Please introduce your company and give a brief about your role within the company?
Octal IT Solution LLP is one of the leading IT solution providers in the industry. Founded in the year 2007, we are headquartered in Jaipur, India, and have our registered offices in the UK and Singapore. We serve our clients across the globe for Custom Web Application Development, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, Open Source Technologies, and IoT solutions.
Being the Managing Partner of the Company, my primary role is to share the company vision and strategic direction of the organization.
What was the idea behind starting this organization?
12 years back, when we started Octal IT Solution, the IT industry in Jaipur was in infancy. Our motive behind starting Octal was to build an organization that works on the Client-first approach.
Our mission is not to be the most successful business out there, but we work to be the best in what we do. We work to ensure that each client, irrespective of the budget and size is treated as the top priority. Our sole mission is to provide solutions that bring value and profitability to our clients’ businesses.
What is your company’s business model–in house team or third party vendors/ outsourcing?
We are a team of 150+ skilled professionals seasoned in cutting-edge technologies, including open source and proprietary technologies. The team of creative UI/UX designers creates every pixel with their hands. With the help of our skilled people, every task is done in-house in Octal, and no outsourcing is entertained.
How is your business model beneficial from a value addition perspective to the clients compared to other companies' models?
We work to solve business problems for our clients. Our design thinking allows us to reduce delivery costs and work collaboratively with the clients. Also, we act as a consulting organization that helps us reduce the cost and delivery time.
What industries do you generally cater to? Are your customers repetitive?
During the past 12+ years of our operations, we have covered a wide range of industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, hospitality, tourism, gaming, education, real estate, food, banking, etc.
We work in a client-centric approach. Being an IT strategic partner for the clients, our main focus remains on client retention. We have more than 70-percent client retention ratio, which means we have more repetitive clients than new ones.
Mention the objectives or the parameters critical in determining the time frame of developing a web app.
The process starts with understanding clients’ expectations and go-to-market requirements. We have a robust process of time estimation which includes delivery plan, the right selection of technologies, and following agile methodology.
At Octal, we have a software accelerator repository that helps us reduce project delivery cost and time.
How much effort in terms of time goes into developing the front end and back end of a web app?
Around 20 to 25-percent of the total development time goes to the back-end, while the front-end requires around 75 to 80-percent of the development efforts.
What are the key parameters to be considered before selecting the right platform for a web application?
We follow the DAR Analysis process that helps us analyze the right set of technologies for the application. We believe in making the project future-ready, which includes the lifespan of the technology used and the potential market size of the application in the long run.
Which platform and technologies do you prefer to use in development of your web apps?
We work on a wide array of web technologies, including PHP frameworks, Microsoft technologies, open-source technologies, and proprietary technologies. The selection of technologies largely depends upon client requirements and project type.
Do you offer website design templates or customised website design, and do you have a responsive website design?
At Octal, every design is created from scratch. Our creative designers put their efforts into every pixel. Our skilled UX/UI designers use their experience and skills in creating a pixel-perfect design.
We strongly believe that every project is different, and every idea is different. And every different idea deserves a unique way of representation, in terms of designing. We do offer responsive designs.
Which Content Management System do you prefer to use (Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal etc)?
We make use of all the content management systems, depending upon the type of project. We have good expertise in CMS and have skilled resources to work on CMS technologies.
The selection of a specific CMS technology depends upon the project requirement. If it’s a simple blog or website, WordPress is used. But if the project requires great customization in CMS, we look for Drupal. And for something in between that has an easier learning curve, Joomla is a perfect choice.
Do you provide website maintenance services?
For every website we create, we provide free maintenance service for a specific time period. In the long run, clients may choose a maintenance bucket that allows them to keep their website smoothly running.
What are the key factors that you consider before deciding the cost of a web application?
The cost of any application depends upon the size of the project and the efforts required to complete it. Our skilled business managers sit with project managers to estimate the efforts required, and then the cost estimation is made.
What kind of payment structure do you follow to bill your clients? Is it Pay per Feature, Fixed Cost, Pay per Milestone (could be in phases, months, versions etc.)
Fixed cost with payment milestones associated with specific deliveries
Dedicated Team/Resource Hiring
Maintenance Bucket Plan
Time & Material
Retention Plan for managed services
Do you take in projects which meet your basic budget requirement? If yes, what is the minimum requirement? If no, on what minimum budget you have worked for?
To meet the quality guidelines, we follow a minimum budget requirement. We look for projects that have a minimum budget of USD 5000.
What is the price range (min and max) of the projects that you catered to in2018?
In the past year, we worked on various projects of different budgets. If we talk about the frame, the minimum was USD 8000, and the maximum was USD 160,000.
Kindly share your feedback on how Goodfirms has been doing so far in increasing your visibility among potential clients.
Goodfirms has remained one of our important sources of finding valuable clients. The traffic we get from this source is quite genuine and valuable. Also, it has provided us great visibility and exposure online.
