Avantica Sees 25% Growth Rate, Reaches 1,000 Employee Milestone

Longstanding software services provider Avantica Technologies has reached a milestone of 1,000 employees this month. More interesting still, its headcount has increased by a stunning 25% in the last five months, even as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the region’s economy.

As the virus broke out, businesses around the world scrambled to transition their workforce to a home environment and adjust to what analysts call “the new normal”. For Avantica, the pandemic turned out to be a boon, rather than a bane: It quickly transitioned to the work-from-home environment and took advantage of driving new operational efficiencies.

“Remote working was normal for us, not new normal at all” says Jessica Saavedra, Corporate Marketing Director at Avantica. “It took just three days to broaden our technological infrastructure and to adapt to a full home-based work model for our entire personnel.” Avantica hired its 1,000th employee in Lima this month.

That is because more than 85% of the company’s employees worked from their homes even before the pandemic hit. “In other words, our employees worked from home for four days a week even before the pandemic,” Saavedra said. During the pandemic, Avantica expanded operations to Cali, Colombia, where its headcount tripled in a space of few months.

A Brief History

Avantica was founded in 1993 in Costa Rica. Today, it runs delivery centers in Peru and Bolivia as well. In 2019, Avantica was merged with Indian IT firm Indecomm Digital, now called Encora.

The merger, say the company’s officials, widened its opportunities beyond nearshore. “During 2020, for the first time in our history, we achieved joint projects with Singapore and India,” said Luis Carlos Chaves, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer.

It is a huge turnaround for Avantica considering the fact that almost half of its staff had run out of projects in 2008 when the US subprime crisis plunged the global economy into recession. The software firm says it overcame the 2008 crisis through relentless training of its staff.