In an interview with TheWebAppMarket, Ran Berger, CEO of Flat Rock Technology share his thoughts on the future of cross-platform app development.

Let’s check his journey!

Q1) Tell us about your background and your journey with the company. What are the key services offered by your company?

My journey started when I was appointed as MIS Manager of a mid-size hardware distributor, when the frameworks and technologies were completely different from now. Since then, I had the opportunity to lead other development projects in 7 different countries, which helped me develop my management and leadership skills.  

Flat Rock Technology was established 12 years ago from the desire to find ways to create solutions that will push the boundaries of conventional thinking. It is an innovative software development company that operates currently from four locations – London, Varna, Tbilisi and Amsterdam.

The company provides businesses with a range of custom development solutions to match every business specific needs, business process outsourcing services, cloud management services and fully-managed IT support for companies of all sizes.

Our infrastructure and procedures allow us to respond thoroughly and quickly to our clients, and to utilise the best talent pool for every project.

Q2) The tech industry keeps on changing, for instance, the current COVID-19 situation leading to mass adoption of remote working? How have you prepared your company for these changes? 

The current COVID-19 situation is an unprecedented challenge that has had a massive impact on businesses worldwide. 

At Flat Rock Technology we’re doing our best on a daily basis to ensure that we’re providing a healthy environment for our employees and at the same time to offer the same level of professional services to our clients. We continue to monitor closely the situation and strive to minimize any disruptions that can affect our day-to-day operations. 

Flat Rock Technology is strictly following and is in full compliance with all government instructions at all four locations and is performing daily risk monitoring of the situation. As our company is well-positioned and has the right tools and procedures in place, we’ve implemented a work from home policy that allowed us to keep the same level of communication and collaboration through these hard times, while making sure that our team is safe. 

We communicate all changes with our clients and partners and ensure an upfront update for all projects and milestones and as part of the measures, we decided to also freeze all of our business trips until the situation improves. 

Together as a team we managed to overcome the situation and keep it business as usual.

Q3) How do you predict the future of cross platform app development? Based on that, who do you think is winning between native and cross platform development?

The mobile app industry has seen many changes and trends and for sure the future is exciting and challenging. Launching a new mobile app to the market places nowadays isn’t an easy task. App owners need to be very clear with their go-to-market strategy in specific user acquisition and monetization plan.

This all leads into careful planning from the outset that includes clarity of the marketing side, budgets and the technology stack.

Choosing the most appropriate technology stack means that you have to define the wider scope and identify and predict any issues that may occur in the future that will limit the features and functionality expansion.

There’s a big difference between a standalone app and an app that is an extension of an existing service/product that already has offline/online activity. Another key parameter is the skills required. Whilst cross platform development can be assigned to a single team, the native requires multiple skills.

I don’t think that we can define a winner but we can evaluate the most appropriate solution to each case and give clients the right advice and solution.

Q4) According to you, what are the most helpful technological platforms and tools to use for app development? Have you implemented them in your company?

As we have offices in 4 locations, London, Varna, Amsterdam, and Tbilisi, technological platforms and tools take a big part of our working process. We use different tools for streamlined communication, management, and collaboration. 

As for the development process itself, we find Atlassian tools for software development and project management to be the most helpful one.

Q5) As an awarded B2B development firm you have worked with various domains. Is there a methodical approach for each domain or does Flat Rock Technology follow a standard strategic model for all?

As a service company we mainly deliver projects in a fixed price model so we have to be very clear and consistent with our processes. We have a “skeleton” agile process that we follow in all our projects but we have variations that suit the technology and the specifics of each client. 

We make sure that our work is managed, analyzed and measured so that we can always be a learning organization. We have adopted and implemented agile methodology and we believe that sprints/releases that are not too big suit best the current environment.

Our processes are all shared with our clients and we constantly communicate with them to seek their engagement and feedback and we see our team as an extension of the clients teams. Our Project Managers are very effective communicators and we strongly believe in a proactive approach.

Our management team has tools and routine to follow and monitor each project in real time so that we can prevent issues and react in time.

Q6) Can you elaborate the key points why Flat Rock Technology stands out amidst thousands of other app development companies?

What makes us unique and helps us stand out amidst the competitors is the right mixture of expertise, communication, work ethics and approach to what we do. 

We have been on the market for 12+ years. A lot of things have changed in these years and Flat Rock has always managed to adapt to these changes quickly, and more importantly, we have always been the frontier of technological advancements. 

Our broad scope and capacity allow us to build complex solutions and cover the end-to-end cycle of the project. We are following the project from the very beginning to finish, ensuring the quality on every stage.

We are a quality-oriented company and always work on creating value for our clients and for the end-users who will be using software we develop. 

We take great pride in our projects. It encourages us to put every bit of our knowledge and expertise on every stage of the development. I think clients can feel it too, as we are closely working with them during the development process.

Q7) Over the years, Flat Rock Technology has successfully delivered hundreds of projects, can you share one of your favourite case studies that you can say as your claim to fame moment?

One of the great examples is a custom web application and extranet system we developed for Brompton, which is the UK’s largest manufacturer, making over 45,000 bikes per year. 

The mission was to create an app and system that would allow Brompton to sell bicycles via their distribution system. The app has quite a few complex features. It allows users to build the bike in their own taste, using a setup list of the parts that are mandatory for finalizing the product. 

With the app, users can also compare different models based on the list of the criteria. The app should ensure that users will not build a bike that is not working properly, the system we created is based on the logic of dependencies. The same logic allows users to use country-specific parts. 

Most importantly, the app has a streamlined extranet system allowing dealers and distributors to place their orders, featuring multiple profiles and allowing dynamic management of data such as users, orders, accounts and shopping carts.  Of course, precision is very important in projects like this, thus our team worked carefully to ensure that the system works easily and smoothly and the project was a great success.

Q8) What major opportunities do you foresee for your brand? How do you plan to handle them?

One of the main opportunities that today’s day brings us is the rise of B2B tech. As due to the recent issues the demand on the B2B tech in various industries will increase and foreseeable, this trend will continue. For us, the focus will stay the same. To keep recognizing the emerging technologies and solutions and implement them to meet the needs of our clients. 

At the same time, we have expanded our presence in two new countries in the past year, to increase our capacities. The challenge is to keep the process of expansion and talent acquiring. Especially during the pandemic. But we have implemented reasonable policies to overcome it and have made a few steps ahead to continue growing.

Q9) What do you think will be the biggest challenges the industry will face after the COVID-19 situation gets under control? Would you like to share some tips that can benefit small-scale enterprises that are just hitting the app development scene?

One of the main challenges that the software industry will have to face is overall uncertainty, which will bring indecisiveness and hesitation. 

The coronavirus outbreak will have a long-time impact on the businesses. Industries like tourism, airfare, hospitality and others alike, that were hit the hardest will suffer financially. Meaning that many businesses will cut the costs. 

At the same time, customer behaviour has changed too. These together will affect the app development industry. 

However, as the pandemic urged many companies to go through the digital transformation, and people to use digital tools, meaning that there is also a huge opportunity for app development enterprises. 

So my advice would be to evaluate the situation and concentrate on the values that will not change – creating quality and valuable products for the users.

Q10. Lastly, any word of advice for our users?

The times are uncertain and undoubtedly hard, but do not feel demotivated. Keep going and look at the challenges as opportunities. 

It takes a lot of work and courage, but the reward of seeing opportunity where other people cannot will give you an enormous head start.