Marcus Richards
B13 Technology help ambitious businesses & their clients meet the future head on, break new ground, develop their ideas, & create disruptive, exciting new digital solutions to meet their business goals at pace.
B13 Technology is uniquely positioned to support businesses looking to flexibly scale development capacity & capabilities quickly by having our own international software development house based in Vietnam guided by our digital consulting team in the UK head office to deliver solutions faster & for better value.
Tell us about yourself?
My experience spans 20 years in commercial sales and marketing selling SaaS solutions, MarTech (marketing technology), digital marketing and internet services. I’ve held senior roles in three VC funded tech startups, helping two of them enter the UK market and seeing two of them be acquired.
I joined B13 Technology because now more than ever, our lives are becoming increasingly expectant and dependent on various forms of technology and with such demand and growth there has never been a more exciting time to join a software development consultancy that can scale with that demand across any sector.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Seek forgiveness not permission in your decision making. In short believe in your considered thoughts and go about proving them to be right while remaining aware and accepting of others opinion and don’t be afraid to change your mind.
What problem does your business solve?
*‘More than two-thirds (69%) of UK business leaders believe their organisation is currently facing a digital skills gap, & the situation has been exacerbated by Brexit’
*www.thedrum.com
As a result, hiring costs are increasing rapidly as development wage demands increase & associated recruitment fees also rise.
The UK government has added programmers & software development professionals, at all levels on their ‘shortage occupation’ list to provide access to offshore skilled workers.
B13 Technology are currently helping businesses rapidly increase software development capacity & capabilities by providing access to high-quality, pre-vetted development talent while the clients maintain complete control throughout.
Immediate client benefits include:
- ✓ Flexibility and on-demand specialised skills and expertise quickly
- ✓ Increase efficiency while removing costs of long-term hiring and recruitment
- ✓ Guaranteed high-quality output on a quick timescale
- ✓ Expansion of your team without the long-term commitment
- ✓ Save time and get ahead of the competition by releasing your offering faster
What is the inspiration behind your business?
The values that underpin our business are founded in beliefs and behaviours that are the same for colleagues and clients. We aim to measure and be judged on how well we live up to our values – simplification, communication, partnership, agility & fairness.
We make software accessible, understandable and achievable for all businesses while providing solutions to close the digital skills gap by helping businesses scale quickly and more cost effectively than they could through hiring their own people.
What is your magic sauce?
B13 Technology are unique in that we have a client facing UK team in our Birmingham office as well as our own development centre in Vietnam. This means we are able to provide premium development services at offshore rates while being managed by the UK team.
Our UK-based Mission Managers work closely with our skilled, offshore team throughout the whole product development journey from scoping, design, agile sprints to delivery and finally, UAT. Client also have the option to utilise this team as their own development team or an extension to their own existing team.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
Our mission is to commoditise software product development to deliver affordable, high quality digital solutions to our clients and supporting UK business growth through the provision on premium tech talent without the high associated costs in hiring locally.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Stressing the importance and urgency to business owners on the increased threat of the digital skills gap without it sounding like a sales pitch for our services.
The digital skills shortage has hit a crisis point & the effects are being felt firmly across the UK. Millions of workers lack the vital digital workplace skills necessary to do their job. In short we can help.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We are urging business leaders, CTO’s and Technology directors to seriously consider the impact this will have on their future growth and budgets.
With thousands of unfilled development jobs, employee retention rising & hiring costs rapidly increasing as wage demands rise, businesses are turning to rapid staff augmentation services such as ours to extend their development capacity or capabilities. To understand how we can help you please visit https://www.b13technology.com/en/services/staff-augmentation and book a call.
