Clearly marked by the effects of the pandemic, this year’s financial year was characterized by the entry on the scene of a new way of operating by companies and institutions, which were forced to take the last leap into the digital world. David Faustino, Managing Director of Nexllence, spoke with Computerworld about the year to end, but essentially analyzed what is in store for 2021.

In terms of business, what is your assessment of 2020? How has the pandemic influenced Nexllence’s business and what are the consequences?

We created Nexllence, powered by Glintt, to serve organizations that understand the value that technology can offer to their strategic plans, and that through it intend to lead an increasingly digital future, regardless of the sector of activity, or management control (private or public).

In 2020, boosted by the pandemic situation of the country and the world, we considered that it would be important for GLINTT to make the two faces of the company more visible to the market: a company with its own intellectual capital for solutions for the Health sector, and another with the technological capacity to leverage the digital transformation of large organizations.

It is in this context that the Nexllence brand (officially launched in October 2020) emerges, which arises from the evolution of two business units already existing at Glintt – application consulting and the infrastructure area – that operate in technological areas of great specialty and specificity. , being inserted in a technology market in high growth worldwide. With Nexllence we intend to transmit Glintt’s strong commitment as a hub of skills and know-how with a strong growth ambition, capable of attracting talent in areas of strong innovation, and transforming that talent into value for its customers.

This year, Nexllence acquired AB CONSULTING, an innovative company, with a recognized ability in the development of OutSystems solutions, helping us to consolidate a leadership position in supporting the digital transformation of organizations. In addition to reinforcing Nexllence’s offer, AB Consulting has an offer of training and management of software factories in Agile model, meeting the needs felt by our customers. With this acquisition, AB Consulting teams, customers and partners are expected to benefit from the services of more than 300 people from Nexllence, in addition to other technological offers that we have in our portfolio. Through these new generation infrastructure solutions, companies will achieve a better technological alignment with their business, guaranteeing their competitiveness, as well as an excellent service to citizens, by public administration entities.

How much is the Nexllence business in Portugal worth and what percentage does it represent in Glintt’s global business in Europe?

Nexllence represents approximately 25% of Glintt’s total turnover.

What are the expectations for 2021? Will the business grow? What are the most relevant areas?

Despite the pandemic’s major impact on global economies, Nexllence hopes to end 2020 with double-digit growth in its most important markets: Portugal and Spain.

The prospects for the year 2021 are of continued growth, reinforced by a policy of selective acquisitions, which aims to allow the development of centers of excellence in critical technological areas. The bet on foreign markets in Southern Europe will also be reinforced, with particular emphasis on Spain, a country to which we have exported technological services for over 10 years and where we have invested in a determined way in 2020.

Over the years we have accumulated an important know-how in cutting-edge technological areas such as Cloud, Cybersecurity, Low Code, Middleware, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence, experience obtained in all sectors of activity. The acceleration of the digitalization of society, companies and public entities, has led us to be increasingly challenged by more customers, who recognize the complexity and criticality of solutions created by us, and intend to use this know-how in their companies or administration bodies public.

And more important than technology, is the use that this technology has, for citizens, companies and governments: the technology should serve each citizen / consumer in a personalized way, and allow each public or private entity to provide services or sell their products. products in a unique and differentiated way from its competitors. The technology must be unique to each entity, in order to be a lever of its business strategy, and not the business strategy to be conditioned by technological tools that are not flexible and condition the performance of companies or public entities.

Taking into account the need for job creation in Portugal, has Nexllence planned to hire in 2021? How many employees do you close in 2020, and how many do you think you have at the end of 2021?

Currently, Nexllence has approximately 300 highly qualified jobs. Nearly 80% of Nexllence’s employees are working primarily from home, in a movement that started with the pandemic but which should continue in the future, being partially shaped by operational requirements, given that its customers (large companies and administration bodies) central public) sometimes still require teams located in their offices.

This decentralization of the place where services are provided has allowed some employees to choose to live in regions with less urban concentration, and even outside Portugal and Spain. It is a movement with clear benefits for employees and the environment, which implied the creation of a set of new work practices, and a particular attention to maintaining one of the factors of greatest satisfaction for our employees: team spirit.

During the next year, we intend to hire up to 100 people, essentially covering functions with a high level of technical expertise (cybersecurity, cloud management, tech lead Outsystems, API management, full-stack developers, data scientist, aplication architect, process automation), management and direction of projects and contracts, as well as more junior positions, in which the objective is to hire masters in technological and management areas.

What are the main difficulties that you encounter, in the Portuguese market, at the moment, with regard to the approach of digitalization of companies?

The acceleration of the digitalisation of society, companies and public entities, has led Nexllence to be increasingly challenged by more customers, who recognize our skills and experience, and intend to use this know-how in their companies or public administration bodies.

The convergence to the cloud, the expectations of a faster digitalization of our clients’ businesses and the growing challenges of cybersecurity and privacy – for both companies and citizens – are making technology more complex and integrated, making our preparation is daily so that we can, more than accompany, be on the crest of the wave of technological disruption. We are fully aware of the complexity that the period we are going through represents, that is why we have adapted ourselves so that our customers continue their activity with the least possible disruption, based on agile implementation solutions and allowing them a quick “go-to- market ”.

The co-creation and maintenance of our partnerships, as well as organic and non-economic growth, has been part of our growth and adaptation strategy to respond to new market challenges. For example, we signed an agreement with CommVault and through this strategic alliance we started to develop a data protection solution. It is a complete solution that provides licensing, storage and consulting services for a reference client in the Utilities / Energy sector. It is with this type of solutions that we intend to be differentiators in the market, helping our customers to guarantee a correct and total protection of their data. We believe that this project is the first of many, within the protection offerings for Datacenter and Cloud.

What advice do you give companies to overcome the difficult times we are going through?

Collaborate and keep your mind (and day-to-day activities) even more open to the outside. This suggestion is addressed both to technology companies providing services and to technology companies that purchase these services. Because the objective of technology and innovation is to serve the business of companies and that of Technologicals is to make it happen – together, in partnership or in co-creation – because one thing that this pandemic has shown us is that nothing can be achieved alone, and that scanning has accelerated a lot.

If, on the one hand, large public and private organizations have the best conditions to win in these times of accelerated digitalization (because they have more human and financial capital to invest), it is also true that smaller organizations are usually more agile, open to new ideas and prone to change. Certainly, some of these entities will know how to transform current adversities into high-growth economic models, and the Recovery and Resilience Plan can be used as a lever to bring about this transformation. Small businesses that did not have a website created it. Bookstores that did not have e-commerce developed it. Restaurants that did not have a take-away business model implemented it. The pandemic moment showed that technological innovation already existed to transform business and the need sharpened the ingenuity.

But nothing is done alone and companies, more than ever, need competent technological partners in application development and new generation infrastructures, aligning technology and business, which guarantee their competitiveness and an excellent service to citizens by the entities public administration.

We believe that this moment should be seen as an opportunity to continue and accelerate the implementation of innovation and technology. Serving organizations that understand the value that technology can offer to their strategic plans and that, through it, lead an increasingly digital future, regardless of the sector of activity, or management control (private or public), should be the our daily lives, the daily life of the Technological.

This is the stage when we must make the technological capabilities even more visible to the market to leverage the digital transformation of large organizations. All together.

Source: COMPUTERWORLD​