“Build great products that solve real problems!”-Anjali Arora, SVP and Chief Product Officer, Rocket Software.

Nisha Harshwal:- What were the key achievements in Year 2017 for Rocket Software?

Anjali Arora :-We just celebrated our 28^th anniversary in April, which is a big milestone for us. We’ve been profitable from day one, and we’ve never needed VC funding. As a result, we can pretty much pilot our own course without needing to focus on short-term targets. 2017 was a year where we continued to roll out technologies that solve problems for tens of thousands of customers and partners. We also expanded our global executive team to better meet the needs of our customers.

Nisha Harshwal:- What are your future plans to grow the business volume?

Anjali Arora :-Build great products that solve real problems! That’s what we have always done, and the growth takes care of itself.

Nisha Harshwal:- Can you please elaborate on the journey of Rocket Software globally? What about India?

Anjali Arora :-Rocket started out in Boston, and it took almost 15 years to open our first office away from home. That allowed us to really define who we are and what we do without the pressure of national or international growth. Our global growth started with two acquisitions: one was an Australian/British company and one was based in the Netherlands. Over time we’ve expanded into places like Russia, China, Japan, and now India. It’s taken us a long time to get here, but it’s the right move for Rocket because there is so much amazing talent here – at all levels.

Nisha Harshwal:- What are some of the trends that the industry is going to see in year ahead?

Anjali Arora :-It may sound strange to say, but we don’t really care about trends because so much of our success has come from not following trends. When Rocket started in 1990 we decided to focus on mainframes when everyone else was moving to other platforms or e-commerce. We came out of the first dot-com boom in a great position, but many of our “cooler” peers didn’t make it. It all comes back to putting customers and partners first and treating them with humanity. If you take care of that, everything else falls into place.

Nisha Harshwal:- What are the key differentiators of Rocket Software?

Anjali Arora :-We spend a lot more time looking at our customers and partners than we do at our competitors. So for us what makes us different isn’t a matter of figuring out what other companies are doing – it’s about keeping our community happy, whether they’re using mainframes, IBM I, MultiValue, or some other platform.

Another differentiator is that we are so focused on engineering. The majority of our 1500+ Rocketeers are on the technology side, because that’s just who we are. This year we’re expanding our internal Rocket.Build hackathon into a truly global contest, and we expect to have a number of our India-based Rocketeers joining us in Boston for a week of coding.

Nisha Harshwal:- What are your investment and expansion plans in India?

Anjali Arora :-2018 is all about India for Rocket. We opened our first office in Bengaluru, and we just hired a head of India operations, Shantanu Ghosh, who will be overseeing facilities there and in Pune. We have a lot of open positions, so we’re doing a lot of hiring this year.