Brain Station 23, one of Bangladesh’s largest IT services firms, has grown as a team and expanded internationally over the last decade using its strength of an excellent IT talent pool and innovation culture. The company now looks to expand to more markets by using a global partnership strategy and expanding the scope of collaboration with potential partners. Through these partnerships, the company aims to expand markets and geographic reach, create new opportunities and widen the scope for solutions it offers across technology stacks.
Founded in 2006 as a team of four, the new Brain Station 23 initially focused on the international market, before expanding into the local market in 2010. Today, it has a strong presence in 25+ markets, including the US, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Turkey, Caribbean countries, and the Middle East.
The company is also one of the largest employers of certified and expert technologists and IT talents in blockchain, artificial intelligence, machine learning, Reality Technologies, BI Solution, Project Management, Software, Database, Cloud, UX, Quality Assurance, Business Analysis, AEM, LMS, E-commerce, AR-VR and other emerging technologies in Bangladesh.
Partnership has always been inherent to Brain Station’s growth strategy. It has built partnerships with 10+ major technology solution providers — including AWS, Microsoft, Google Cloud Platform, Oracle, NopCommerce, and Adobe among others — which enable it to offer excellent solutions to its clients.
Similarly, the company has used the partnership to lead its global expansion strategy. Over the years, it has partnered with companies and independent agents to build a presence and grow its business across countries. It currently has partners in 8 markets including the USA, Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Japan, Norway, Germany, and Africa.
Partners help Brain Station 23 to access their native markets. In exchange, partners get to access Brain Station’s expertise and excellent IT talent pool to deliver exciting tech solutions to their customers, grow their businesses, and earn additional revenue through profit sharing.
Brain Station 23 is known for building long-term relationships. One such example is Brain Station 51, a German company and long-term partner of Brain Station 23.
“We have been working with a wonderful German partner for many years now”, says Brain Station 23 CEO Raisul Kabir. "The story of how the partnership began is interesting. A German businessman was visiting Bangladesh to explore technology collaboration opportunities. While searching the internet for a Bangladeshi company working on the AEM before coming, he found us. He got in touch, came to our office, and we liked each other in our initial conversation. After returning to Germany, he founded a company called Brain Station 51. We've been partners ever since.”
The collaboration has been a win-win for both companies. Here is from Brain Station 51 website: “Brain Station 51 combines excellent German IT quality and cost-effective, first-class international development collaboration support through its experienced partner BRAIN STATION 23 in Bangladesh. We combine our knowledge from 35 years of management of large corporate projects as well as the realization of complex business solutions.”
Brain Station 23 has built a process for building and onboarding partners. Compliances are being checked whether a partner meets its criteria before confirmation.
Brain Station 23 routinely reaches out to B2B companies for partnerships that match its requirements. Interested companies also send partnership requests and inquiries. One of the major sources of partners for Brain Station has been its own clients who refer B2B companies for partnership. Being one of the largest employers of certified IT talents in the software engineering industry in Bangladesh plays in its favor.
Brain Station 23 also works with independent partners. In recent years, it has been looking to partner with individuals in North America and Europe to expand its presence in those markets.
A standard procedure is used in working with partners. When partners find any project that matches Brain Station’s offerings, they pass it to Brain Station 23. In exchange, partners get a host of benefits including profit sharing on every opportunity they bring based on a pre-signed agreement, cost-effective development rate, flexible time zone adjustment, and sharing Brain Station’s 15+ years of experience profile as their experience to onboard customers.
Moreover, working with Brain Station 23 allows partners to grow their business from a long-term perspective.
Brain Station’s partnership benefits both partners. “For partners, we help unlock new opportunities, access new capabilities and expertise, enhance product and service offerings, boost their revenue growth, and generate additional revenue for bringing businesses for Brain Station 23,” adds MJ Ferdous, Director and COO of Brain Station 23.
Let’s take a deeper look into some of the benefits Brain Station 23 offers its partners:
Offer enhanced product and service offerings to clients. A company can't have all the expertise necessary to cater to all opportunities available to them resulting in missed opportunities. Not being able to present a working demo in a specified timeframe can mean failing to win a project. Often hiring and training people to become proficient in new technology are not viable options because of their prohibitive cost.
Brain Station 23 gives its partners access to a team of highly capable IT talents, designers, project managers, and product people enabling companies to take on new projects without investing in people and earn revenue outside of their regular business.
This is exactly what Brain Station 51, the German partner of Brain Station 23 we mentioned above, has been doing. As the company describes on its website: “Brain Station 51 can offer a first-class international development collaboration support through its experienced partner BRAIN STATION 23 in Bangladesh. BRAIN STATION 23 hires only the most talented IT developers and develops its people to respond to your complex business needs.”
Brain Station is one of the largest employers of certified and expert technologists and human resources across a wide range of emerging technologies in Bangladesh. The company is a reliable provider of technology solutions to a growing number of companies in local and international markets. Partners can quickly access this expertise and technology to serve their customers.
Technology is a fast-paced industry. In many instances, it is often infeasible to build all the necessary expertise internally from scratch and invest in hiring new tech talents.
Working with Brain Station 23 means you can access Brain Station’s technical expertise and use it to take on big projects without putting stress on your company resources.
Collaborative problem-solving. Evolutionary biologist Joseph Henrich asserts in his excellent book The Secret of Our Success that at the core of our success as species is our ability to collaborate to solve complex problems.
Technological developments deal with complex challenges. The most innovative in-house teams can develop tunnel vision. Bringing in a team of outside experts helps to stimulate creativity and open up new possibilities for finding solutions.
Over the years, Brain Station 23 has worked with hundreds of partners and developed a model that amplifies the work of partners it collaborates with. A partnership with Brain Station 23 means access to this wealth of experience. It can help refine and improve development processes, introduce and strengthen best practices, help innovate solutions, and increase the overall quality of work for clients.
Focus on your core business. It does not matter what business you are in, it is unwise to get yourself into every opportunity that comes your way. If you are a software development company dealing with a particular technology, it is only wise to stay in your domain and have partners for other development needs and opportunities.
This is where a strategic partnership with a reputable software development company such as Brain Station 23 comes in handy be it for your internal developments or serving potential customers you don’t serve.
Increased revenue and growth. Each of the items above directly feeds into increased revenue and additional growth for your company.
A partnership with Brain Station 23 means you have new capabilities to offer to your customers and serve more customers with fewer in-house resources. You can also put forward more comprehensive offerings in the market which means you will attract new businesses.
Moreover, partners get a share of the profit they bring for Brain Station 23. A cost-efficient development rate for partners and access to the best technology resources can also help grow your business and maximize your revenue.
Brain Station 23 has always been a quality-obsessed company. The company says a set of values direct its operation namely honesty, transparency, excellence, and ownership. It prioritizes transparency while dealing with partners resulting in trust and long-term collaboration with partners.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Brain Station 23 has quickly put together a hybrid working model enabling people to be productive and partners to get their projects delivered on time. The company introduced work from home from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020. Several technological tools from time tracking to regular remote meetings and collaboration have been introduced to improve productivity.
The Brain Station’s HR team has developed a special regimen to reach out to each and every employee to make work from home easy by providing them gadgets and other necessary tools. Since Brain Station has already been working for remote clients for years now, going remote was not a challenge for the company and the company already has practices in place to maintain clear communication with clients. As a result, work from home didn’t bring any major challenges for employees, clients, or partners.
A string of employee-friendly initiatives has been launched to help employees avoid burnout, tackle the challenges of loneliness and lack of collaboration while working remotely. A company-supported healthcare program for employees and their families has been introduced to ensure access to healthcare for COVID-19 related emergencies.
Unlike many IT outsourcing companies, Brain Station allows partners to access their IT resources directly allowing a seamless collaboration.
All these initiatives have helped Brain Station work effectively with its partners and deliver high-quality projects on time amid a global pandemic while experiencing excellent growth at the same time.
Partnership has been a key lever of growth for Brain Station 23. Partnerships with independent agents and B2B business partners across countries have helped the company successfully expand internationally.
Today Brain Station 23 aims higher. “We are now working on onboarding independent agents in different international markets,” says Mr. Raisul. “These partners will represent us in their native markets and help us bring new business. We are also working with B2B businesses as partners who can sell/offer our expertise as part of their offering. We have an excellent profit-sharing model for our partners.”
Brain Station is using a two-pronged strategy to build out its partnership model. Independent partners who either have their businesses or want to pursue an additional opportunity as independent partners can now work with Brain Station 23. The company is also looking to expand its partnership network with native businesses across markets that are looking for offshore technology development partners who can offer expertise and cost-efficient solutions.
