QVALON talks startup life and ambitious growth plans
Andrey Podgornov, CEO, and Boris Shkolnikov, CTO, give RTIH the lowdown on QVALON, which offers a mobile solution for managing retail operational processes.
RTIH: Tell us about yourselves and how QVALON came to be.
AP and BS: Over the years, we’ve worked in business process automation for companies such as Accenture, SAP, T-Systems, and Mobile Dimension. Over time, the use of mobile technologies for business became our speciality.
Unlike industrial corporations, those in the retail industry are constantly forced to improve themselves to meet evolving customer expectations. As technology advances, customers expect retail businesses to advance with it.
At the same time, retail chains have complex management structures due to the various products, people, and processes involved in their operations.
To help address this challenge, we developed a system that enables each person directly responsible for a task to receive it at the right time and in the right place according to previously described and standardised regulations.
Managers can now focus on creating and regulating these rules, not dealing with hundreds of recurring urgent situations.
On top of that, they can see gaps in their current business process based on statistical data, signalling that it’s time to make improvements.
What makes us different is that we push protocols, standards, and tasks from paper into a mobile application. This enables managers to do inspections remotely - something that can be even more valuable when you’re managing multiple locations.
QVALON creates tasks automatically according to the real-time situation, and the in-store team uses the application to report back on these tasks. At the same time, our analytics scores the processes and locations according to their efficiency, flags problems, and provides business insights to the managers.
With the rise of Covid-19 and now the Delta variant, there are even more regulations that need to be monitored. As a response, our clients have launched “coronavirus” photo reports and checklists to ensure protocols are met that help prevent the spread of the epidemic.
RTIH: QVALON was founded in 2018. What have been the highlights thus far?
AP and BS: We are growing by 8-10% per month in terms of revenue.
Actually, QVALON grew two-fold in 2020, bringing in $1 million in revenue. We plan to triple the growth this year (2021).
And we think it’s possible. Prytek and Alchemist Accelerator have become our investors. We also became members of The Greenwich Village Chelsea Chamber of Commerce in New York and the National Retail Federation.
However, the biggest highlight has been creating a more comprehensive tool with the ability to coordinate the activities of different departments within a retail network.
This enables upper management to have eyes on the ground - identifying how the strategy is being carried out, where there are troubles, or everything is on the right track.
We believe it enables retailers to create bolder and better strategies to bolster their businesses. I think that’s our job - to make sure everything runs smoothly for our clients and help them reach their goals.
RTIH: As a startup, what have been your biggest challenges?
AP and BS: First is the need for customer education. It isn’t easy to put different managers at the same table and get them to agree, but we have the best experts and consultants.
Next is training. The skills and qualifications of the people who will work with you and support the program are equally as important as the value of the system.
Most of the cost structure of a cloud service provider is occupied not by programmers or equipment but by methodologists, support services, innovation departments, and continuous development to improve the system’s functionality.
Thus, the value of the service lies not only in specific features that the software can accomplish, but rather by what goals the client can achieve by working with the team that supports it.
Last but not least is cultural differences. We studied clients in Europe, North America, Latin America, and Asia.
Retail companies abroad, which were founded, say, in the 1890s, are rather conservative and poorly automated because they have existed for a long time, and have not innovated as fast as the technology has.
On the other hand, Russian brands and companies, for example, are often newer and were built based on modern technology, making it easier to evolve, innovate and adopt new systems.
Working across countries and regions, we have had to address different levels of dated and modern operations and .openness to new technology.
RTIH: Could you tell us about some of your key customers and the work you do for them?
AP and BS: We’ve worked with Amway, Burger King, Boardriders, Jiffy, and Billa, to name a few. We have helped them optimise various business processes such as audits, data collection, and data analysis.
As a result, they were able to maximise their savings while creating a more seamless and efficient experience for both frontline teams and upper management.
This is even true for Fix Price, which operates 4,000 grocery store outlets. It proves that QVALON is well positioned to serve retailers of any size and vertical. Our results show that.
80% of our customers are immediately happy with the standard functionality and have seen the impact within two to three weeks, notably fast compared to regular practices.
Methodologically, it’s most beneficial to introduce management systems when the number of controlled objects for each manager is more than three and when the number of managers themselves is more than three.
Thus, having nine outlets is the critical point that the owner or COO can control “by eye”. Anything more requires systemisation for optimal success.
As a result, our customers’ managers are rapidly rising in their organisations, showing clear results of QVALON’s impact.
We have taken a leading position in the home market and are growing, bringing a new and improved way of operating to the masses at a critical time for retail.
RTIH: You are currently expanding your business to the UK and USA. How has that been going? What progress have you made?
AP and BS: We’ve legally relocated our headquarters to the United States, in New York. A world class B2B accelerator, Alchemist, helped facilitate our entry into the US market, build up a local team, and open the office.
With that, we’ve expanded our reach. We’ve started working with a wide variety of retailers, such as grocery chains, restaurants, and coffee shops, as well as mini-stores (or dark stores).
We’re focusing on strengthening our partner network and expanding our team as soon as possible. Then, we hope to establish a single technology ecosystem involving key partners in the USA and Europe.
Also, we are continuing to expand both locally and internationally while supporting small and medium businesses with a focus on the US and Great Britain.
In addition, we have historically been a Microsoft partner around the globe and provide the level of business support Microsoft’s customer community needs.
RTIH: What can we expect to see from QVALON over the next 12 months?
AP and BS: We continue to create an integrated platform that provides a full range of mobile services for retail employees.
We’re growing our client base, and we’re starting to work with clients in a more comprehensive manner.
We have increased the speed of developing new innovations and updates associated with rapidly changing market conditions.
Understanding that various states can rapidly introduce new legal standards that everyone has to abide by, we ensure high quality implementation of existing standards while also providing an opportunity for rapid implementation of these changes or even creating brand new standards.
Looking ahead, we are focused on finding new investors to help support our efforts to constantly improve the platform, leveraging everything we’ve learned from large and small businesses around the world so far - developing new technologies for advanced processes, IoT integrations, and partnerships.
