Annasha

Dennis Gillings’s – One Of The Largest Clinical Research Company In The World.

IQVIA is an American multinational company based in North Carolina, US. The company’s main services are pharmaceuticals, consulting, health information technology, and clinical research. It is also the world’s largest healthcare data science company and a pioneer in human data science technology. With more than 88,000 employees working across 100 countries, IQVIA is one of the largest companies in the world to conduct contract healthcare research. The company was formerly famous as Quintiles and IMS Health Inc and after their merger in 2016, the name was changed to IQVIA. Currently, IQVIA has a market capitalization of more than $49 billion.

About IQVIA

IQVIA is a market leader when it comes to both clinical research qualities and advanced technologies for data analytics. The history of IQVIA dates back to 1982 when Dennis Gillings established a company to provide biopharmaceutical developments and outsourcing services. Today, after 40 years of its successful business and growth, IQVIA has more than 1 billion patient records that are confidential and the company uses IQVIA human data science cloud for 72 times faster data analytics. IQVIA strives towards building a more accurate and efficient healthcare ecosystem and offering customers accurate results, accelerating outcomes, and creating new opportunities.

IQVIA is a result of the merger between two companies, IMS Health and Quintiles to bring the best out of human science and the healthcare industry. IMS Health was originally part of Cognizant Corporation and it was split into two companies (IMS Health and Nielson Media Research) in 1998. IQVIA has involved itself in a variety of projects in partnership with government as well as non-governmental organizations. It has also received several awards in the last few years including Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies in 2021.

History of IMS Health

Before becoming a part of IQVIA, IMS Health was famous for medical claims, electronic medical records, collection of healthcare information, etc. Before the merger, the company’s headquarters were located in Connecticut, US, and Ari Bousbib was the CEO of the company. In 1998, after IMS Health became an independent company, Cognizant Technology Solutions became a public subsidiary of the company. From then to 2015, the company made plenty of acquisitions starting with Cambridge Pharma Consultancy in 2002. In 2003, IMS Health acquired two companies, Marketing Initiatives and Data Niche Associates, and also sold its entire stake in Cognizant becoming two separate entities.

In 2004, it acquired United Research China to enter the Chinese market followed by other companies like PharMetrics (2005), Life Sciences from the Strategic Decisions Group (2006), IHS (2007), MedInitiatives (2007), and Value Medics Research (2007). IMS Health expanded very quickly and in 2007 it ranked in the Businessweek 50 and for two years (2008 and 2010) it became Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies. In 2008 it acquired a Russian company called RMBC and a Canadian company called Skura professional services group. In 2010, IMS Health became a private company as it was taken by TPG Capital, CPP Investment Board, and Leonard Green & Partners. Some of the other companies that IMS Health acquired after it was privatized are Brogan Inc, DecisionView, Boston Biomedical Consultants, etc.

About Quintiles

Founded in 1982, Quintiles is a company of Dennis Gillings and it has established many subsidiaries in international markets as well. Gillings first incorporated Quintiles in North Carolina and then in 1990, he established Quintiles Pacific and Quintiles Ireland. In the upcoming years, he also established the company in Germany and Atlanta. In 1996, the company made two big acquisitions, namely, Innovex and BRI International followed by becoming the world’s largest CRO. In 1998, Quintiles crossed the $1 billion revenue mark and the next year it became a part of the S & P 500 Index. In 2016, when Quintiles merged with IMS Health it was a deal of $9 billion. The name was changed to IQVIA in 2017.

About the Founder

Speaking of IQVIA, Dennis Gillings has a tremendous contribution behind it as the founder of Quintiles. He is an American billionaire and entrepreneur who founded a multinational company and took it public within a few years. He is also the former Chairman of the company.

Annasha

Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more

Global Payments – Boosting The Digital Commerce Ecosystem Since 2000.

In 1996, Global Payments was originally established as a subsidiary of the National Data Corporation. It was spun off very shortly and it became an independent company that is currently listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Global Payments is a leading American company in the payment processing industry that offers its services to a wide range of customers from financial institutions to small and medium businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies are also customers of Global Payments including Nixon, Sodexo, Kiko, etc. The company has virtually spread across more than 100 countries and has physical operation support in 38 countries. In June 2021, It was featured as one of the Fortune 500 companies.

About Global Payments

Global Payments have become very famous within two decades especially because they support businesses of every size. The company successfully carries out billions of transactions every year very safely and smoothly. There are 24,000 employees working for the company who are delivering expert advice to the customers and keeping them ahead of the competition. The team of Global Payments is very diverse as they belong to 80 different nationalities and also speak 16 native languages.

Global Payments offers services to a variety of industries including retail, entertainment, luxury, grocery, hospitality, etc. Using the advanced technology of Global Payments, payments can be accepted in various modes. Online payment allows transactions from anywhere in the world. There are other options like unified payments, point of sale, integrated software, etc. The payment technology is so versatile that it helps both the merchants and the consumers. Amidst the immense success of the company, Global Payments also fall victim to a data breach incident ten years ago. Millions of debit and credit number numbers were affected and it cost the company $100 million.

History of the Company

Global Payments started operating as an independent company in 2001 and before that, it was operating under National Data Corporation. The company made several acquisitions and partnerships in the last two decades starting with United Card Service which is the leading credit card processing company in Russia. In 2009, Company paid $75 million to acquire this company for the card services. After two years, the United Card Service that was operating under Global Payments bought Alfa Bank’s credit card processing unit. In 2012, Company acquired Accelerated Payment Technologies for $413 million and after two years acquired an Australian company called Ezidebit for $305 million.

In the upcoming years, the series of acquisitions continued as it purchased many famous companies. For example, in January 2015, Global Payments acquired PayPros, a California-based payment company for $420 million. In the same year, it also acquired an Irish payment company called Realex Payments. In 2016, Company made one of the biggest acquisitions in its history as it bought Heartland Payment Systems for $4.3 billion. During this time, both companies were dominant in the payment processing industry. Some of the other companies that were acquired by the company are AdvancedMD, Sentral Education, and divisions of Active Networks. Three years ago, the company also announced a merger with TSYS for $21.5 billion but it also triggered a federal investigation. But, the merger took place after some time and the company has also announced a partnership with Google Cloud.

Jeffrey S. Sloan – CEO of Global Payments

Jeffrey S. Sloan is a very skilled leader with deep industry knowledge. It has been more than twenty-five years that he has strong expertise in the financial sector. Jeff became a part of Global Payments in 2010 when he joined the company as its President and in 2013 he became the CEO of the same. He has worked in many other famous companies in executive positions such as head of financial technology group for Goldman, Sachs & Co. Jeff was also featured in the Atlanta Business Chronicle as one of Atlanta’s Most Admired CEOs.

Annasha

Naver Corporation – A South Korean Multinational Conglomerate Offering The Topmost Search Portal In The Country.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Annasha

Born in 1999, Naver Corporation is a South Korean company that started offering search services at the beginning of the 21st century. Naver’s headquarters is based in Seongnam, South Korea. The company is known for pioneering in user-generated content in its early days and it has several other services (encyclopedia, cafe, blog, etc). It also has several subsidiaries that include Line, Snow, Camp Mobile, Naver Labs, etc. The company is also trying to evolve its technology platform and hence closely cooperating with tech startups. Naver was also recognized by Forbes as one of the most innovative companies in the world and was also featured in Fortune magazine.

About Naver Corporation

NAVER is the top search portal in South Korea and the company’s other subsidiaries and affiliates offer services like digital comic platforms, messenger, social media platforms, metaverse platforms, etc. Naver has also expanded to the international markets in the last two decades. It has offices in Japan, the USA, France, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, China, and Taiwan. There are nearly 3,000 employees in the company and its current CEO is Choi Soo Yeon. Naver was originally founded by Lee Hae Jin under the name of Naver Comm. It has made several acquisitions in the past decade and merged with many companies to expand its territory.

History

In June 1999, Lee Hae Jin established Naver Comm. and its main product was the search engine, Naver. Since Naver was a search portal the company decided to roll out a similar search engine for the children and hence named it Junior Naver. After a year, the company merged with Hangame Communications Inc, Search Solutions, Oneque, and several other companies. In August 2000, Naver decided to roll out its comprehensive search product that allowed users to get a variety of search results from a single query on a single page. And the search results were organized by types like blogs, products, images, etc. In the same year, the company also established Hangame Japan.

Entering a new decade, the company changed its name to NHN (Next Human Network) Corporation. But the two divisions of the company, Naver and Hangame continued operating under their original brand names. In 2002, Naver became a public company and also launched a new service, Naver Knowledge iN. It also began a donation service called Happy Bean. It was in 2003 that the company merged all of its Japanese subsidiaries into NHN Japan and after a few years launched Naver Japan to start its search engine in the country. Eventually, the company also expanded to the USA and opened the American game service, ijji but sold it away shortly.

In 2008, it was for the first time that the company’s name was featured in Forbes magazine and after a year the CEO of NHN was also featured in Forbes’ Asia’s Fab 50 list. In the next few years, Naver focuses on strengthening the social media business as it acquired a Japanese blog platform, Livedoor, and also launched Line, a messaging application. In 2013, NHN was split into two divisions, Naver Corporation and NHN Entertainment and in the same year, Naver became the first company to operate its own data center. By the end of 2015, the company’s global revenue started exceeding rapidly especially because of the global affiliate services.

Global Expansion

As the company’s annual revenue started exceeding 4 trillion won, many of its affiliates also started filing IPO and going public. The number of subsidiaries of the company also started increasing and some of the new ones include Snow, Naver Labs, and Naver Webtoon. In 2021, Naver acquired Wattpad for $600 million. Line Corporation, the biggest subsidiary of Naver merged with Yahoo Japan in 2021. Naver’s current focus is to start competing with the biggest tech giants of the world like Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc.

About the Founder

Famous as the founder of Naver Corporation, Lee Hae-jin is a 54-year old billionaire. He is one of the top twenty richest people in South Korea and his business venture started while he was already working for Samsung in the late 1990s. Lee went to Seoul National University followed by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.

Annasha

Coupang – An e-Commerce Company That Is Recognized As The Amazon Of South Korea.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Annasha

Founded in July 2010, Coupang is the second largest e-commerce marketplace in South Korea. The founder of the company is Bom Kim, a Korean-American businessman who is serving as the CEO of the company presently. Coupang is often compared to Amazon in South Korea because the company has expanded very rapidly and it is known for the fastest deliveries. The company is incorporated in Delaware, United States and apart from South Korea, recently it has entered the American stock market. In 2021, the company announced that it is expanding its business in Japan and Taiwan. Some of the other offices of Coupang are located in Seattle. Los Angeles, Shanghai, Mountain View, etc.

About Coupang

Coupang is not only a famous e-commerce company in South Korea but also recognized across the world as one of the biggest companies. The company’s growth has been exponential in the past few years and in the first quarter of 2021, sales of $4.26 billion were recorded. SoftBank majorly invested in the company when it was rising during 2015 and then in 2018 and currently, the company owns one-third of Coupang. The company is trying to create a better experience for the users every day by implementing innovative technologies. Both Forbes Magazine and MIT Technology Review recognized Coupang as one of the 50 smartest companies in the world. So, starting out only a decade ago, the company is making the same lists as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Tesla.

Coupang’s fastest delivery is what makes it the most widely used e-commerce site in South Korea. In 2019, the company introduced a new feature called Dawn Delivery which means that if a customer orders something before midnight it will get delivered by 7 am in the next day. This feature helped the company grow very fast especially during the time of pandemic as people could get emergency supplies in less than half a day’s duration. Coupang’s IPO when entering the American market became the biggest IPO of an Asian company after the Alibaba Group.

History of the Company

Back in 2010 when Coupang was established it started out as an endeavor similar to Groupon. But within the first three years, Company crossed everyone’s expectations and left most of its competitors behind in the market. It was able to attract many large investors and in 2014 raised $300 million successfully from US investors and then in 2015 and 2018 raised $3 billion from SoftBank. SoftBank, today, owns a major portion of the company while the stakeholders are Greenoaks Capital, Maverick Holdings, Rose Park Advisors, BlackRock, and Bom Kim.

After eleven years of successfully establishing one of the largest Asian e-commerce companies, Coupang has a workforce of more than 50,000. It is because of the fastest deliveries that people in South Korea uses Coupang extensively. The company claims that 99.6% of the order received are delivered within 24 hours. The company uses Rocket Delivery Network and 70% of the South Korean citizens have a Coupang logistic center within a 10-minutes distance from their home.

Is Coupang better than Amazon?

Though in South Korea, Coupang is used extensively when compared to Amazon, the former has a very small customer base. Coupang has approximately 15 million customers whereas Amazon has over 100 million prime customers across the world. But, the customer base of Coupang will steadily increase because it is launching in overseas markets. Similar to Amazon Prime membership, Coupang has also launched a membership program (Coupang Wow Rocket Membership) and nearly 32% of the total customers are paying for it. The delivery speed of Coupang is unmatchable even for Amazon especially when it comes down to groceries.

About the Founder

Born in Seoul, Bom Kim left Korea at the age of seven and went to boarding school in Massachusetts. Later, he attended Harvard University followed by Harvard Business School but dropped out after six months. Before starting Coupang, he worked at Boston Consulting Group and currently his net worth is approximately $6.8 billion.

Annasha

Zscaler – A Cloud Security Company Founded By An Indian-American Billionaire.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Annasha

Zscaler is an American company established in the network security sector. The company was named one of the best places to work in America for two consecutive years. Zscaler is a publicly-traded company that was founded in 2007. Its headquarters is based in San Jose, California. CRN has also named Zscaler as one of the twenty coolest could security companies of the year. The main goal of the company is to anticipate and secure the whole experience of connectivity and sharing information. It started acquiring other companies more than after a decade the company was established. In 2021, the company started powering its global data centers and offices with renewable energy.

About Zscaler

Jay Chaudhry is the founder of the Zscaler who established it in 2007 along with K. Kailash. Chaudhry’s passion for making innovations in cybersecurity led to the foundation of the company which is one of the five startups he established in his journey. Zscaler is a leading cloud security company and it is also a leader in the zero-trust security model. The products offered by Zscaler ensure that a company can safely transfer data among its employers especially when working from a remote environment. The two main compromises that network security company deals with today are data loss and cyberattacks. Zscaler’s platform ensures its customer protection from these threats.

The company has a very lucrative list of clients and investors and its products are used in more than 185 countries today. Apart from the multinational companies, the government agencies also use the Company platform to prevent cyberattacks and data loss. The company has security as a service revenue model and some of its biggest clients are General Electric, VMware, Nestle, Barclays, the State of North Carolina, etc. The National Health Services of the UK is one of the largest government bodies to use Zscaler. The main products of the company include Zero Trust Exchange, Zscaler Internet Access, Zscaler Cloud Protection, Zscaler Private Access, and Zscaler Digital Experience.

History of the Company

Zscaler started its venture in 2007 and from 2008 the products (cloud security services) of the company were made available. Within two years, the company became very famous and was featured in the list of top 10 startups to watch in 2009 by Network World. Gartner Magic Quadrant named the company as a “Visionary” for Secure Web Gateways in 2010. For many subsequent years, Company was also positioned as a “Leader” in the Leaders Quadrant for Secure Web Gateways.

Zscaler also started acquiring new investors in the early 2010s. In 2012, Zscaler was able to raise $38 million from multiple investors including Lightspeed Ventures. In 2015, another round of funding took place which was led by TPG and the company secured $100 million. The company went public in March 2018 in which it raised $192 million in the initial public offering. It was by the end of 2021 that the Zscaler stock was added to the Nasdaq 100. The company also started making several acquisitions in 2018. The first company acquired was TrustPath, an AI-based company for cybersecurity. In 2019, acquired Appsulate, a cloud browser isolation company followed by Cloudneeti, a company that offered cloud security posture management (CSPM) technology. In 2021, it acquired two companies namely, Trustdome and Smokescreen.

Awards and Accolades

Zscaler has been recognized for its innovative technology and work culture over the years. In 2017, the company was awarded the Morgan Stanley CTO Award for Innovation, Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year in 2019, Cybersecurity Impact Awards Honoree in 2020, Infosec Publisher’s Choice Award in 2020, and many more. For the last two years, it has consecutive won the award of Glassdoor Best Place to Work.

Jay Chaudhry – Founder and CEO

Jay Chaudhry is an Indian-American entrepreneur who has started several ventures apart from Zscaler. His other successful endeavors are AirDefense, CipherTrust, CoreHarbor, and SecureIT. Jay has more than 25 years of experience in network security, sales, marketing, and management. Before becoming an entrepreneur, he worked at companies like IBM and Unisys. He is an alumnus of IIT BHU and later went to Harvard Business School.

Annasha

Avant – A Fintech Company That Started As A Product Of The Y Combinator Startup Program.

Leave a Comment / Story, Tech Story / By Annasha

Avant is a financial technology company based in Chicago, Illinois, US. The company was formerly known as AvantCredit and was established in 2012. Avant mainly focuses on two primary products, personal loans for middle-income borrowers and Avant Credit Card which come with a credit limit of $300 to $1000. The grew as AvantCredit and created a very strong brand name for customer lending services. The founders of Avant are Al Goldstein, John Sun, and Paul Zhang. Avant is a very young company and currently, it serves customers in the US and the UK only. It is a private company with 550 employees and the CEO of the company is Matt Bochenek.

About Avant

Founded in 2012, Avant’s target was to provide loans to customers who belong to the middle-class tier of our society. These are the people that need help with home improvements, high-interest debts, etc. Avant grasped the market so quickly that it is one of the few Chicago-based startups that has gained unicorn status and is still a privately-held company. Avant’s valuation has nearly touched $2 billion. In 2013, the company issued its first personal loan and used its propriety technology to determine a person’s creditworthiness.

There are various factors that help Avant determine the amount, time, etc at which the money can be borrowed. From machine learning protocols to various analytical tools, Avant rigorously checks a customer’s profile. Avant has also built a fully online process for its customers to eliminate the need for several physical branches and simplify the overall borrowing process. The company is supported by numerous big investors like Tiger Global, August Capital, General Atlantic, Victory Park Capital, etc. When the company began offering loans, it just started with 16 states but soon expanded to Canada and the UK.

Story of Avant

Avant’s customer base includes those people who generally don’t get loans from regular banks but at the same time have decent enough income to repay loans at sizable interest. This is the reason Avant’s technology determines a person’s creditworthiness in every way possible. In 2012, two of the Avant’s co-founders Sun and Zhang were looking forward to building their business, Debteye after graduating from the Y Combinator startup program. The business was about designing a platform that would help individuals manage debts after analyzing their unique financial situation.

In the pursuit of opening a business, Sun decided to take a personal loan from a traditional brick and mortar establishment because he had no income. But, he found that the entire process of applying and the loan getting sanctioned is very time-consuming and inconvenient. So, with the idea of the new venture combined with finding a solution to smoothen the process of loan sanction, Avant emerged. Sun and Zhang were former interns of Goldstein, seeing this as an opportunity they built a product in December 2012. Avant had a very strong financial backup from the beginning as it raised $1 million in seed funding. Within the next three years, the total funding of the company touched $1 billion.

Success

Avant received a lot of awards and recognitions only within a few years after it issued the first loan. In 2015, the company ranked 6th in Forbes America’s Most Promising Companies and in the Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups. Paul Zhang, the co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer of Avant was featured in Inc Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list. In the same year, the company also acquired ReadyForZero, a debt management platform, and rebranded it as Avant. In 2014 company successfully raised $225 Million in equity between Tiger Global Management, Peter Thiel, and KKR. But only after a year of the acquisition, Avant announced the shut down of ReadyForZero’s credit score and debt planner tools.

Matt Bochenek – CEO of Avant

Matt Bochenek joined Avant in 2013 in the Strategy & Operations department and after that served in many other roles. He became the CEO of the company in May 2021 and before that served as the COO for one year. Before joining Avant, he worked at Superfund Asset Management as the Managing Director of Business Development and Strategy. Matt went to the University of Chicago.

Annasha

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