Solution Provider Perficient Launches Mobile Computing Practice
The practice will offer up-front mobile computing strategy and system design consulting services, as well as "a one-stop shop" for mobile development and deployment services, said Vishal Rajpal, general manager of Perficient IBM BPMS, in an interview with CRN.
Too many customers view mobility as an add-on to their IT systems, Rajpal said. "We've been trying to tell them to think of mobile as the first platform. They should step back and see the mobility play as a key part of their IT system. We've been preaching that message for awhile," he said.
[Related: IBM Unveils MobileFirst Portfolio For Enterprise Mobility Push ]
That's fueling demand for the up-front consulting and system design services Perficient offers, as well as the software development, integration and deployment services that come later. That also ties into the solution provider's vertical industry practices, Rajpal said.
"There's a lot of services needed there, from the start to the finish," Rajpal said, noting that many customers are stymied in figuring out how to incorporate mobile technologies into their broader IT strategies. "They just don't know how to connect all this together," he said.
The new practice is an outgrowth of Perficient's IBM business process management practice, which focuses on back-end integration using IBM's WebSphere software and other technologies and has grown around 30 percent a year for the last two years, Rajpal said. And between 60 and 70 percent of all customer projects carried out by Perficient have a mobile component, he said.
St. Louis-based Perficient partners with several major IT vendors in addition to IBM, including EMC, Microsoft, Oracle and Tibco. Rajpal said the solution provider is building its mobile practice around IBM because of several key mobile technologies the vendor acquired in recent years including the Worklight mobile application platform, Green Hat cloud software testing tools, BigFix endpoint management system, and Cast Iron cloud/on-premise application integration software.
"IBM has one of the most comprehensive product sets around mobile," Rajpal said. "I think they've put together a really strong story with their mobile platform." Perficient is an IBM Premier Business Partner.
PUBLISHED APRIL 30, 2013