In this interview series by
Website Planet, I invite the top minds in SaaS, AI, cybersecurity and martech to share actionable tips from their direct experience and stories to help you build and grow your website.
Our guest today is Manoj Biswal, Sr Director Technology Evangelist at VVDN Technologies.
VVDN Technologies is a decade-long global provider of software, product engineering, electronics manufacturing services and solutions, with 11 R&D centers, 7 manufacturing facilities and 6 global offices across US, Canada, Japan, Vietnam, Korea, Europe.
They offer a unique value proposition by being a one-stop-shop for complete hardware development, software development, cloud & apps, mechanical design, testing, automation, pre-compliance, and manufacturing services.
Let’s pick his brain.
To start, tell us briefly about you. What is your current role at your company, and what measurable achievements are you most proud of?
I am currently working as a Global Technology Evangelist, Cloud & Digital Engineering Services BU at VVDN Technologies. I have over a decade of experience in Product Development, Sales, Partnerships, and Engineering, having worked at companies such as General Electric and Tech Mahindra. At VVDN, we are proud of positioning ourselves as a major competitor in the digital products and services industry by creating innovative digital products such as the Intelligent Cloud Engine (ICE), showcasing VVDN’s extensive product engineering capabilities.
What pain point(s) do you solve for your customers? What was the “aha Moment” that led to the idea? Can you share that story with us?
At VVDN, we work with Global Enterprises in industries including Telecom, Datacenter, Video, Automotive, and Networking. With our solution and product-first approach, we help solve complex business problems for our customers. While doing so, we realized to complete the end-to-end story for our customers we needed a comprehensive cloud platform to help our customers manage their globally dispersed devices.
Enterprises often rely on manual processes and temporary solutions to handle their IoT devices and analyze the data they produce. However, these methods are inefficient, prone to errors, vulnerable to security breaches, and unable to scale effectively as the number of devices and the volume of data grow.
To bridge the gap, we developed
Intelligent Cloud Engine (ICE), which is VVDN’s secure and scalable cloud platform designed to accelerate time to market and optimize business value. The innovative solution enables OEMs and brands in various industries, such as IoT, Video, Automotive, IIoT, Medical, and Smart City, to efficiently connect their devices to the cloud. By offering real-time data processing, seamless management, and secure data connections across dispersed devices, organizations can gain valuable insights faster, visualize data more effectively, and ensure smooth device management.
The
ICE integrates advanced data analytics and aggregation, empowering businesses to enhance their products’ value through improved flexibility, automation, and efficient resource allocation.
ICE is a comprehensive smart solution that empowers enterprises to leverage their IoT infrastructure’s potential fully.
Key Benefits include:
- Accelerated insights for quicker action on data.
- Enhanced data visualization for clearer understanding.
- Centralized device management on a single platform.
- Time and cost savings.
What do you think makes your company stand out? What are you most proud of?
VVDN is unique in every aspect. We help provide end-to-end solutions for our customers under one roof, starting from design, development, prototyping, engineering, and manufacturing. We take great pride in solving real-world customer problems with an end-to-end approach that enables our customers to build innovative, world-changing products.
From your experience, what are the most important things to build a highly successful digital or online product? Please explain each in detail.
Building a highly successful digital or online product like
ICE requires a comprehensive approach that encompasses several key elements. Here’s a detailed explanation of the most important aspects:
- Market Research and Validation: Identify and solve real problems by understanding target audience and market gaps
- Vision and Unique Value: Define clear goals and emphasize unique benefits to users over features.
- Know your Customer: Understand and meet customer needs to drive satisfaction and engagement.
- Strong Technical Foundation: Ensure secure, reliable, and fast infrastructure for robust performance.
- User-Centric Design and Continuous Improvement: Create intuitive UX/UI designs informed by continuous user feedback.
- Exceptional Customer Support: Provide excellent support to enhance satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Utilize analytics and testing to iteratively improve product effectiveness.
- Strong Team Collaboration: Foster effective teamwork to foster innovation and efficiency.
- Efficient Coordination: Align activities to efficiently achieve project objectives.
- Effective Marketing and Distribution: Develop a comprehensive strategy to reach target markets through digital channels and partnerships.
What’s the one key lesson you’ve learned about building a product that you wish you knew when you started? What’s the story behind this realization?
I’ve learned a key lesson about building a product:
the critical importance of early and continuous user feedback. This insight has fundamentally changed my approach to product development. The lesson learned was to prioritize early and continuous user feedback.
Through this experience, I realized that our initial mistake was not involving our users early enough in the development process. We assumed we knew what they or the market needed without validating those assumptions with actual user feedback.
This lesson highlighted the significance of creating products in collaboration with users, rather than just for them. By incorporating user feedback into the development process, you can produce more successful, user-friendly products that better meet market demands.
What strategy has been particularly effective in growing your platform’s customers and audience this year?
A particularly effective strategy in growing our platform’s customers and audience this year has been leveraging targeted partnerships and integrations, including:
- Strategic Partnerships: By establishing Strategic Partnerships with Google Cloud and AWS, we gained access to the Global Market for our product.
- Industry-Specific Solutions: By customizing our platform to meet the unique requirements of various industries, we have achieved industry neutrality.
- Customer Success and Support: Providing excellent customer support and ensuring customer success contributes to higher retention rates and positive word-of-mouth referrals. Emphasizing excellent customer support and ensuring our customers achieve success with our platform has not only boosted retention rates but also generated positive word-of-mouth referrals, driving organic growth.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people making when building an online platform? What can be done to avoid those errors?
Building an online platform involves numerous decisions and considerations. Here are some of the most common mistakes I’ve seen people make, along with strategies to avoid them:
- Lack of Clear Purpose and Goals
Many platforms are being built without a clear purpose or specific goals, leading to confusion and a lack of direction. When we built ICE, we recognized a distinct requirement for an SPOG Platform to efficiently manage and analyze devices.
Solution:
- Define Objectives: Clearly outline the purpose of your product and what you aim to achieve. Setting specific, measurable, attainable, reasonable, and time-bound goals.
- Create a Roadmap: Develop a roadmap that aligns with your business goals and guides your website development process.
2. Inadequate Security Measures
Overlooking security can expose your platform and users to risks such as data breaches and hacking.
Solution:
- Security Protocols: Implement robust security measures, like we have applied on ICE, including SSL Certificates, Regular Software Updates, Raw Public Key and X.509 Certificate credentials over DTLS, and Secure Password Policies.
- Regular Audits: Conduct regular Security Audits to identify and address vulnerabilities.
3. Poor Mobile Optimization
Not optimizing for mobile can lead to a subpar experience for a significant portion of users who access the internet via mobile devices.
Solution:
- Mobile-First Design: Adopt a Mobile-First Approach in design and development to ensure optimal performance on all devices.
- Testing: Regularly test your platform on various mobile devices to ensure compatibility and usability.
Based on your experiences, what trends and technologies are currently underestimated or overlooked, but can significantly impact your industry? How are you going to adapt?
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
AI and Machine Learning can revolutionize various aspects of engineering services, including predictive maintenance, design optimization, and quality control. AI and machine learning can enhance software development by automating routine tasks, optimizing code, predicting bugs, and personalizing user experiences.
Adaptation:
- Gen AI-driven Analytics: With the implementation of Gen AI on VVDN’s ICE Platform, we offer our customers Advanced Log Analytics and use Machine Learning algorithms to analyze data and provide predictive insights.
- Automation: Use AI to automate repetitive tasks, improving design processes, and enhancing quality control.
- Leverage AI Tools: Use AI-powered tools for code reviews, testing, and bug prediction.
- Focus on Data: Invest in data management practices to feed accurate data into AI models.
- 5G Technology
The rollout of 5G technology promises faster and more reliable connectivity, which can support advanced applications such as remote monitoring, real-time analytics, and IoT integration in engineering projects.
Adaptation:
- IoT Expansion on ICE: Expand IoT capabilities with 5G to enable real-time data collection and analysis across distributed sites and assets on VVDN’s ICE Platform.
- Leverage 5G: Invest in 5G-enabled devices and infrastructure to enhance connectivity and support advanced applications.
- Sustainability and Green Software Engineering
Sustainable software engineering practices aim to reduce the environmental impact of software development and operations, aligning with broader corporate sustainability goals.
Adaptation:
- Energy-Efficient Coding: Encourage practices that optimize software for energy efficiency.
- Sustainable Practices: Integrate sustainability considerations into the development process and operations.
