gas, and others. Traditional verticals such as utility, consumer package and business services also constitute a big chunk of their clientele. Kony’s enterprise customers now include over 200 Fortune 500 companies, the largest global bank, and global brands such as Hyatt, Huntington National Bank, Konica Minolta, Schweppes, Tyco, and Carl Zeiss, "We have traditionally focused more on the consumer verticals but now we plan to expand to enterprise verticals too. So today we have new acquisitions in both the consumer as well as enterprise side," explains Koneru.

Recipe for Success

A leading concern for IT decision makers is how to execute a successful mobile and multi-channel strategy to meet the demands of their enterprise. By choosing Kony, clients have an end-to-end solution, and the confidence and control to quickly build apps once and deploy everywhere across all mobile devices and operating systems Kony has completed 3 rounds of funding totaling $35 million, from Insight Venture Partners and Georgian Partners.
The company has set its sights on continuing to expand its product and services portfolio, and deliver comprehensive solutions. "Our objective is to provide solutions in 3 formats: on premise, hosted by us and on the cloud. We have a big cloud initiative coming up which allows us to take both our technology component and applications to the cloud, enabling all our customers to easily access and use those products," explains Koneru.

With its products in demand and number of clients increasing by the day, Kony is looking forward to take the company public when the time is right. Koneru is confident that given its strength and revenue, the company is capable of growing leaps and bounds in the coming future. Their single-minded focus on maintaining leadership in the large enterprise segment and the futuristic cloud strategy is only going to enable the company to be even more successful.