This Dutch IT consulting firm offers boutique solutions to global companies

Xebia began as a group of technologists advising on precise tech blueprints and architecture to companies that had burnt their fingers with shoddy IT implementation

Global IT consulting firm Xebia is expanding not just its global footprint, but is also increasing its India focus by stepping up hiring, and expanding domain. 

Xebia is a niche boutique IT consulting firm set up in the Netherlands in 2001.

“The software world was struggling with failed implementations caused by bad architecture and wrong technology choices. Xebia started as a group of some of the finest and experienced technologists, who could advise on right technology blueprints and architecture leading to very successful outcomes for customers,” said Anand Sahay, CEO Xebia Global Services.

In 2006, Xebia set up business in India to tap into the country's growing software engineering capabilities, and cater to the demands of global customers for quality software engineering talent.

The firm soon started its software unit to offer robust architecture, growing into a world-class company of developers.

Xebia essentially delivers offshore services from India, and serves customers globally. It adopted agile technology early on, offering digital transformation services to its clients. 

The company has a revenue of over 200 million euros currently and expects to cross half a billion euro in the next 3-4 years.

“Xebia intends to further expand its services into blockchain, augmented and virtual reality along with Internet of Things. Domain focus will also increase and expand into retail, healthcare and travel,” said Sahay.

Xebia’s reputation in using latest technology to build quality software soon started getting acknowledged. Blogs by the company's software engineer, contribution to open source and knowledge sharing at the global stage attracted global customers to contract with Xebia for their mission critical work. The company soon expanded into the US, UK, Middle East and South East Asia and become known as Xebia Global Services.

It recently acquired one of Europe’s largest IT companies, PGS Software, and Google Cloud Premier Partner G-company. 

“Xebia’s biggest strength is its ability to bring the right set of technologies—both mainstream and emerging—to build innovative architectural blueprints which can be a big differentiator from other competitors. This results in a much better outcome for our customers with respect to innovation, as well as scalability of applications,” said Sahay.

Like most other industries and companies, Xebia’s business was impacted by the onset of the pandemic. 

“Covid-19, obviously, did bring in some uncertainty in early- to mid-2020 as customers struggled to decide on budgets for new software programs,” said Sahay. 

But by August 2020, Sahay said, it was clear that the whole world would move swiftly towards digitisation which requires software.

“By October 2020, we were booked with no engineers left to take on the demand for new software. We had one of the strongest work pipelines ever. Xebia had to significantly increase its recruitment engine to identify and hire the best around the world and train to build software craftsmanship skills in new engineers. We had to innovate on the remote hiring process, as well as remote induction of new engineers,” Sahay added.

He expects this demand to further grow over the next three years and the company is accordingly planning to make changes to handle the growth.

Xebia currently has over 4,000 heads with five development centres in India, Vietnam, UAE, Netherlands, Belgium, UK, US, Australia and Canada. In India, it employs over 2,000 people. Its clients include, among others, Disney, Ahold Delhaize, Tesco, Philips, and ING bank.

Its Software strength spans across all critical capabilities required to bring successful differentiated Digital transformation programs for its global customers. 

With the digital talent gap impacting organisations across the world, Xebia is also upping its focus on technology hiring in India.

“In order to identify good talent to scale our teams, we have collaborated with over 10 Universities in India where we have development course curricula for Computer Science students which are taught right from 1st year to 4th year. Each student is also monitored by us through various channels and we hire the best when they are in 3rd or 4th year. That has helped us find top talent early and with relevant knowledge,” Sahay added.