How Covid19 Impacted Armenian Tech Companies

The outbreak of Covid19 disrupted business operations and is challenging the global market from travel, hospitality, supply chain to entertainment and our daily lifestyle. The quarantine upended 2020 plans and had an impact on Armenian tech companies.

Below, some of Armenian tech leaders share their outlook of the current business situation and the value they’ve found in a remote workforce. We would like to share their insights to inspire your business performance and routine while working remotely.

A Remote Workforce and First WFH Challenges

Remote work and video conferences are the new normal for many industries. Many tech companies and startups are jumping right into it with a positive attitude, motivation and lots of nice visuals.
At the same time, this situation is creating some challenges for those, who prefer face-to-face discussions and office life.

What was the main challenge you could see during this first month of WFH routine?

Ruben Osipyan, Co-founder at Himnark
“Taking into account the specifics of Himnark platform, our operations were designed in a way that most part of our work is done in the cloud. Project management is done with Jira, source code is kept in Bitbucket. Our team is distributed and works in Yerevan, Vanadzor and Stepanakert. Thus, having meetings online was a regular task for us.”

Rafayel Baghian, Co-Founder and CMO at Preezma

“Long Story Short — 100% of challenge was guaranteed by our wonderful KIDS!!! For the rest, we couldn’t see big challenges and it was a pretty easy transformation for our company. We switched our daily stand-ups to the Zoom and replaced our office coffee breaks with digital coffee breaks. Of course, we miss each other, and know that face-to-face meetings and office relationships cannot be replaced.

We could see lots of positive changes. Our team productivity has increased, because we no longer spend time on traffic jams. We started eating healthier. Some employees start the day with morning workouts, and most importantly, we spend more time with families and kids. Also, there is no need to be back home after work and buy groceries.

Postponed Projects and Missed Partnerships

Many networking events and tech conferences were cancelled or postponed. It created difficulties for meeting new people and making interesting business connections. As many other industries, Armenian tech companies also face the prospect of missed partnership opportunities and delayed projects.

For tech startups and software outsourcing companies working for the tourism, travel, logistics and offline events industries, things seem complicated as they and their clients are directly affected by the quarantine.

Did this situation have any impact on your clients’ business and operations during the last two months?

Gor Vardanyan, CEO and Co-Founder of Fimetech
“Of course, we understand that this situation challenges both sides financially and emotionally. We try to come up with better financial offering for some of our loyal customers, to make sure the current situation doesn’t have a big impact of their project development processes”.

Aram Andriasyan, CEO and Co-Founder of Fifth
“We are in software outsourcing business and we are directly connected to the industries where our business partners work. Which means, if their business is affected, then we also see the consequences”.

Yes, this quarantine had an impact on our clients too. Current situation is challenging, but in the long run we believe that there will be more tech jobs and demand in software development. Thus we use this time to come up with new value offering and tech solutions for international businesses.“

More Risks or Opportunities

While the quarantine has created lots of difficulties for some businesses, it has also raised demand for certain types of services and gave birth to new startups. Because of the need of social distancing, people have to stay home and organize everything online. Thus, a boom in the delivery sector is underway, with more people ordering food, clothes and groceries to their door to keep to their quarantine.

Ruben Osipyan Co-Founder at Himnark
“We could see both. One of our potential clients asked to postpone the onboarding process and get back to this once the quarantine is over.
On the other hand, we could see a massive shift to cloud technologies, which opened a window of opportunities for us.”

Rafayel Baghian, Co-Founder and CMO at Preezma
“It’s a risk and opportunity game — depends on how flexible the company is. This refers to all kinds of companies, not only to software development ones.”

To conclude

Upon the conclusion, what would you recommend to your colleagues and technology partners in order to stay focused, motivated and benefit from the remote work?

Aram Andriasyan, CEO and Co-Founder of Fifth
“Firstly, use communication and management tools to make sure the transparency of all data for all team members, starting from the development team finishing with the stakeholders.

Secondly, try to do HR activities more frequently in order to make sure that your team members are not alone and are connected with each other most of the time. We held different types of online board games, interesting polls, etc. You can find some online board games on Tabletopia .

And finally, be there for your team! We have increased the response time from our board members in order to tackle down any minor or major issues that each employee may have.”

To sum up, looking ahead, we expect the pace of digital transformation and investment in technology to increase. This will create new opportunities for the tech players all around the world. Thus, Armenian tech companies should take proactive steps to build more flexibility into their businesses to weather the outbreak’s consequences and emerge in a stronger and favorable position for the future.

Finally, thank you to all those who contributed with their answers.