Today we’d like to introduce you to Jorge Fernandez, Rene Raul Garcia, and Rene Rodriguez.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Our story began when we were trying to solve a local business’ challenge: making travel to Cuba more efficient. Initially, trying to find a software solution to this problem was difficult since the project was extremely time-consuming and we were only using software technologies of our expertise. Besides, we were all working full-time jobs and attending night classes at a local university.
One day, one of us faced at his day job what would become the core of our business: Salesforce. The introduction of this new software technology to the team proved to have great potential, so we decided Salesforce was the best course of action. A couple of weeks later, we finished the development of a prototype reservation system and presented it to our client. The good news? He stopped us and exclaimed “Do not show me anything else! This is what I need!”, and he bought the solution.
The capital earned from that very first project was what we invested to start our consulting firm: SkyPlanner (named after the project in regards to the travel industry).
Along the way, we have worked as a partner for several companies in diverse industries, such as life sciences, logistics, tourism & hospitality, and non-profit. Not long ago, we have started to employ and learn about a new technology called Domo, which focuses on analytics. This tool has opened up a new path for us, transforming and complementing our value proposition into an attractive and comprehensive offer to our clients.
Our expertise and quality of work have made possible for us to expand our company to an office in Colombia, where we have the other part of our team.
Has it been a smooth road?
SkyPlanner has been solid since the beginning. However, we did have some struggles along the way that today, luckily, are in the past. The two major challenges we have been through were our lack of marketing knowledge and the workspace limitation.
When we first started, we used to have a mutually-beneficial relationship with another consulting company.
They handled the marketing and sales and outsourced their development needs to SkyPlanner. After some time, and with the intention to claim our successful development solutions under the SkyPlanner name, we decided to part ways regardless our then relative inexperience in marketing and sales; we trusted that the quality of our end-products would help us through the new journey. Even though we have been doing excellent work in the development of our projects, and because of that we have received a lot of referred clients, we still have a deficiency in our marketing and sales initiatives, limiting us to expose our company to potential clients and partners.
Because we are aware that we can take advantage of a marketing department to increase brand awareness and nurture the relationships with potential and current clients, we recently hired a person who is responsible for the branding and marketing of the company.
On the other hand, the workspace was not always an issue to our business. First, we started working at the apartment of one of the three of us. Later, we got the opportunity to move to an office, and we handled it that way. As the time went by, we felt limited because of the workspace we had. Since the room was not big enough, we could not hire more people to work for us. At that moment we realized the need for a change to a place where we could bring more talent to our company. On February 2017 we moved to our own place, with the sufficient workspace to keep bringing the necessary expertise to our business.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with SkyPlanner – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
SkyPlanner specializes in consulting and customization of Salesforce, the world’s #1 suite of cloud computing products. But what does it mean? In other words, our clients come to us with similar requirements: the need for a CRM system, a Salesforce enhancement to support new business operations or they want to take more advantage of the solutions already offered. Our clients are looking for best practices and an experienced team that can help them take their business to another level by leveraging the benefits of a good Salesforce implementation.
Equally, in SkyPlanner we work to give back to the Salesforce Community by developing our own applications for distribution on the Salesforce AppExchange, a marketplace for third party apps that increases the fundamental attributes of the Salesforce Platform.
Besides, as we mentioned before, we have started offering solutions with a new technology called Domo, focused on analytics and the concept of machine learning.
Based on these two technologies, we build invaluable solutions for our clients.
Today, we are proud to be acclaimed by our clients for our ability to complete projects of the highest quality in a fast and efficient way, which have brought us many referrals for new projects. But we are prouder of our company’s main asset: our people. We are lucky to have the best talent working in-house to develop the best solutions for our clients.
Among many other consulting companies, we believe we are different because of three primary attributes. First, our working methodology focuses on developing proximity and trust, understanding our client’s business and committing to make the business grow through the delivery of a high-quality solution. Further, we work based on transparency.
We provide all our knowledge to our clients through constant training, so they are capable of managing the tools and solutions we implement for them. Finally, we do in-house work only. We can do all our work at our offices in Miami or our satellite office in Colombia; we do not outsource to any other company, which allows for quicker turnaround of projects, immediate resolution of emergencies (if any), and an intimate relationship with our clients.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
Since the beginning, cloud computing solutions misrepresented a risky move for companies. Companies expressed several arguments against cloud computing implementation: security concerns, privacy apprehensiveness, high-cost association, limited control over the tool, and disrupt in business transition worry.
From some time now, the perspective has changed. Today, unimaginable companies, such as banks, have implemented cloud computing in their operations, understanding and taking advantage of its benefits. Now, cloud computing solutions are more affordable than they were before. Prices have dropped, making easier for new and small to medium companies to access these technologies.
It is clear that the cloud computing trend is growing. The increase of professional and technical occupations, most of them in computer systems design and mobile technologies, will empower the industry. Also, analytics are gaining more relevance in companies’ operations and decision making. We believe we have to keep our company on top of knowledge to offer the best products and service to our clients.
As a result, we are preparing our business for this new era by hiring the best quality of data scientists and training our people in Salesforce Einstein and Domo. We understand the next step is artificial intelligence, where we will shift from being reactive to proactive, thanks to the assistance of the machines acquired knowledge (machine learning).
Contact Info:
- Address: 2175 SW 78 Pl., Miami, FL 33155
- Website: www.theskyplanner.com
- Phone: 305.814.7597
- Email: rgarcia@theskyplanner.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SkyPlanner
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/theskyplanner
Image Credit:
SkyPlanner
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