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Q: First and foremost, can you give our readers a 50-mile view of Synchronoss? What makes Synchronoss different from other competitors in the field?
A: There are a couple of things that differentiate us. First of all, our technology, the ActivationNow Platform. The way that we have built it in a way that has allowed us to automate that customer experience specifically around each CSPs goal in terms of how they would like to experience that customer. We have found a way to allow them to, essentially, market it and apply the bundles that they would like to in the marketplace and whatever triple play or bundle type offers. Because we have structured our tech in a way that allows them to configure that workflow, to customize that customer experience, but do so in a rapid fashion, has gone over very well with our clients, because what we have allowed them to do is to market with a high degree of quality in a very rapid fashion.
The second thing that has made us unique is the way that we offer our technology model to our customers. We're willing to stand up and not only take your order, and guarantee that it will be shipped or activated or provisioned as the customer requires, but also sell it to them in a transaction model that allows the service providers to see us as an operational expense as they grow their business. Secondly, we are willing to stand up to the service levels around those transactions, so they're getting a higher degree of comfort that as a partner we're sharing the risk with them. We're putting our money where our mouth is and allowing us to get right in the middle of their critical path and ensuring that through SLAs we'll be successful.
Q: Can you talk a little bit about Synchronoss's June IPO?
A: It was the second fundraising event in the history of the company. We had raised a series A round back in 2001 of $34 million. We were excited to have an opportunity to go out into the public market and gather more capital. As you can see from our filings, we have a history at Synchronoss of using our proceeds from fundraising events to not necessarily handle the day-to-day funding of the company. Our business models support that. We've used the dollars, every step of the way, to build out growth into our platform so that we're always ahead from a capital expenditure and we can handle the increased volumes.
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"... as a partner we're sharing the risk with them. We're putting our money where our mouth is and allowing us to get right in the middle of their critical path and ensuring that through SLAs we'll be successful" |
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When I raised the initial funds in 2001, it was with the idea that I wanted to build the first generation of our platform. We successfully did that and got some of the leading CSPs on board. In June, the reason for the IPO was that we saw an opportunity to get to the forefront of the bundled or x-play type of offerings that are coming into the marketplace. There's a huge rush for fixed-mobile convergence and services that the SPs want to roll out to their customers in a timely fashion. Raising that money over the summer has allowed us to stay ahead of the curve and stay fresh.
Q: When asked, in an interview published by Pipeline two years ago, this month, what makes Synchronoss unique, you responded: "Ours is a 'software as a service' business model, which has gotten stronger every year. The differentiation we offer is in taking over the whole fulfillment function and giving our customers a fixed cost per transaction and a guaranteed service level for each transaction." Is this still an accurate representation of your business model?
A: Yes: This has proven to be very effective and we're excited that we're changing the market as it relates to the marketing of these complex orders. I use a lot of analogies. If you go back x amount of years, payroll was mission-critical to a company, but most companies today rely on companies like ADP to do that transaction processing. Why? It's reliable. It's a trusted as an ATM machine. It gives you an easy-to-use customer experience, and companies can focus on what they do best, which is the marketing and creation of the services or products that they bring to market. Why I'm excited today is that I believe we are changing the industry in the sense that all of our CSPs are coming to Synchronoss and saying “what you do for our company is mission-critical. Our customers have to be fulfilled in a high-quality, efficient manner. We can entrust you to manage that on our behalf.” In turn, we're seeing our customers put more money into either their network or acquiring new customers.
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