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Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is becoming an increasingly viable choice for organizations in search of accessibility, functionality, and versatility in a cutthroat business environment. WrxFlo has built an Industry 4.0 SaaS platform that processes live data from endpoints, such as factory machines, ERP or Software applications, and provides real-time process insights ensuring business value is created throughout the supply chain. Analytics Insight has engaged in an exclusive interview with Ken Sheehan, CTO & Co-Founder at WrxFLo.
WrxFlo was founded in 2019 and is a team of technology and supply chain experts. We are a growing team of 20, expanding our operations across Ireland, India & China. We are experts in a range of fields including IoT, Software Development, Project Management, and Supply Chain Operations Management
WrxFlo has built an Industry 4.0 SaaS platform that processes live data from endpoints, such as factory machines, ERP, or Software applications, and provides real-time process insights ensuring business value is created throughout the supply chain.
Based in our head office in Limerick, Ireland, we work with clients across the globe in a range of sectors to achieve a single source of truth from their various data streams. We do this by gathering the relevant data, storing it in the cloud, and then identifying the inefficiencies in the processes in order to eliminate them.
Our management team has worked with Dell for 25 years and running its operations globally.
Our CEO, Tim Crowe spent the last 2 decades designing, building, and running operations for Dell Technologies and providing technical advice at the board level to a wide variety of large multinationals. His forte is implementing IT strategies effectively. Tim is the business leader, and he is responsible for building the analytical team.
I am the CTO at WrxFlo, I spent over 20 years working with Dell as the Engineering Manager responsible for the design, build, and operations of Dell's network of manufacturing facilities worldwide. In my current role, my primary responsibilities include overseeing the technical area of the business and getting the right technology for WrxFlo and our customers. Together, we go through the growing pains and can guide our employees and customers through the technical minefield.
Nadeem is our Director of Operations based in India. He oversees entire operations to ensure consistent & efficient workflows are in place, to increase productivity and performance.
Nadeem works closely with senior management, developing long-term operational strategies to ensure the successful expansion of WrxFlo in the APAC region. He also directs a team of software professionals who provide around-the-clock service & support to our clients. His expertise is in numerous fields like Full-stack Development, IoT, Visual Cognition, Embedded Systems, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, etc.
Thinking about our contribution to big data and IoT, I believe what we do best is look at each client's problems first! And depending on the issues they face at their business, we try to find the relevant piece of IoT, rather than having a set stack. We look at their problem and design the best solution for each client, making it bespoke to each person.
We don't focus on selling our software upfront to our customers, we ensure that we have clearly understood their issues by listening to them. This way we can tailor the best solution to address their problem.
IoT and analytics have been oversold in the past. They have been overpromised and underdelivered. However, we believe that quality is important. It's all about the quality of what we bring to the market. The shift to big data is already there and we believe that our expertise is important for companies to move forward. There's now a lot more analytics in supply chains than in manufacturing due to covid, which is why we have decided to not only focus on the manufacturing sector, but we also want to establish ourselves as market leaders in the supply chain, and distribution, and logistics market.
In the next 12 months, our plan is to be aggressive. We have already established ourselves in the Asian market and last year we worked on some projects in South America, specifically in Brazil. However, in the coming months, we will focus on increasing our market share in India and the Asian market. Our primary focus is on India because we already have a presence there, we just recently opened our second office in Mumbai so it will be a lot easier to reach our clients in India.
We are also on track to open another office in China, in fact, we almost did last year but covid interfered. This is something we are looking into resuming once the restrictions are lifted.
Most of our growth in the next few months will be in India and China. We are already working with a few companies in Chengdu China, but we believe there is potential for growth in these markets.
With regards to RPA, we believe the most important thing is listening to our client's needs and problems and looking through their various data processes. Once we have this done, it allows us to implement the predictive analysis. The quality of the data is also very important as it tells how to automate their process. Once we have that right, we are sold and without it, we can't really do much. Our priority is getting the data from our customers, getting it cleaned and automated, and then we can try to create a solution that is unique to our clients.
We have used a bit of AI, but the maturity level is not quite there in the supply chain which is our focus. Automation is the next plan for WrxFlo. If we can get the data correct early on, then it opens room for AI. We believe that it's all about the quality of the data. Most of our competitors jump to AI before Big Data, which is backward, you need to first focus on the data before progressing to AI.
There are two cornerstones in this business. The first is the quality of the data and secondly, what issue is the customer-facing? At WrxFlo, we first focus on listening to our customers to clearly understand the problem they are facing, then acquiring good quality data, and then tailoring our solution to meet their exact needs. I would advise big data and analytics candidates to focus on these two cornerstones because once you have this, there's no limit to what you can do.
Covid has been our major challenge since our launch. During the first outbreak of covid, we were still just in the early stage of the business. The restrictions from the virus led us to conduct a lot of business remotely. We had to do the deployments remotely rather than physically as we would've preferred. We had to develop our own tools without ever meeting our clients and we missed that human interaction with our clients. However, covid-19 didn't make it impossible to do business, but it made certainly made it more difficult. It later turned out to be positive and it forced us to think differently about certain things.
Another challenge we have faced is due to our still-growing nature. As a start-up, it's hard to find the right, dedicated people to do the job. We also have to look into our existing culture and make sure that whoever else we bring onboard is a fit for our company. With the acquisition of new businesses, we are having to do a lot more to make sure that we have all hands on the deck ready for this new challenge.
We're just starting in India; however, we see potential high growth with India becoming increasingly important to us. They have large manufacturing and supply chain companies with a great talent pool that will be beneficial to the growth of our business.
