Bianca WrightGlobant has strengthened its Latin American footprint and cloud capabilities with the acquisition of Avanxo, a cloud transformation company with presence in the United States, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Argentina. The company adds 310 IT staff with expertise in cloud to Globant’s existing workforce of over 7,800.
“Avanxo is a leader in the Salesforce space in Latin America and also is doing great things in cloud, two areas we consider vital when you are working with companies in digital transformation,” says Martín Umaran, co-founder and Chief of Staff at Globant. “We have been looking for a company like this for a while. Avanxo is the exact fit for us.”
Umaran explains that Globant’s delivery model is on-site, offshore with a global force in LatAm, Asia, Europe and of course the United States, which is the core customer base.
Extending Latin American Sales
Most of the resources of Avanxo are in Latin America and Globant is looking to expand in this market. “Avanxo will help us to sell more in LatAm,” says Umaran. “But we can also leverage Avanxo’s expertise to deliver to our customers in the States. We are envisioning a lot of work in the LatAm market.”
Umaran stresses that Latin America very important, not just because of some resources there, but also because Globant sees it as a very important region to sell to. “At some point, LatAm is catching up with digital transformation and we want to be the perfect partner for these company to help them transform digitally. Avanxo can help us to do that,” he says.
Avanxo’s cloud capabilities are particularly attractive, although Globant has been working in that space for some time. “Cloud is very important for digital transformation; it is the core of every transformation. We are working with companies to transform their IT departments to digital, so the whole organization becomes digital. The first part of companies to move to digital are marketing departments and those related to customer experience.”
Umaran adds that with cloud there are many proposals, many partners, and you need to know about all the systems because it is impossible to have a single offer.
Cloud Means Security Concerns
Pablo Villarreal, Chief Information Security Officer, explains that the ecosystem on the cloud is quite complex; there are too many players. “Several years ago when this shift started every single player implemented everything as they need to and there was no interconnection between them. The use of cloud infrastructure is so wide now, that thankfully everything is starting to integrate. Or you can do it yourself when more complex things come to hand. It is a very complex cloud world with a lot of opportunities for us,” he says. The Avanxo acquisition is part of supporting this.
Villarreal adds that one of the core challenges for the cloud environment and digital transformation is security. “Several years ago, it was a challenge for the IT area and now it is a challenge for the whole company,” he says.
Globant’s approach, Umaran adds, is to partner with their customers to together find the best solutions for their problems or to help them visualize the future so that they can adapt to it. They are an agnostic solutions provider.
“The acquisitions that we have been doing and the investment we have made have been part of delivering on that strategy. A few years ago we bought a company in London that was focused on User experience. Then we focused on acquisition in the States to improve our presence there and ensure we had the best engineer capabilities there. Today with this acquisition, we are continuing delivering on that strategy of how to improve our value proposition, how to be the one-shop for all our customers,” Umaran says.
“We see a lot of companies in LatAm investing in transforming their companies into digital companies. We have some amazing examples of this with our customers. We are envisioning a lot of work in this market. All of LatAm is growing a lot in these initiatives and we see Globant as a main partner with these initiatives.”
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