CoreValue Services is a leading company in terms of customized business IT solutions, with expertise in Salesforce, AI, cloud technology, big data and mobile services. While it is headquartered in the U.S., its main development center is in Lviv, with several other centers located across Ukraine and Poland. Gaining new clients in some of the world’s largest corporations and growing opportunities with its existing clientele, the company saw 30 percent growth in 2017, and expects to grow by another 20-25 percent in 2018. Here, Yuriy Adamchuk, its deputy CEO, explains the company’s services and upcoming plans to expand in Germany

What are the main services you offer?

We develop new solutions to help our customers succeed. We have huge expertise in Salesforce, as well as in data and mobile and cloud areas. We also have very good QI. For example, we have implemented and built a custom solution on the Salesforce platform for major clients, including one of the world’s biggest CRO (contract research organization) for pharma. Those are really the core solutions. 

Where are most of your clients located?

Most of our clients – around 85 percent – are currently based in the United States, and most of those are on the East Coast. We have some presence in the UK and major customers in France. Germany is definitely our goal market starting this year. We see a huge potential in Germany, especially with our vertical focus, which is on pharma, healthcare and finance companies. So there are definitely businesses in Germany in those sectors that could benefit from the solutions we are providing to our current clients.

What is your strategy to enter the German market?

Our strategy is usually to build local partnerships. That’s what we are doing in the UK, for example. We are partnering with someone local who can open the doors and help us sell our business. On the other hand, we’re building a chain of trusted partners who can work with the client on the delivery site once the project is delivered. Often. the big challenge is to identify the right partner in those markets. It takes time to find a good partner and time is precious in this business. 

The IT industry is extremely competitive. What makes you stand out?

Previously, the company positioned itself as a technology advisor. Now, we understand that the competition is so high that on top of knowing technology, you have to understand trends and the business domains where you operate. That’s why we’re putting significant efforts into understanding the business of the client better. We are doing a lot of R&D activities, trying to figure out how the market will move, identifying trends and offering new solutions to potential clients. Basically, we are not positioning ourselves as a technology partner, but also as someone who knows about industry trends and can help the client articulate how the industry will move into the future. On the other hand, we are building compliance knowledge in pharma and healthcare. We’re trying to understand how the industry is going to evolve from the regulatory perspective, and work with our solutions. There are many different steps we’re taking to boost our value to the customer and position ourselves higher in the value chain than just a technology partner who can find a solution based on a set of requirements.

How does the company work with AI?

On top of the custom software development on Salesforce, we quite often use this platform to integrate AI and data capabilities. This became an important process as large enterprises currently have huge amounts of data, and they want to use predictive algorithms to make good use of it – to predict behavior, understand how they should target marketing and sales campaigns, and more.  From the perspective of our R&D, we are also heavily investing in AI. We have a lot of knowledge from more than 300 projects that we’ve delivered to clients, and we want to build some solutions to consolidate that knowledge. For example, we are working on facial recognition and voice recognition technology that we are implementing for our internal needs.

How does your company build trust with clients around the world?

How it works with us is basically that we have a very reputable clientele and quite often their references are enough for us to gain credibility in the eyes of similar sized enterprises. A significant chunk of our business comes from references because our clients speak of our excellence, reliability and expertise. People in narrow communities speak to each other and trust each other, and that’s how we move. If we are approaching a new customer without a reference, we do have to make an extra effort and prove our case.

What is the business climate like in the Lviv region?

I believe that the business climate here is getting better. I think that this government is investing a lot into institutions, even though some of their reforms are unpopular. All business, including IT companies, are bound by institutions, good regulation, reasonable taxation and the rule of law. And in that respect, I see that a lot of progress has been made. The IT industry competes for talent on the global market and the government has to set up a good environment to motivate people to stay and work here. This year, around $3.5 billion has been generated by the Ukrainian IT industry, so it’s a huge opportunity for Ukraine to transform its economy from raw materials to technology. I also believe that the perception of Ukraine as an IT-country is improving. I would highly recommend looking at Ukraine as a region with high-growth potential from the business and investment perspective.