GlobalLogic: Delivering Digital Product Engineering Services with a Design-led Twist

GlobalLogic uses design-led engineering to help customers imagine and build their next generation products and digital experiences.”

Facts File

GlobalLogic Inc.
www.globallogic.com

Office Locations:

• Global Headquarters in the heart of Silicon Valley: San Jose, California
• Engineering Centers: India, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Argentina, United States
• GlobalLogic’s design wing, Method, operates design studios in San Francisco, New York, London
• Business Offices around the globe including: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Israel, Sweden and many more.

Investors: APAX Partners (UK), www.apax.com

Revenue Model: GlobalLogic revenue comes from Design, Software Product Engineering Services, and Advisory Services.

Software Eats the World

The market for software engineering services is growing very rapidly as companies in all industries are feeling the pressure to build new products that leverage software to engage and serve consumers. One company that truly meets the demand of this growing appetite for software is GlobalLogic. Founded in 2000, GlobalLogic is a full-lifecycle product development services leader that combines experience design, complex engineering and vertical industry know-how to help customers design, build, and deliver their next generation products and digital experiences. GlobalLogic customers comprise some of the largest and well-known global brands including leading medical device companies, wireless carriers, and network equipment and communications technology companies, consumer electronics, independent software vendors and much more. The company is currently seeing most traction in medical technology, communications, semiconductor, media and technology verticals where the software innovation is most intense, however new verticals are joining the software fray quickly. Today, the company provides design-led engineering services to help clients imagine and build their next generation products. At a time where organizations are struggling with getting the talent and experience necessary to drive their digital agendas GlobalLogic fills that critical gap, enabling clients to come to market with new, innovative, or even disruptive offerings quickly and economically.

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, GlobalLogic operates design studios and engineering centers around the world, extending the benefits of true global presence to customers in telecom, automotive, healthcare, technology, retail, media and entertainment, manufacturing, and semiconductor industries.

Company Evolution

Founded in 2000 at a time of booming IT departments and mega-data centers, GlobalLogic’s early roots were in providing point engineering services to ISV’s (independent software vendors) and start-ups. As the company grew and evolved they enjoyed robust growth both organically and through strategic acquisitions. The need for software became pervasive in more and more industry verticals, GlobalLogic began to serve larger organizations in a broader set of industries. In 2011, GlobalLogic acquired Method, a premier experience design agency with design studios in New York, San Francisco, and London. Method completed the GlobalLogic portfolio by adding the critical element of experience design to the software product lifecycle. This strategic addition enabled GlobalLogic to incorporate the critical element of design into the services mix, which is essential to all next-generation software experiences.

A true market leader

The company very well understands the market requirements and is extremely well positioned to take advantage of current market tides. The company decided early on that it was not going to play in the IT / data center outsourcing space and focused its energy on product engineering. The founders felt that there was great value being in the business of building new innovative products instead of helping maintain IT systems. GlobalLogic’s approach is centered around the premise that modern software and digital experiences have a few universal characteristics:

• The software must be centered around customer experience – customers have come to demand technology that just works. It has to be super intuitive, customized for their needs and must add value out of the box.
• The software must expertly span complex systems – so deep engineering skills are required to seamlessly integrate software from cloud to mobile apps, to back-end systems to UX/UI to wearable.
• The systems must enable processing and collection of large data sets for analysis of user behavior or consumer behavior.
• Time is everything – that means new products and updates must be released with shorter iterative cycles in mind.
• GlobalLogic addresses all of these key requirements with their exclusive integration of Experience Design, Complex Engineering and Agile (Lean MVP) style delivery.

Products & Services Offered

• Full-lifecycle product engineering services – from concept, to design, to building, test and sustenance.
• Digital advisory services.
• Digital labs (self-contained teams comprised of all the elements needed for a specific purpose).
• POC / innovation.

Being a True Product Engineering Service Provider

“We are a pure-play product engineering services company.”

GlobalLogic specializes in working entirely on the growth engines of organizations – namely their revenue generating products. Unlike some of the large multi-national IT firms, they are not engaged in any data center IT management or IT infrastructure type of services.

“We have integrated experience design with complex engineering.”

This is a core requirement for innovative products today. Engineering by itself is critically important, but not enough. Design is now a core requirement because it defines the interaction of the technology with the individual. At a time where ease of use, intuitiveness, and personalization has become paramount, one needs true design competency otherwise the product will fail to meet customer’s expectations.

“We are one of the few with true global delivery capability.”

GlobalLogic can offer design and engineering work from a variety of global locations, from Asia/India, to Europe, to the Americas. This enables them to match the best resources and competencies with a specific client need. There is no reliance on a single geographical theater.

“We built our deep software expertise by working with software companies.”

The company began by providing services to many software start-ups and vertical SaaS companies, and ISV’s (Independent Software Vendors). This provided them with their strong “Digital Foundation” which they apply to software projects in all verticals. Now, modern software delivery principles can be easily be applied to every manner of business and industry.

The Future Sight!

For a blooming future ahead, the team at GlobalLogic will continue to invest in developing capacities and scale to support new and emerging solutions that their customers need help with. These emerging trends include:

• Connected products – Leveraging IOT as the fundamental foundation, most all product companies are becoming connected product companies. GlobalLogic has invested and will expand in this area significantly.
• Cloud-based service platforms – Organizations are now building their own clouds to offer their products as a service to their customers. Whether they want to deliver content or monetize their product as a service, GlobalLogic is seeing significant new demand uptick in this space – hence the company will continue to scale in this arena.
• Communications and Media convergence – This is an exploding area where content owners wish to publish their content via omni-channel platforms including Web, streaming services (OTT) and others. GlobalLogic has already amassed significant experience here and will continue to service this space.
• Automotive – This is a fast moving area where significant software footprint is required. GlobalLogic is making bigger investments in building competencies in autonomous driving, infotainment systems and connected cars.

Innovation Case Study!!!

Stellar
Stellar is an aviation start-up based in Silicon Valley that offers the first end-to-end digital marketplace for private aviation. While the rest of the aviation industry has taken advantage of the Internet, private flights are still primarily booked through numerous phone calls and email exchanges with brokers, who in turn work with the operators who manage the aviation fleets. This process is incredibly time-consuming and frustrating for executives who need to book flights frequently. Stellar approached Method and GlobalLogic to design and develop an ambitious solution: the first complete digital marketplace and network for business aviation. Through their joint user experience and product engineering skills, Method and GlobalLogic enabled Stellar to transform one of the last transportation industries to provide digital solutions for their customers.

Engagement
Stellar’s partnership with Method and GlobalLogic was a year-long engagement that included building a two-sided solution: an MVP app that enables clients to quickly search and book private flights, and an operator system that enables brokers and operators to receive client requests, automatically generate trip options and proposals, and track their fleets. GlobalLogic collaborated with Stellar to develop the MVP iOS app and the desktop operator system and payment site. By providing technical leads for each branch of the engagement, GlobalLogic was able to guide Stellar through the process of adopting Agile methodologies and best practices. Method developed information architectures, customer journeys, and interaction models for the solution in order to create the product’s wireframes and visual and interaction designs. The Method team also collaborated with GlobalLogic on Quality Assurance activities.

Process
Although Stellar’s needs and expectations evolved throughout the engagement, the close collaboration between their joint GlobalLogic and Method teams allowed them to be flexible with Stellar’s workflow and quickly pivot as client and market needs changed. “GlobalLogic and Method insourced into our project all together, and we became a truly cohesive team,” says Paul Touw, CEO of Stellar. Through this close connection between the client and the Method and GlobalLogic teams, team Stellar were able to simultaneously design and develop the different components of the project, driven by an in-depth knowledge around the private aviation industry and its user needs.

Outcomes
GlobalLogic and Method delivered the iOS-based MVP app within nine months of starting the engagement, followed soon thereafter with the connected operator system. Since the launch of the MVP app in November 2015, three operators have signed on as investors. The solution became available to the public in early 2016.

Meet the CEO

Shashank Samant– Since joining GlobalLogic in 2008, Shashank has helped turn the company from a group of bright technology minds working with startups into a global Digital Product Engineering Services leader helping Fortune 500 companies on their innovation agenda. In Shashank’s time as President and CEO of GlobalLogic, the company has experienced explosive growth in size and revenue – all while building a culture that fosters engaged employees around innovation and client success. Prior to joining GlobalLogic, Shashank was President of Ness Technologies, where he founded and built their product engineering services business. Prior to Ness, Shashank managed product engineering for Hewlett-Packard’s Verifone line of business. Furthermore, Shashank was instrumental in establishing IBM’s first Indian engineering lab, thus globalizing its R&D and engineering. Shashank started his career at Citicorp where he was part of the core team that developed the FlexCube banking product that changed retail banking. With a passion for technology and innovation, Shashank is focused on transforming GlobalLogic into a trusted partner for the Fortune 500s and a trusted employer with a strong culture that evolves as the company grows. Shashank is a frequent speaker on the topics of global innovation and digital disruption. He is also an avid cook and history buff. One can find him dining late at night with the chef of any of the hotels on his travels, or reading in his home library.

“GlobalLogic is at the crossroads of another revolution in technology. The intersection of design and complex software has become the fundamental ingredient of all new successful products today and we’re glad to be here at this time, to make it happen with our clients.”

“We help clients realize their digital ambitions through software.  If they can dream it, we help them build it!”