Strengths & Challenges
This Sidebar is a part of the September 2018 Company Spotlight.
Xyngular executives we talked to for this story all pointed to the same two things as the company’s biggest strengths: a strong holistic product and a strong, values-based culture. But what about its challenges?
Fletcher jokes that there are two answers to that question—the “self-serving” answer and the “real answer.”
He probably calls the first answer “self-serving” because it’s about how he’s working to apply agile development methodology—something he’s recognized as an expert in and has lectured on at places like Harvard University—to every area of the company. Typically used in software development, this methodology follows principles that some executives see as more universal: collaboration, favoring people over process and being able to change quickly depending on circumstances rather than being tied to a static plan.
We are very intentional about international. We like to go to international markets when we’re being led there organically.
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“My IT colleagues say it’s ambitious,” Fletcher says. “And it’s a little bit daunting. But I think that even with some of our limited success, it’s already paying dividends.”
So what’s the “real” answer? Fletcher and other executives agree that the company’s biggest challenge might be learning how to go global. Xyngular has expanded slowly, by design, within North America and has no immediate plans to go beyond its locations in places like the Philippines and Trinidad, which account for only two percent of overall revenue.
“For us truly to be a global player, we need to figure out what it means to be a global player,” Fletcher says. “We need to find the communities of people who fit our ‘becoming more’ movement.
Call echoes Fletcher’s take on Xyngular’s overseas expansion strategy. “We are very intentional about international,” he says. “We like to go to international markets when we’re being led there organically. We don’t want to go if a market’s not demanding our presence there.”
