Automation tests play an important role in software development that is a sort of programming testing procedure and come in handy where the process can be automated.
An increase in investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI), coupled with the rapid deployment of AI-powered solutions among various companies, is the major driver for the growth of the global automation testing market.
Moreover, the rise in demand for AI and machine learning in quality assurance and testing among enterprises is another factor expected to drive the market’s growth in the coming years.
Continuous development in the IT sector with the help of automation technologies is an opportunistic factor of the global automation testing market.
AFour Technologies is a 14-year-old, 360-degree software product engineering company with offices in Pune, India, and Redmond, Washington.
As product engineering experts, their mission is to enable customers to build and maintain resilient, scalable, and secure software systems with high predictability and reliability using agile methodologies.
Currently, the company has around 350 employees and has serviced over 100 US-based clients.
Afour tech was founded in 2007 by Subodh Parulekar and Mahesh Kulkarni. They have expanded services considerably in the last 14 years, starting with introducing Reliability Engineering Services in the Storage and Systems space in 2010, followed by Mobile Test Automation Services in 2013, and DevOps Services in 2014.
In Financial Year (FY) 2018, the company bagged their first million-dollar US customer (by annual revenue), and in 2019 it launched Cybersecurity, Cloud Migration, and Data Analytics services.
In FY 2020-2021, Afour bagged two $ 1 million customers, and in FY 2021-2022, it expects that number to go to three. The company is on track to surpass USD 10 million in revenue this year.
In an exclusive interview with IndiaTech Desk Subodh Parulekar said.
“The impact of the digital transformation wave has been seen across multiple industries in India, including education, banking, retail, healthcare, etc. We will continue to see tremendous technological innovation in India in AI/ML, IoT, Blockchain and next-generation digital technologies in the coming years.”
Would you please elaborate on your funding status or revenue model?
We offer both onsite and offshore services to our clients. However, we generate around 95 percent of our revenue from our offshore services, catering to clients from the United States.
In terms of pricing, AFour uses a time and material (T&M) model with interim goals agreed upon by both AFour and the customer. From a funding standpoint, we chose not to opt for VC funding at this stage.
Briefly tell us about the specifics of the services provided and the technologies used
The services offered by the company include product engineering, infrastructure design and configuration management, software prototype development, CI/CD pipeline, DevOps strategy consulting, system architecture design, UX and UI design, backend/API development, performance and security testing, test automation development and execution, and so on.
Some of the technologies we use are Proprietary Technology Platforms like (Microsoft and Apple).
Open-Source Technologies (Java, J2EE, PHP, Frontend MVC, Node.js, React.js, Android, Ruby, Python, LAMP Stack).
SaaS, WebApps & Business Apps, DevOps (Jenkins, Bamboo, Chef, Puppet, Ansible), Big Data and Analytics (NoSQL – Hadoop, Cassandra, Redis. Other – Spark, Kafka, Machine Learning).
What are the key differentiators or the unique selling proposition (USPs) of the solutions provided by the company?
We have been in this space for two decades, and our USP lies in our proven expertise and methodology in reliability engineering.
Our unique culture of reliability engineering, world-class offshore-centric practice, cybersecurity testing services (vulnerability assessment and penetration testing), test automation frameworks, next-gen data center technologies, apps, platforms, peripherals, and migration of legacy systems to the cloud makes us a reliable software services partner for software technology companies of all sizes.
How has the pandemic impacted your business and its growth?
The pandemic has impacted and disrupted every business sector.
Businesses embraced new systems and made pivotal shifts to weather the storm. Interestingly the increased digital adoption has driven fast-paced growth in our industry.
With this high growth, the company is well on its way to surpassing USD 10 million in revenue in FY 2021.
A brief introduction to your client portfolio – name a few ones if possible.
Our top few clients are Pioneer in surgical robotics, mobile marketplace leader, call and conversational analytics company, data center backup and recovery solution leader, and cloud-native data protection company for an open stack, K8S and virtualization
Mostly India is seen as a service provider. Would you please talk in the context of India about specifics on the growing need for modern software solutions and the market potential?
India’s software industry has grown tremendously over the years and today contributes as much as 8 percent to GDP.
It has already created over four million direct jobs and twelve million indirect jobs and is continuously growing and accelerating the adoption of digital technologies in the country.
I believe that next-gen software companies are well equipped to help millions of small and medium enterprises and individuals exponentially grow their businesses.
The impact of the digital transformation wave has been seen across multiple industries in India, including education, banking, retail, healthcare, etc. We will continue to see tremendous technological innovation in India in AI/ML, IoT, Blockchain and next-generation digital technologies in the coming years.
With a more advanced, robust and expanded digital infrastructure footprint across India, there will be a corresponding increase in the number of companies and individuals consuming technologies.
It will be in innovative ways, ranging from gig or shared economy use cases in diverse verticals to the intersection of technologies like IoT and robotics with agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
What are your views on the future of digital transformation in software companies across the globe?
Post covid, we observe a trend among fast-growing and large software companies to accelerate digital transformation and a surge in demand for cyber security testing and cloud application development.
Surveys have also revealed that companies have accelerated their internal and external digitalization by about three to four years over the last year, primarily due to the global shift online during the pandemic.
This has prompted firms to hire for new roles in Digital Transformation, Software Modernization, Cloud Enablement/Migration, New Data Center Technologies, Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and others.
Now that companies have administered the power of digitalization, no distinction will be made between corporate and digital strategies.
Companies will constantly expand and leverage advanced technologies to increase agility and stay ahead of the competition.
