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Mastek

Mastek – An Indian Software Company That Was Founded By Three IIM Graduates.

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Founded in 1982, Mastek is a publicly-traded Indian company based in Mumbai, India. It is a multinational software technology company that mainly specializes in digital transformation services and cloud consulting. Mastek has served more than 1,500 customers successfully across 40 countries. It offers services in five leading industries, namely, public sector & government, healthcare & life science, retail & customer, manufacturing & industrial, and financial sector. Mastek offers services to both public and private organizations across different nations in the US, Middle East, Asia Pacific, Europe, and the UK, apart from India. In 2021, Mastek was featured in Forbes Asia Best Under a Billion list.

About Mastek

The three IIM Ahmedabad graduates, Ashank Desai, Ketan Mehta, and R Sundar founded Mastek in 1982. These three co-founders were batchmates of 1979 and they were later joined by Sudhakar Ram who is a very influential Indian business leader. Mastek helps various enterprises by harnessing the power of data to give them a digital advantage and stay in the competition. Focussing more on unleashing the power of data in the 21st century, Mastek has established a partnership with Lytics for Customer Data Activation and Personalization by enabling D2X (Direct to Stakeholder) transformation. The company is also recognized as one of the UK’s fastest-growing Indian companies in terms of revenue growth year on year.

Mastek
Image source: timesjobs.com

Management and Software Technology Private Limited

In 1982, three students of IIM Ahmedabad incorporated Management and Software Technology Private Limited and later brought Sudhakar Ram into the team. Sudhakar Ram also played his role as the CEO of the company until 2016. When the company was founded it aimed to design and deliver computer software to various types of businesses across diverse fields. In the same year of the establishment, the first project went lives which was a decision support system for Vicks Vaporub. The products were designed to generate production plans for the company in Indian in the most optimized way possible.

After a decade of incorporating the company, its name was changed to Mastek in 1992. In the same year, it acquired a UK IT company, Carter Cast Systems. This acquisition was made to enter the UK market in Theale. After changing its name the company decided to public in the same year and got listen in both Mumbai Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange in India. Soon it founded its UK subsidiary and it was named MajescoMastek. In 1995, Mastek bid for the London Congestion Charging Scheme which went live in February 2003. So the company got invited to join the consortium and Mastek became responsible for delivering several applications for the NHS Spine for a long time.

Growth and Expansion

In 2000, Mastek became the first IT solutions company in the entire world to be assessed at P-CMM Level 3. After a couple of years, the company established the Mastek Foundation which represented a corporate and social responsibility wing of both Mastek and Majesco. In 2003, as Mastek started working on SPINE projects, the company delivered over 130 such projects within the next ten years. Eventually, the company started making more acquisitions over the next years that include Entegram LLC, a Conneticut-based software company, and Vector Insurance Services, a tech company focusing insurance industry. Mastek acquired a few companies in the North American region like the Systems Task Group (STG) which also focused on the insurance industry.

In 2009 MastekMajesco entered the Canadian market. The demerger of MastekMajesco took place in 2014 and all the insurance businesses were consolidated under the brand name, Majesco. In 2015, after the demerger, Mastek acquired a UK-based consultancy firm, Indigo Blue. In the same year, Company launched a project called Deep Blue to encourage engineering students to solve various problems using coding skills. Mastek has recently acquired Evosys to fuel its digital transformation growth.

Hiral Chandrana – CEO of Mastek Group

Hiral Chandrana is the Global CEO of the Mastek Group. He has more than 25 years of experience in the IT sector and digital solutions for various industries. Working with Fortune 1000 global clients across various countries has made him a very experienced global leader. Mr. Chandrana is from an engineering background and later completed his MBA.

Lectra

Lectra, a leading fashion technology provider in both CAD and CAM.

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Lectra is a French technology company founded in 1973 by two engineers Jean and Bernard Etcheparre. The company’s headquarters is based in Paris, France and it is a publicly-traded company. Lectra is known for bringing digitalized transformation into the world of fashion and apparel and more than that. And, what place could have been better than starting the business in Paris and entering the fashion market. Lectra mainly specializes in CAD software and CAM cutting-room systems. It offers software, hardware, as well as consulting services.

About Lectra

Lectra, with its technology, empowers the companies in the fashion and apparel industry, companies that design car interiors, furniture, etc. The products and services of the company assist in a digital transformation of multiple steps from designing to production. Recently, Company has acquired USA-based Gerber Technology, a competitor in the market.

Currently, Company has 34 subsidiaries and operates across 34 countries with 1,650 employees. It also has three international advanced technology and conference centers. Initially, Lectra used the CAD software to assist the fashion manufacturing industry because their technology was compatible with those using soft materials like leather but it has evolved in the last three decades.

Lectra
Image source: wikimedia.org

History of Lectra

The history of Lectra started in 1973 when the two engineers founded the company. Their initial target was to enter the fashion and apparel industry and boost their designing process with the help of technology. In 1976, the company was successfully able to develop the first CAD software for apparel making. Soon the two founders met the venture capitalist, André Harari, and he helped in raising the capital Lectra needed to implement a proper business development plan.

In the next decade, i.e., the 1980s, Company expanded to international markets. Lectra’s first foreign subsidiary was established in Germany followed by the UK, Italy, Spain, and finally in the US. Till now the company only used CAD for its software products but in 1985 it expanded into computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) in the fashion industry. In the same year, Company was recognized as the topmost company across the globe in fashion CAD.

After becoming a leading fashion technology provider in both CAD and CAM, the company decided to go public and filed its first IPO in 1987. Unfortunately, the company faced some financial troubles during the early 1990s, and it was recapitalized by Daniel and André Harari. After its recapitalization, Lectra extensively invested in R&D for its every product range and in 1995 rolled out its first product data management (PDM). Between 1996-1998, Lectra made a breakthrough in pattern making and grading, and also pattern fabric matching cut management (Mosaic).

Lectra in 21st century

Lectra entered into the 21st century as the famous global leader in fashion CAD and CAM. It launched many new products and services in the next ten years like Lectra Fashion PLM, 3D prototyping, and IoT-based preventive maintenance services. Eventually, Company entered the automotive industry and topped the list in automotive CAM. It also made several changes in its core software and 2012 added predictive maintenance in its software.

In 2014, Lectra established a partnership with ESCP Europe to establish a chair in Fashion and Technology for its luxury innovation research. And, after a few years, Lectra joined hands with a few other companies to launch the Biarritz Active Lifestyle Integral (BALI) Chair. With Lectra being a company with a unique perspective in the 1970s, it is still a global provider in its sector. The company has been the recipient of several awards and recognitions that include winning the Showcase for the Industry of Future Alliance from the Industry of Future Alliance. The company has recently acquired Kubix Lab, an Italian company in 2018, and Gerber Technology, an American company in 2021.

Daniel Harari – CEO of Lectra

Daniel Harari became the CEO and Chairman of Lectra in 1991. Before that, he has served in various companies in executive positions and also as the CEO. He started his career by joining an asset management company as its Vice President. Daniel also served as the CEO of Compagnie Financière du Scribe, a venture capital firm based in Paris.

Avaya

Avaya, the world’s number one contact centre and unified communication service provider.

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Businesses are based on communication and establishing relations. Thanks to the companies that are building tools to make online communication easy through their online communication platforms. In times of pandemic, people are able to maintain their business relations and control their work using the internet and these software products. The work-from-home culture is only possible because of the internet connection and the various software that companies are using to communicate with their clients and employees. The most used communication software is from Avaya, an American technology company that specializes in developing unified communication software and service.

About Avaya

Avaya is an over twenty years old technology and software company. The company headquarters is based in Durham, North Carolina, and it basically develops communication software for its clients. The company is publically held and trades on New York Stock Exchange with ticker AVYA. Avaya is a multinational company and has offices in 190 countries. The company is home to 7900 employees. As per the 2020 data, Company made revenues worth US$2.9 billion for the financial year 2020, and it registered US$706 million as its operating income for the financial year 2019. The company’s most popular product is the Avaya OneCloud, which offers UCaaS (unified communications), CCaaS (contact centre), and CPasS services to the customers in one place. The company has also registered over 4000 patents in the same industry under its name.
Avaya is the world’s number one contact centre and unified communication service provider. Apple, AT&T, Comcast, Dell, Standard Chartered Bank, Liberty Mutual Insurance, Disney, Walmart, Lloyds Banking Group, Michigan State University, U.S. House of Representatives, etc. are some of the major and permanent clients that Avaya serve. For its new software products, the company has started to merge AI with them. It has also partnered with companies like Google and Amazon to make the platforms more user-friendly and up-to-date for consumers.

Avaya
Image source: media.bizj.us

The Back Story

Avaya is the result of a spin-off that occurred in 1995. AT&T had a spun-off, and Lucent Technologies was born. The latter then had a restructure and further divided its operations, and one of the spun off from Lucent was Avaya. Avaya was formed in 2000, a publically traded company. The company stayed independent for seven long years, and in October 2007, two partners, TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners, acquired Avaya for $8.2 billion, and it became a private company.
But in the next few years, Company faced a lot of losses, and in 2017, it decided to become independent and again went public on NYSE. The going public helped the company get back on its foot and experiment with new technologies, resulting in new software launches and more customer reach.
In twenty years of career, Avaya also made some strategic acquisitions that aided the company’s growth. These acquisitions included names like VISTA Information Technologies, VPNet Technologies, Tenovis, Traverse Networks, Sipera, Aurix, Quintus, NimCat Networks, Esnatech, etc. In October 2019, Company launched its most revolutionary product, Avaya Cloud Office, unified communications as a service solution.

The CEO and President at Avaya

Jim Chirico is the current CEO at Avaya. He has got a BS, Marketing degree from Providence College. Chirico has been in the technology industry for more than thirty years. At the beginning of his career, Chirico worked for IBM in various positions. In 1998, he joined Seagate Technology as the Vice President of the Global Operations, Development, and Manufacturing. Chirico started working at Avaya as the COO and Global Sales Leader in 2008. In 2017, he was appointed as the President and the CEO of Avaya.

LifeWorks

LifeWorks – A professional services company that was originally famous as Morneau Shepell.

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LifeWorks is a leading human resource services and technology company founded in 1966. The company was previously known as Morneau Shepell and in May 2021 the shareholders voted to change its name to LifeWorks. It is a publicly-traded company with headquarters based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

The services provided by the company are administrative outsourcing, health, and benefit, management, asset, and risk, etc. LifeWorks is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and currently has a market capitalization of $2 billion. The company has made several big acquisitions over the year and offers services to more than 24,000 clients across the globe.

About LifeWorks

The main goal of LifeWorks is to offer personalized solutions to the people who need it and how they need it. In the digital era, every solution in every sector needs to combine with technology to deliver results that are optimal for the customers. So, LifeWorks combine its solutions with AI-based technologies that are simple and easily accessible for HR people. LifeWorks offers financial strategies, physical and mental support, and also choices for building strong social relationships. It covers every aspect of a person’s life to make a real difference in the community.

History of Morneau Shepell

Back in 1966, Frank Morneau founded an actuarial and consulting firm called W. F. Morneau & Associates. The first US office of the company was established in 1987 and after five years established a strategic alliance with Coopers & Lybrand. This alliance led to the acquisition of pension consulting and actuarial business of the latter by Morneau. In 1996, the company launched its administrative outsourcing practice and next year merged with Sobeco. The new company was named Morneau Sobeco where Bill Morneau became the new President and CEO.

After the merger, the company made its first acquisition in 1998 with the Canadian pension consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. After stepping into the 21st century, the company became an income trust, Morneau Sobeco Income Fund (MSIF) in 2005. Morneau eventually started to expand geographically and that led to the acquisition of several companies. In 2006, Morneau acquired Health Benefits Consulting (a Canadian firm) followed by the defined benefit pension business of Cowan Benefits Consulting in 2007.

In 2008, Morneau acquired Shepell-FGI which was the country’s largest provider of employee health and productivity solutions. After the acquisition was completed, Morneau Sebeco’s name was changed to Morneau Shepell. The acquisition was completed for $321.9 million from the Clairvest Group. In the same year, the company also acquired an actuarial firm, Leong & Associates.

LifeWorks
Image source: businesswire.com

Recent Events

In 2011, Morneau Shepell restructured its income trust (MSIF) into a public corporation called Morneau Shepell Inc. The same year it also acquired Jacques Lamarre & Associates to expand its presence in Quebec. In 2012, Morneau acquired a Canadian pension and benefits administration firm, Mercer Canada. To enhance its benefits administration platform, the company acquired SBC Systems in 2012. In 2013, Morneau acquired two companies, namely, Collage Pediatric Therapy and the worker’s compensation business of Dion Durrell.

In 2014, Morneau acquired Blue Ballon Health Services which is one of the many companies it acquired in the healthcare sector. It also acquired Pacific Risk Management Corp and Groupe AST in the same year. Next year, Morneau acquired another healthcare business (health and welfare benefits administration of Ceridian). In 2016, Morneau completed its 50th anniversary. In 2018, it acquired LifeWorks and decided to change its name three years later. Some of the other companies acquired by LifeWorks are MorningStar Health, Pro-Health Group, Chestnut Global Partners, etc.

Stephen Liptrap – President and CEO of LifeWorks

Stephen Liptrap, the current CEO and President of LifeWorks joined the company in 2008 as a member of the senior executive team. When he joined LifeWorks, he had 25 years of experience in the retail and packaged goods sector. He became the general manager and executive VP of the company’s largest business unit. Liptrap has also played his role as the COO of the company for almost a year. He graduated from Harvard Business School in 2016. He is also a Certified Human Resources Executive.

PTC Inc

PTC Inc – An American Technology Company Specializing In IoT And Augmented Reality.

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PTC Inc is a famous American software company that was founded in 1985. The main products and services of the company include the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR), and collaboration software. The headquarters of the company is based in Boston, Massachusetts, US. A Russian immigrant and mathematician, Samuel P. Giesberg is the mastermind behind the foundation of PTC Inc. He worked as a software engineer at other companies before founding PTC. Today, this public multinational company has more than 6,000 employees spread across 30 countries.

The Initial Story Of PTC Inc

In May 1985, Samuel Giesberg officially launched PTC Inc and worked for developing a new CAD-CAM program. In the first few years, Samuel was looking for venture capitalists to market his new software. Initially, he was turned down by many venture capitalists but at last, he received a total fund of $4 million from Charles River Ventures and other firms. In 1988, the company launched its first product and by then half the funding money was invested. The first product of the company was the CAD-CAM program but PTC entered late in the market and was already surrounded by powerful rivals.

The CAD-CAM software technology entered the market in the 1960s and it was in the late 1980s that Samuel launched the new software. But, what he brought into the market has an added innovation in the already developed technology which left its rival surprised. For example, the CAD-CAM software in the market was able to make different changes in a 3D model but PTC’s software was able to predict the consequences of that change in the overall model. Thus, this new software became a breakthrough as it made the work of an engineer much easier. Within one year, PTC made a total sales of $11 million and a net income of more than $1.5 million.

PTC Inc
Image source: wikimedia.org

Business Growth

After the sales started escalating in the late 1980s, the company filed its first IPO and went public. Samuel also launched different versions of the mechanical software for various operating systems. Only after two years of launching the CAD-CAM software, PTC was controlling 10 percent of this software market. By the end of 1991, the total sales of the company reached $45 million. The CAD-CAM Pro/Engineer system was such a big hit that it attracted clients of big companies who were established in the industry. In 1992, this technology was named “Technology of the Year” by IndustryWeek. PTC also made into the list of Fortune 500 in 1995 and crossed $800 million in revenue.

In 1993 PTC’s market share increased to 20 percent and it landed big clients like Ford Motor and Caterpillar Inc. By this time the company also started increasing the number of employees and the annual revenue doubled within a year. In 1998, PTC acquired Comoutervision, where Samuel was a former employee, and Windchill Technology. In the early 2000s, PTC broadened the range of products as it developed lifecycle management software for products and services. PTC made both CAD-related and other acquisitions that include Polyplan Technologies, NetRegulus, Synapsis Technology, Mathsoft, CoCreate, NC Graphics, etc. Three years ago, the company landed a major investor, Rockwell Automation. It invested $1 billion in the company and acquired an 8.4 percent ownership stake.

About The Founder

Samuel Giesberg was a maths professor who fled to the US in 1974 with his 11-year old son. After he moved to a new country, he started working as a software engineer and soon he became a prodigy at Computervision (the company he worked for). Samuel’s brother Vladimir gave him the push to start his own company and also suggested landing some investors for financing the same. Samuel had ten years of experience in designing CAD-CAM software and thus decided to leap.

Ultimate Software

Ultimate Software – An American Tech Company that Merged with Kronos Incorporated to Form UKG.

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Ultimate Software was an American-based technology company that eventually merged with Kronos Incorporated to form Ultimate Kronos Group. Scott Scherr is the founder of Ultimate Software, a company that is known for selling SaaS. The company sold UltiPro as its main product which is a cloud-based human capital management software. This SaaS product was sold to many enterprises by Ultimate Software. Founded in 1990, the company’s headquarters are based in Weston, Florida. Ultimate Software officially launched its first product in 1993. Last year, the company ranked second in the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list.

About Ultimate Software

Ultimate Software is mainly known for its SaaS product, UltiPro, a single cloud-based system for recording HR, payroll, and talent management. Eventually, the software added many new features like employee onboarding, attendance maintaining, performance and compensation management, recruiting, etc. The rollout of UltiPro was a big success for Ultimate Software as in 2017 it generated a revenue of $940.7 million in the fourth quarter. Before it was merged with Kronos Incorporated, the company had more than 5,000 employees providing services in 160 countries. In 2019, Ultimate Software came under the acquisition of Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners for $11 billion. One year later, the company further merged with Kronos. The newly merged company is called Ultimate Kronos Group and is led by the CEO of Kronos Incorporated, Aron Ain.

Ultimate Software
Image source: wikimedia.org

History of Ultimate Software

Though Ultimate Software was established in 1990, the company launched its first product, UltiPro, after three years. After rolling out the first version of this SaaS software for better business management, the company kept improving the product by adding more features and optimizing it. In 1993, when UltiPro was launched for the first time, it was an on-premise software mainly for core HR and payroll. In 2002, the same product was launched as SaaS to provide HRs with a unified management tool.

The company went public in 1998 and was listed on NASDAQ as ULTI. After UltiPro was launched as SaaS, the total customers of the company exceeded 3,000 businesses over a small time span. The company eventually decided to expand overseas, and thus opened offices in London and Singapore. In 2014, the company partnered with the Center for Generational Kinetics to study the behavior of different generations in a workforce.

About Kronos Incorporated

Kronos Incorporated is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1977 by Mark S. Ain. The company specializes in workforce and human capital management cloud platforms. Kronos Incorporated is currently owned by Hellman & Friedman and its headquarters is located in Lowell, Massachusetts. In 1979, Kronos rolled out its first product which was the world’s first microprocessor-based time clock, and a few years later launched a PC-based time and attendance product. Kronos became a publicly-traded company in 1992 and Aron Ain, brother of Mark Ain took over the charge of the company in 2005. Before the merger of Kronos and Ultimate Software, the former has acquired many other companies including Principal Decision Systems International, Stromberg, Empower Software Solutions, etc.

Formation of UKG

Both Ultimate Software and Kronos Incorporated were established in the same field and to multiply its impact on the human capital management system, they decided to merge and start a new venture. In February 2020, the two companies announced the merger and after two months Ultimate Kronos Group was launched officially. The valuation of the jointly established company is $22 billion making it one of the world’s largest cloud computing companies. UKG is keeping both the headquarters and made Aron Ain CEO of the new venture. Since Hellman & Friedman was the owner of both the companies, he is also the major shareholder of UKG.

Scott Scherr – Founder of Ultimate Software

Scott Scherr is the founder of Ultimate Software and after he established the company in 1990, he served as the CEO of the company as well. He remained as one of the board members of the company after resigning as the CEO. When Scott established Ultimate Software, he created jobs for more than 1000 people in Florida and his contributions were immense to develop the tech culture in the state as well.