siliconindia

In the golden era of startups, when the global startup economy is worth nearly $3 trillion, the ancient practice of doubting a young entity’s capability is illogical and unacceptable. However, several startups are still combating this attitude among individuals and organizations, in their relentless pursuit to gain market traction and succeed. New Jersey-based IT solution provider Edkal Technologies, a part of an IT diversification of global cosmeceuticals and nutraceutical manufacturer Sami-Sabinsa, is equally affected by the same predicament. Despite being one of the youngest members in the IT industry, Edkal is quickly turning this notion on its head by diversifying into digital platform engineering space. The startup is leveraging its experience gained through servicing, to build digital platforms for global customers, and meet business needs with the innovative approach in bringing in the next-gen technologies. Edkal is also investing in the development of leading-edge application systems and digital IP in the biotech, cosmetics, and healthcare industries.

Within 18 months of its inception, the company has already far surpassed the million-dollar revenue mark and has eight direct customers in different industries. Moreover, Edkal is on the verge of setting its footprint in a rare segment, combining cloud, data analytics, and platform engineering for the nutraceutical space. Today, the startup empowers organizations across the globe with its digital and automation solutions and services. Edkal Technologies has capabilities to build, deliver, and support digital engineering and cloud automation solutions as wells as end-to-end custom software solutions. On the other hand, the company’s service portfolio includes enterprise management and security on the cloud, digital technology services, packaged IP solutions, software engineering process automation, and analytics.

“Our achievement might be smaller with respect to companies in the typical IT industry, but it has boosted our confidence and capability. We have successfully moved to a level where we can sustain our operation in a distributed delivery set up,” says Satyajit Bandyopadhyay, CEO, Edkal Technologies.

Edkal Technologies has capabilities to build, deliver, and support digital engineering and cloud automation solutions and end to end custom software solutions

Having started with a small team of six, Edkal has expanded across the U.S. and India and is building a host of critical projects in platform development activities. Majorly focused on cloud technologies, Edkal has already gained significant experience in working with multiple cloud platforms. By leveraging its partnership with Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM, among others, Edkal specializes in cloud management, SaaS, PaaS and IaaS, migration, transformation and security validation, cloud strategy, and more. Realizing that businesses are increasingly opting for multi-cloud and on-prem set up for their organizations, Edkal has championed hybrid cloud environments selecting the right approach for each customer’s need. Since IBM advocates the adoption of a hybrid environment with containers, it further validates Edkal’s focus on the sector.

In fact, Edkal is currently working with a client organization whose system was running in a partially on-prem environment. The client wanted to combine and move its software application to the cloud. Instead of executing the client’s demand straight away, Edkal, with its hands-on experience in cloud migration and hybrid cloud environment, went beyond its designated role. The company first rationalized its client’s assets, the hardware, and the software, to reduce the footprint, and then moved the entire application to the cloud. This additional initiative from Edkal significantly reduced the client’s overall cost, which not only exceeded the client’s expectations but also expanded opportunities for the company to work with the same client in various other areas.

This level of superior service delivery is one of Edkal’s inherent values that help the company in increasing its customer retention rate despite the trust issues it often encounters from potential customers.

However, the first step to getting in touch with customers, bringing together disparate departments, and convincing them to look at everything as a whole, remains the biggest challenge for Edkal—a hurdle it strives to overcome through various channels such as lead generation, internal contacts, and partnership with the top IT companies. In fact, as a registered partner of Microsoft, Edkal has moved to the silver level and is expecting to get promoted to the gold level soon. The company has also partnered with various small organizations so as to jointly bid on new business opportunities and proposals.

By fostering the same methodology, Edkal is on track to expand its operations in Canada. With opportunities unlocking in Europe, the company wants to branch out further in the next financial year. In several instances, Edkal benefits from its affiliation with sister organization, Sami- Sabinsa. Bandyopadhyay says, “Our sister company has more than 300 customers, and now, we are planning to meet those companies to figure out the IT services they require. In the process, we will continue to expand our capabilities from being a traditional IT services company to one deploying solutions in nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing space.” This step would advance Edkal’s market reach, from construction, manufacturing, and pharma, to clinical trials and safety applications.

Although Edkal has presently established its edge in platform and cloud engineering, the company expects to deploy cutting-edge data analytics solutions over the next financial year.