SOFTWARE, HARD BENEFIT
TBY talks to Ing. Juan Carlos de la Cruz Santiago, Director General of Biaani, on software products tailored to diverse sectors.
BIOGRAPHY
Juan Carlos de la Cruz Santiago holds a degree in Science of Informatics from the Instituto Politecnico Nacional (IPN), and a Master’s degree from the Centro de Investigación en Computación (CIC-IPN). He has worked as a teacher at IPN and UNAM. He has been the Director General of Biaani, and leader of special projects since March of 2009.What are the main business areas that Biaani is developing in the market, and who are your key clients?
Biaani is an IT company that has two business models. First, we create software that we distribute to markets all over the world aiming to satisfy global demands on innovative technologies. Others incomes come from the development of tailor-made software for our clients' specific requirements. Biaani focuses on government and private initiatives; its main clients are companies that belong to the financial and insurance sectors.
How does your Zabani app help to treat sleep apnea and contribute to the health sector?
Zabani was developed with the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT). It works on smartphones and a large variety of feature phones, so when a customer experiences sleep apnea during the night, the app provides a recording of this and generates statistics that can tell you more about your problem. The overall objective is to prevent diabetes. For example, many people who have apnea do not know they have it; nevertheless, when you do not sleep well and feel tired, your body cannot respond as it should and as a result you eat too much during the day to counter tiredness, and a new problem appears. One of our goals with Zabani is to get endorsed by sleep associations and laboratories in North America in order to provide them with useful data.
Which other financial products have you developed in the market?
Another product that we have created is WalkBiz. We produce it in Google Android and iOS for iPhones, iPads and tablets. WalkBiz is an app builder for SMEs to promote their products and services and ultimately increase sales. The app helps the business to segment its market, run marketing campaigns, build communication channels through push notifications and generate sales in real time. WalkBiz has enabled over 400 clients to increase their sales by about 35%, and we believe that these strong results have been thanks to our marketing strategy.
How do you see the sector in general, and what is your strategy for approaching other markets?
The Mexican government runs different programs that stimulate SMEs to cross borders and expand their markets. We have entered some of these programs to get funds and build many apps. And we had great results. In general, the Mexican financial sector is in good shape; combined with government initiatives, they provide us help to become better known in Mexico and abroad, and we are now working on exporting our products. For example, we have established contacts with hospitals in the US for Zabani and started building our network to provide our users with excellent benefits. One of our main partners is the US-Mexico Foundation for Science (FUMEC in Spanish), which is helping us to internationalize Biaani.
Where do you see Biaani over the coming decade?
Our primary objective is to build three new apps to collaborate with restaurants, hotels, and SMEs in general. The strategy for 2014 is to generate about 40% of revenues from innovation. We want to reach CMMi Level 3 so that we can position Biaani comfortably in the international market. Today, there are 40 people working at the company, but our hope for the next three years is to increase our staff to 200. We believe we can do this because our apps are selling particularly well, our clients are happy with our products, and the investors are supporting us and believe in our work.
SOFTWARE, HARD BENEFIT
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