PLAN A FOR CLEVER BUSINESSES
Creating software development solutions that bring added value to companies and their customers
The Bulgarian company Plan A has a clear goal: to offer IT services from Consulting to Nearshore Outsourcing and tailor-made Enterprise Solutions that help businesses big and small, established and starting just now to grow and reach new clients and develop new products and services. The core team behind the company includes three dedicated professionals: Alexander Yovchev, Founder and CEO, Veselin Georgiev, Co-founder and CTO, and Elizabet Dimitrova, Co-founder and HRM.
Alexander Yovchev has more than 15 years of experience in company management, service delivery, project management and technical consulting in the IT, Banking and Micro-finance sector. He has deep knowledge of strategic business and operational processes and has successfully managed cross countries IT projects and teams. His experience is gained through the years in banking sector as Head of Credit Card Analysis Systems at Eurobank EFG Group and as a Managing Director at Proxiad Bulgaria.
Mr Yovchev, your company just celebrated its first year and officially opened its office. Tell us more about what makes the approach of Plan A special?
At Plan A, me and my partners combined our 20 years of experience, applying the best of our business expertise in enterprise software development and managing IT distributed teams.
We are 100% committed to the projects and achieving results in a better and most effective way. We advise our clients on how best to achieve their goals, organize their processes, and develop their products. Our mission is to support them to grow and create smart and compelling software solutions.
We deliver software products in markets like finance, healthcare, transport and logistics, systems for management, and improvement of business processes related to sales, warehouse, invoicing, etc. Our portfolio includes both well-recognized companies and start-ups like ourselves.
Our clients benefit not just from our engineering proficiency in a wide range of technologies, but also from our competence and deep understanding of the business processes. This helps us to provide corporate solutions with added value and are tailored to our partners' needs and requirements.
We help our partners to build, sustain, and modernize their software and ensure high-quality of their solutions. All that is achieved through our refined delivery management approach, sustainable in-house control processes, and the ability to quickly set efficient, agile, and dynamic development teams.
For what companies are your solutions?
Our customers are different not only as a business domain they operate in but also depending on their stage of business development. Our team advises start-ups coming for their product development. Together with them, we analyze other competitive applications, review their model of monetization, consult them on the proper technology, and help them build their MVP. With some of the projects, we are already in the development phase of the product. For other companies, we do various integrations or add specific (custom) modules to their current systems.
How can you help a company that realizes the need of implementation of intelligent IT solutions but does not know how to do this?
There are some good practices when you start work with an external technological partner. We follow them no matter if we build an outsourced team to work in synergy with the existing technical team of our client, or provide the complete technical solution. We always start with the definition of the main business goals and needs of our customers, what in their current practice does not meet these goals, and assess their current processes and systems. Based on this information, we propose and agree on a strategy and an implementation plan, which includes team size and roles definition, budget, selection of the most appropriate tools and methodology of work to support the processes, and well-designed KPIs to ensure that we achieve the goals and the quality in each stage of the project.
How do you provide sustainable quality of Plan A solutions?
We believe that the key factors to a successful project are: timely and open communication, cooperation, and collaboration with our clients. We strive to build a long-term partnership with them. It is crucial to refine and improve the way we work regularly.
When we define the KPIs, we communicate them to all stakeholders so that everyone has the same expectations for the quality of work. Then we set the appropriate communication tools and a clear escalation path to speed up the decision-making process and to solve different issues during the project execution. Usually the project manager strictly monitors the proper integration of the team, gathers all the necessary business specifics and knowledge about the project. This expert is responsible for the quality of the deliveries in all project phases.
What professionals work at Plan A?
Our team is actively growing. We have developers with a focus on business technologies such as .NET, PHP, Java, Web, Android, iOS, and others. We partner with trusted vendors for key technologies that are out of our specialization. We work with project managers and colleagues with expertise in building software architecture.
As a service company, our people's communication skills are very important to us. We are constantly looking for candidates with potential in ways of thinking and willingness to expand their skills and expertise. The good knowledge base and the right attitude are indicative of the ability of the candidates to adapt to new technologies and work processes.
What was the greatest challenge for you as a manager in 2020?
As a start-up company at a time of global complexity due to the COVID-19 crisis, 2020 was very different from what we had expected. Several projects and our marketing/sales strategy were affected. It was challenging, but it helped us diversify our services, develop new sales and communication channels. We learned to deal with things that were previously unfamiliar to us, and now we benefit from these efforts. I hope this will bring even better results in 2021.
ul. "Serdikijski sabor", 1421 Yuzhen Park, Sofia
phones: +359 2 488 75 86, +359 882 306 149
contact@techplana.com
