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Endava

Endava – Multinational Software Development Company Named After Two Companies Merged In 2000.

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Endava is a multinational software development company that emerged in 2000. It was formed as a result of a merger between two companies, Concise and Compudava. Endava mainly operates in various European countries and Latin America. The client offices of the company are located in Western Europe and North America whereas the delivery offices are located in Eastern Europe and Latin America. The headquarters of the company is based in London, UK. Endava offers ample solutions to its clients and some of them are user interface design, strategy consulting, Internet of Things, agile software development, and various automation solutions.

About Endava

Endava was established with the main goal to redefine the relationship between people and technology. The company offers its solutions to a vast field of companies including financial services, telecommunications, healthcare sector, retail, etc. Endava fuels the digital transformation for its clients and also accelerates the performance of the dynamic digital platforms. Endava currently has more than 10,000 employees at various locations of the world such as Australia, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Singapore, etc. Though the company’s major delivery offices and close-to-client offices are located in Europe and America, they have also extended the market to various Asian countries.

Endava’s recent spotlight is on the project APAC, that is, remaining digital across the Asia Pacific. Endava’s growth in the Asian and Australian markets started a bit late as compared to the European and American markets. The company is also working in association with other companies like Santander, Citizen, pollinate, etc. Endava has also formed Endava Private Equity Group from a merger with Intuitus Advisory. This body was formed particularly to offer digital advice throughout the entire investment life cycle.

Endava
Image source: www.endava.com

History of the Company

In 2000, Endava was formed in Chișinău, Moldova. After the two companies merged, the joint company was named Endava Group. The company has made several accomplishments in the past two decades. It has also made several acquisitions to broaden the market and acquired different client profiles. In mid-2015, Endava acquired a Serbia-based company called Power Symbol Technology. Later that year, It also acquired a company called Nickel Fish Design, an agency for UX and design. In 2016, the company acquired Integrated Systems Development Corporation which had an existing market in Netherlands, Bulgaria, and Romania. This acquisition broadened the client base of the company.

A few years ago Endava acquired Velocity Partners, a company headquartered in the US, and delivery offices in Latin America. It was mainly an agile software solution provider. In 2018, Endava established a partnership with Bain & Company. And in the same year, it also filed an IPO and started trading in the New York Stock Exchange. The company also became a principal partner in the FinTech Alliance, which was launched by the UK government. In 2019, the company decided to open two new marketplaces in different regions of Romania. Last year, Endava acquired a Brooklyn-based company called FIVE which is a design and marketing agency. It recently acquired another company called Levvel LLC. Endava has also recently announced that it is targeting to achieve net-zero emissions as an organization.

Awards & Recognitions

In 2010, Endava was featured in Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA and also in the list of 500 fastest-growing companies in EMEA. In 2011, It became one of the top 50 European Growth Companies and in the same year, the CEO of Endava, John Cotterell was was selected as the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. It also received Digital Impact Awards for the “Best use of mobile and portable devices.” The company was named as one of the top 100 digital agencies across the globe by Econsultancy in 2013. The Romanian market of the company is very strong and it won the “Brand of the Year” award in Romania for two consecutive years.

John Cotterell – CEO

John Cotterell founded Concise in 2000 which merged with Compudava to form Endava. So, he is a part of a company from the very beginning and made it a very successful and impactful business. He started his career in the computer service industry with Capgemini and currently, he has more than 30 years of industry experience.

SolarWinds Inc

SolarWinds Inc – A Software Development Company that has Recently Fallen Victim to the World’s Largest Cyberattack.

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In the past year, the name of SolarWinds Inc has been crawling in every news website speaking of cyberattacks. SolarWinds is a major software developing company based in America which has many reputed multinational companies as its clients. Last year, the company was the victim of the most sophisticated and the largest cyberattack the world has ever witnessed. After this attack, a security firm called Trustwave raised some concerns regarding the security flaws in the products of SolarWinds which questioned if the company can protect its client’s privacy at all. The cyberattack followed by these allegations had a negative impact on the company’s reputation and the share price fell.

About SolarWinds Inc

SolarWinds Inc is an American software company with headquarters based in Austin, Texas. The company develops software for enterprises that helps in managing networks, IT infrastructure, and systems. SolarWinds has several offices in the US and overseas with more than 3,200 employees working for the company. Donald Yonce and David Yonce founded the company in 1999 and it became a publicly-traded company in 2009. The company has approximately 300,000 customers which include most of the Fortune 500 companies. There was a huge investigation last year when Orion, one of the SolarWinds products was compromised by a cyberattack.

SolarWinds Inc
Image source: owler.com

Early days

Donald Yonce, who was a former executive at Walmart along with his brother, David Yonce started SolarWinds in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Though the company was established in 1999, the two brothers started working on their products ahead of time. Trace Route and Ping Sweep were the first two products rolled out by the company. In November 2001, SolarWinds released its first web-based network performance monitoring application. In 2006, Michael Bennett became the CEO of the company and the headquarters were shifted from Tulsa to Austin. During 2007, the company raised funds from Bain Capital, Insight Venture Partners, and Austin Ventures. After the fundings, the company decided to file its first IPO of $112.5 million and became public in 2009.

After the first IPO, the company made several acquisitions and expanded rapidly. In 2011, it was featured in Forbes magazine as one of the top fastest-growing companies. Bennett’s leadership ended in 2010 and he was replaced by the former CFO of the company, Kevin Thompson. In 2013, the company announced that it will be investing in an operations hub in Utah. The company’s target was to develop high-functioning products at a low cost which is desirable by every enterprise. The same year, SolarWinds was named the Best Small Company in America by Forbes. The number of employees in SolarWinds doubled from 2011 to 2013 as the total count became 900. In 2016, the company had more than 1700 employees and generated annual revenue of half a billion dollars. During this time the company was taken private and again filed a public offering in 2018. Last year, Kevin Thompson retired and he was replaced by Sudhakar Ramakrishna. Currently, the company is trying to cope up with the losses it faced during the recent cyberattack.

Acquisitions

In 2007, the company received good funding and it decided to invest the money in new acquisitions. So, the company acquired Neon Software and monitor Corp. The company also opened a new office in Ireland for sales purposes. The company didn’t just acquire companies but also focused on acquiring products that matched the interest of the company. After the company became public in 2009, it acquired many companies including Kiwi Enterprises, Hyper9 Inc, TriGeo, EminentWare, etc. By this time the company opened offices outside the US, including Australia, Czech Republic, India, and Singapore. The recent companies acquired by the company are Capzure Technology, Librato, SpamExperts, VividCortex, etc.

Sudhakar Ramakrishna – CEO of SolarWinds

Sudhakar Ramakrishna has recently become the CEO of the company. He has 25 years of professional experience in different fields including networking, security, mobility, etc. He is the former CEO of Pulse Secure and also worked at Citrix, Motorola, 3Com, etc. Ramakrishna is an alumnus of Kansas State University.

SmartBear Software

SmartBear Software – A Company Originally Founded By Jason Cohen Now A Part Of Bigger Enterprise.

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SmartBear Software is an American-based IT company that went through several folds of acquisitions since 2003. Jason Cohen, a successful entrepreneur and also an author, founded SmartBear and sold the company in 2007. The SmartBear company that we see today is the result of multiple acquisitions that took place between 2007 and 2009. SmartBear Software is known for delivering products for software development and testing, API testing and management, etc. Currently, the company is based in Somerville, Massachusetts, US and it operates under the leadership of CEO, Frank Roe.

About SmartBear Software

SmartBear is an information technology company that focuses on developing quality software for its clients. The products and solutions of SmartBear encompass a wide variety of options from test automation to code collaborator. SmartBear develops its products in such a way that it is not only affordable but also easy to try and integrate into your current system. So, the company makes sure to provide quality solutions at affordable pricing. More than 24,000 organizations have used the products of SmartBear including some famous brands like Adobe, Microsoft, FedEx, etc. The SmartBear tools are used by more than 15 million users in over 194 countries for different purposes.

SmartBear Software
Image source: wikimedia.org

History of Today’s SmartBear Software

Jason Cohen bootstrapped SmartBear for seven years and turned it into a success. The company started generating profit in millions and then he sold the company in 2007. Insight Venture Partners acquired SmartBear Software during that time along with two other companies, namely, AutomatedQA and Pragmatic Software. These three companies became a single entity and operated as AQA Holdings which in 2010 became SmartBear Software.

Automated QA was a software company founded in 1999 in Nevada. The company was well-known for building automated software testing tools. The company, before the acquisition and merger, was featured in the SD Times 100 list in the software development field. Born in 2005, Pragmatic Software became the first Microsoft Certified Partner software company in Albania. As the three companies started working together as a single brand, it acquitted another business called Eviware in 2011. A series of companies was acquired by SmartBear in the next few years including AlertSite, Lucierna, Swagger, and many more. The acquisitions led to some of the founders joining SmartBear which uplifted the quality of the team. In 2017, SmartBear was further acquired (major stake) by Francisco Partners.

SmartBear During the Pandemic

Frank Roe recently became the CEO of the company which was two weeks before the lockdown started due to COVID-19. A situation of sudden shutdown and shifting to a completely online mode of work became a new challenge for each and every company. So, being the new leader of SmartBear, Frank tried to maintain a very strong communication line among the employees, not only meeting but also virtual social gatherings. Most of the employees at SmartBear are very young, so their enthusiasm and curiosity helped the company move swiftly to the WFH environment without such amendments. Frank also believes that one of the most important reasons that SmartBear has successfully stayed strong during COVID-19 is because of the entrepreneurial spirit in the team. As the founders of the business acquired by SmartBear have come on board and joined the team, it has created a diverse team bonded with the same spirit of passion.

Awards and Recognitions

The new SmartBear Software has won many awards in the past years and still continues to thrive. Some of them include becoming the best medium-sized company to work in 2014 which was awarded by Glassdoor. Boston named SmartBear as one of the ‘50 on Fire’ companies in 2019 and the next year it was in the list of 100 Best Places to Work in Boston 2020 by BuiltIn.

Frank Roe – CEO of SmartBear

Frank Roe joined SmartBear with 25 years of rich experience in the business world. He started off his career by working as a strategy consultant and slowly moved up the ladder. Frank worked for multiple companies including Deloitte Consulting, Incentive Systems, Progress, Oracle, RSD, etc. He joined SmartBear as the Chief Revenue Officer in 2018 and became CEO in February 2020.

amdocs

Amdocs: Started As A Phone Directory Company Which Is Providing Multiple Miscellaneous Services

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There are many companies that deliver more than one service. Perhaps, only a few of them meet customer satisfaction as well as provides miscellaneous services. In such a case, one of the names come into mind is Amdocs. A company providing multiple ranges of services since 1982. Amdocs represents a great example that small ideas with great potential tend to grow into something bigger. Also, the company showed that with great execution everything is possible to stand out in the corporate world.

About Amdocs

A company that was originally set up in Israel and thereafter shifted its headquarter in Missouri. Also, its development centres are in all corners of the earth. Includes, Israel, India, Ireland, Austria, Brazil, and Canada. Morris Kahn an Israeli businessman set up the company in 1982.

Amdocs is expertise in providing software solutions and services. Like media, communications as well as financial services. Additionally, it offers mobile financial services, big data analytics solutions, media products and many more. However, the organisation doing its business in more than 90 countries. In fact, 250+ companies all over the world are satisfied and regular customers of Amdocs.

The Backstory- How Amdocs Founded?

It will be interesting to know that Amdocs start the journey as a phone directory company as a Golden Pages offshoot. It is founded in 1982 by Morris Kahn. After that, the company developed a billing software program so that they can fulfill the demand of phone directory companies. Previously, the company called Aurec information.

However, after southwestern Bell corp. acquired a 50 percent stake of the company, it renamed Amdocs in 1985. The period between 1990-1995 was the golden time for the company. Amdocs started diversification and expand the service into communications. Initially, it started wireline telephone service and then step up into mobile phones. Since then Amdocs is providing new services and products as per the changing technology.

Over the period, it acquired many other firms like Cramer, Clarify, Celcite, Comverse BSS assets and many more. In 1998, Amdocs made it public as well as in 2014 it entered NASDAQ.

What makes Amdocs Unique?

As said earlier, many firms offer multiple services as this company offers. But Amdocs stand unique in between all of them due to its unique features. First of all, Amdocs is providing superior execution since its foundation. Later, Amdocs’ consistent delivery, software, other implementation services are world-class. And most importantly, the business model of the company is unique. Also, customer satisfaction must be considered. However, it will be an injustice to the company if its superior customer experience is neglected.

Other Special Features of the Company

Amdocs is well-known for its superior customer experience. Also, the smart operations at the company successfully speed-up the procedures and time to revenue. Additionally, it offers services and software solutions that are adaptable to new technology. Thus, ensures the client’s business growth. These are some special services clients can experience with Amdocs however the company does more than this.

Amdocs knows Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

The firm has taken a proactive approach to CSR with several materiality assessments’ conduction. With these assessments, the company identifies the Corporate social responsibility issues which are matters to the company and its collaborations. Also, it considers customers and shareholders. For this purpose, four core CSR heads are established. As well, high-level goals formulated within each of them.

Glimpse to Founder’s Life- Morris Kahn

He was born in 1930 in South Africa to a Jewish family. Today, he is known as a billionaire entrepreneur of Israel. Apart from Amdocs, he founded Golden Pages, Coral world, and several other companies. In fact, he did a great contribution to the foundation of various marine parks across the continents. Apparently, being a diver inspire him to do so. Furthermore, he also founded Coral World International in Eliet. Also, Kahn is a principal investor in Aurum ventures as well as in Atlantium.

Bottom Line

Since the foundation, Amdocs delivering miscellaneous services across the world. The company set an example of how to satisfy the customers with superior service. Also, it showed the world that no matter how small the idea, with great execution everything is possible!

Scott Cook : One of the Most Groundbreaking Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley

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What can a bad boss lead its employees to? In the case of Scott Cook, his bad boss led him to think of starting his own business and establish a multi-billion empire for himself. Cook, an American billionaire businessman, is one of those people, who got their lives changed with a simple idea. The concept that people had never imagined of and thought as a non-profitable one, too. Not much people are aware of this nerd, who believed in his plan and gave a tough competition to multiple tech giants with his unusual product. But, who knows, are also aware of his management and leadership skills

Early Life

Cook was born and brought up in a suburb of L.A. He was a bright student at the school, and had programmed the school district’s one computer. After graduating from school, he got enrolled at the University of Southern California, to pursue a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics and later, joined the Harvard Business School, from where he received an MBA degree.

Career

After completing his education, Cook, took a job at Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he earned much experience in product development and consumer marketing. He also met his future wife Signe Ostby while working at P&G. After leaving the job and marrying Ostby, he with Ostby moved to Menlo Park, California, where he started working at Bain & Company as a consultant in the strategic consulting department.

Founding Intuit

On a fine day, in the early 80s, Cook was sitting in the kitchen of their silicon valley house, with his wife. His wife had complaints about the management and payment of the bills. Cook was prompted by the matter and thought that there might be some more people who find managing the various household bills a bit difficult. He came with an idea to develop software that would help the people to manage and pay their bills. The idea was first of its kind as there were not many users of computers at that time, especially women who stayed at home. Hence, it became difficult for him to raise funding for this idea.

Cook’s interaction with the programming languages had happened last when he was in high school, so he contacted his friend from the Stanford University, Tom Proulx, to help him out with the development process of the software.

In 1983, the two founded Intuit Inc. and launched the first software of their company, the first version of Quicken, written in Microsoft’s BASIC programming language. The software was designed to work on the IBM PC and UCSD Pascal for the Apple II. The product was a success and soon found a competitor. Microsoft also produced a similar software named Microsoft Money, but Cook had its move and provided its customers a US$15 rebate coupon, redeemable on software purchased in their stores. At the same time, the company got engaged with John Doerr, to expand its product lineup.

In 1993, the company was made public for ICO, and it made a major acquisition, i.e., of Chipsoft (a tax-preparation software company based in San Diego). In 1994, the market capitalization of the company reached US$2 billion, and Microsoft made a buyout offer for the company. But, due to some legal issues, the buyout failed, and Microsoft continued its competition with Intuit. During this time, the company started producing web-based products and invested in some really good projects.

The annual revenue of the company estimated by May 2018, was US$5 billion and its market capitalization was about US$50 billion.

Cook remained the chairman of Intuit from February 1993 to July 1998 and served as the president and the CEO of the company, from April 1983 to April 1994.

Personal Life

Cook and his wife Ostby are the parents of three children and live in Woodside, California. In 2002, the couple established the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin–Madison School of Business. In 2005, he was placed at number 320, in the Forbes 400, and his estimated worth was of $1.1 billion. Cook is one of the directors of eBay and Procter & Gamble and serves on the dean’s advisory board of the Harvard Business School. He is also one of the investors in eBay, Amazon, and Snapchat and has been a mentor to entrepreneurs like Larry Page.

Mike Cannon-Brookes & Scott Farquhar : The Accidental Billionaires From Australia

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Life is better with friends, and it is best when your friendship leads you to achieve your goals. An example of similar friendship is from Australia, where two college friends achieved their mutual goals and became the Accidental Billionaires of Australia. Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes are the co-founders and co-CEOs of the software company Atlassian, who together started the company with the simple plan to replicate the A$48,000 graduate starting salary typical at the big corporations without having to work for someone else. But their hard work paid them beyond their imagination.

Early Life

Mike Cannon-Brookes was born in November 1979, as Michael Cannon-Brookes, to a global banking executive Mike, and his wife, Helen. He spent his childhood in Sydney and attended Cranbrook School there. On the other hand, Scott Farquhar born in the December of the same year as Mike. He was the student of James Ruse Agricultural High School in Carlingford, NSW.

After graduating from school, the two enrolled in the University of New South Wales, where they met each other the very first time. Both of them were in the same class and grew a strong bond with one another. Both received a Bachelors in Arts and also a Bachelor’s degree in Science.

Founding Atlassian

The two shared an interest in starting own software company, so they went through a lot of research and work to design, launch and run their new business. Finally, in 2002, they founded their software company with the name Atlassian. They established the company’s first office in Sydney with a $10,000 credit card debt.

scott farquhar and mike cannon-brookes
Image Source: dailynews.lk

The same year, the Atlassian was launched, it released its flagship product, Jira. Jira is an issue tracker software that is used by various big and small companies for bug tracking and agile project management. In 2004, the company released another software named Confluence, written in Java. The software is a team collaboration platform that lets users work together on projects, co-create content, and share documents and other media assets.

Within four years of the founding of the company, Cannon-Brookes and Farquhar were named Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneurs of the Year for Australia, in 2006. It also raised a funding worth $60 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, in the year 2010. In the same year, the company acquired Bitbucket, a hosted service for code collaboration. Just after a year, the company announced a revenue of $102 million, followed by a $144 million revenue in 2013, and $215 million revenue in 2014. In November 2015, Atlassian produced a revenue worth $320 million.

In May 2012, the Atlassian launched its official website, that allowed the users to download plug-ins for various Atlassian products. In 2014, the company was restructured and renamed as Atlassian Corporation plc opening, an office established in London, keeping the headquarter of the company remain in Sydney. Atlassian has over 2,200 employees serving more than 60,000 customers and millions of users across the world, having its offices in five different countries.

Atlassian made its initial public offering (IPO), putting its market capitalization at $4.37 billion on the NASDAQ stock exchange, in December 2015. It has many programming-based products under its name, including Crucible, FishEye, Bamboo, and Clover. It has also tried its hands in the chat business by acquiring HipChat, an instant messenger and launching Stride, a web chat alternative to Slack, but soon quit their operations in the same. Atlassian biggest acquisitions include Trello for $425 million, in January 2017, and OpsGenie for $295m, in September 2018.

Personal Life

Mike is married to Annie Todd and has four children with her. Farquhar is married to Kim Jackson, and they have three children together. Mike and Farquhar are neighbours and live in Centennial Park, Sydney, in their lavish homes. Farquhar bought the Fairfax family’s former ancestral Sydney harbourside home worth A$75 million, in 2017, and in 2018, Mike also purchased Australia’s most expensive house for around $100million, the Fairwater, next to Farquhar’s.

The two were named among the richest Australians, aged under 40 on the BRW Young Rich list in 2007. In 2016, the two were also placed in the Forbes list of Australia’s 50 Richest people.