Early last month, Teksmobile launched its South Korean chapter – Teksmobile Korea. This was the fourth international office working under the Teks brand, following those in United States, Sweden and Australia (there are a couple of offices in India as well, at Kolkata and Pune). On the occasion, global CEO of Teksmobile, Hussain Fakhruddin, gave a brief overview of the new Korean offices, the key principles of operations for Teks, the organizational targets, and many things more. Here are some excerpts:
“Hello everyone…my name is Hussain Fakhruddin, and I happen to be the founder/CEO of Teksmobile. It gives me great delight to announce the start of Teksmobile Korea from this month. When I had started this company some 11 summers back, I had not imagined that Teks will have offices in 5 different countries – all within a decade or so. It’s been an exciting journey…and I look forward to building on our successes thus far, and scaling greater heights.
By the end of 2017 Q2, Teksmobile had (all branches combined) clients from 45+ different countries. Apart from US, Canada, UK and Oceania (Australia/New Zealand) – we had a strong client base in Asia. That, in turn, fueled my motivation for starting a new Asian chapter for the company. Eric and me managed to forge a collaboration, the formalities and completed…and bosh!…Team Teks had new offices in two South Korean cities, Busan and Seoul.
I have always been very particular about selecting the locations for our overseas chapters. While opening offices in the United States or Sweden were practically no-brainers – my team had conducted in-depth researches and studied the trends in the Australian market, before we decided to take the plunge there. This time too, we did our homework – and while countries like Japan and China were the more obvious choices, we felt that that the South Korean mobile app market presented considerable untapped opportunities. Over the last 4-odd years, this market has grown by nearly 800% – clearly underlining the prominence of Korea as one of the fastest growing app economies in the world.
A bit about our ambition to emerge as a leading force in the domain of 2D/3D game development. Our studies revealed that South Korea held the 6th rank in the world, in terms of revenues generated from games. There were more than 25 million gamers in the country, and the figure was rising steadily. This was a marketplace, I told myself, that would give Teks the opportunity to show off our skills as high-end game developers in particular, and drivers of technological innovations in general. It’ll be a challenge…what good thing isn’t, after all…but I feel that Teksmobile Korea will be a rousing success. We will, of course, have to give it some time.
During my career as a mobile app and API architect, and of course the CEO of Teks, I have been fortunate to meet and form mutually fruitful partnerships with some great people…people who have done more than their bit to expand the company’s reach. I should, at this point, mention the name of the COO of Teks Sverige, Maria Bergström, in this regard. Eric Jinsu Kang, who is the head of the South Korean Teks Team, is the latest addition to the list of amazing work-partners I have had the good fortune to meet. The man is an expert on software and big data in his own right, knows several languages…I think 7…and is a go-getter in the truest sense of the term. If something can be done ‘today’, Eric believes in doing it ‘now’ – and he is precisely the type of person I was looking for to be the ‘face of Teks Korea’. It might sound like a cliche…but Eric does remind me of a younger version of myself, from the time when I had just started to plan big things for Teks. He has the same hunger, the same drive…and his presence augurs well for our South Korean chapter.
One thing that we must not lose sight of is the existing competition in the South Korean market. It would be way too naive to think that Teksmobile will be automatically successful over there – since there are already several other mobile app companies present in the country. Commitment to maintain uniformly high quality of service is going to be the biggest tool for us in making inroads in the Korean app and mobile software markets. Team Teks has always followed a ‘client-first’ strategy – something that I believe has been a major reason for our sustained success over the years. For our Korean chapter too, we will continue with the same business philosophy…the philosophy of being completely transparent with our operations, and never compromising on the quality of our products. I have been a mobile app entrepreneur for more than a decade…and my experience has taught me that sincerity always works wonders in the long-run…gimmicky promotions don’t.
I would also like to point out that the start of Teksmobile Korea would bring increased exposure opportunities for my team-members….more like the members of my ‘Teks Family’. A senior software developer is already assisting Eric in setting up the offices in Seoul and Busan – and will be looking over the first set of projects. We also have plans to send over more people to Korea, for handling the projects over there. Eric, of course, is already busy recruiting people and setting up his own team. The Swedish, Australian, American and Indian chapters of Teksmobile will closely coordinate with the Korean chapter – to help the latter in the initial stages.
In our Korea offices, we will be offering services related to a wide range of cutting-edge technologies. Developing mobile apps for the iOS and Android platforms, along with custom APIs, will remain our core service – but Eric and yours truly have plans to start delivering IoT tools and applications, VR and AR solutions, AI-powered chatbots…and maybe even something based on blockchain technology. The more we expand our horizons, the greater will be the chances of our success.
I am thankful to my team-members – the developers and the designers, the testers and the backend experts – for giving their all for making ‘Teks’ a brand that is automatically associated with ‘quality’, ‘creativity’ and ‘great software’. Our body of work to date includes over 1000 applications, many websites and portals, quite a few mobile games, a children’s storytelling app that has widely been recognized as among the best of its kind, and several other advanced software solutions. The goodwill we have managed to build…the positive word-of-mouth publicity from our clients – these will play a big role in helping Teksmobile Korea get off the blocks quickly. Do wish us the very best.
As I said right at the start, I had not imagined that my little startup in 2006 will become a multinational company with offices in 5 countries in 2017. Now though, I feel that there are no limits to what we can reach – and with the support of our clients old and new (I like referring to them as our ‘external employees’), and my team-members – a couple more overseas chapters might well be in the offing. Pretty soon.”