Digital transformation group Delfia, formed after the acquisition of French multinational Econocom’s Brazilian subsidiary, started operations and aggressive expansion plans.
The company has around 50mn reais (US$9.72mn) earmarked for investments in the next three years, and aims at 160mn reais in full-year revenues for the first year of operations.
In addition to the capex plan, the company is also investing 6mn reais until 2025 in a “corporate university” project to train professionals in emerging technologies.
Rodrigo Bocchi, former CEO of Econocom Brasil and the main investor behind the acquisition, whose values were not disclosed, is now helming Delfia. Econocom reported operations in 18 countries, with 2.5bn euros (US$2.55bn) in annual revenues.
Delfia launched with 350 professionals and 150 organizations from different industries in its customer portfolio, including some of the biggest retail banks, fintechs, telecom operators and e-commerce platforms, according to Bocchi.
With a proposal to “curate digital journeys,” Delfia claims to offer a hub of integrated solutions that covers security aspects and practices to guarantee the continuity of digital business.
Each technology mined by Delfia’s team of curators is tested in Delfia Labs, an environment that simulates real production conditions in customers’ digital environments. Delfia Labs is made up of cloud and on-premises environments.
In this interview, Delfia’s CEO Rodrigo Bocchi talks about the company’s start-up, the countries targeted and market perspectives.
BNamericas: How was the acquisition financed? Were other investors participating?
Bocchi: The acquisition had two sources of capital: the new partner’s own resources and credit lines from financial institutions.
BNamericas: What’s the regional expansion strategy and how big is the current regional operation? How many customers do you intend to gain?
Bocchi: The Mexican operation started three months ago, and we already have five active clients.
Operations in Colombia and the US began this month. We expect to reach at least 20 customers in each of our locations by the end of 2023.
BNamericas: Why the decision specifically for Mexico, Colombia and the US?
Bocchi: After Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are the biggest markets in Latin America. We were strongly encouraged to replicate our working model by our observability and cybersecurity technology partners in these locations.
Regarding our activities in the US, we identified a great opportunity to support services in the face of the lack of professionals within our areas of operation in the North American market.
We believe we can be efficient and competitive in a more developed business environment than ours. On top of that, we are able to open up new career possibilities for our Brazilian employees.
We want to offer smart curation to our customers, and this requires being close and offering personalized service.
BNamericas: How do you assess the current market dynamics around digital transformation? Which challenges do you anticipate?
Bocchi: Wins in the digital economy are achieved by those who innovate ceaselessly, generating and consuming data in the most inventive way possible. Although much has been said about innovation, it does not always get where it should be. With 20 years of experience in the market, we know the pitfalls and frustrations caused by projects built on fragile foundations and implemented without alignment with best practices.
We designed a company and an offer that, through the smart curation of digital journeys, looks at trends, finding technologies around the globe tailored to the real pains of each company. This filter goes beyond traditional offerings, breaking paradigms to promote leaps in creativity, observability and production.
Innovation does not only depend on the correct choice of the best and most disruptive solutions: it is essential to apply the curator’s experience to customize, along the transformation journey, solutions according to the demands and needs of each organization.
Another strong market demand is to ensure that innovation takes place on a secure basis, following best practices in cybersecurity. Cloud structures allow our customers and our customers’ clients to access their business from anywhere, at any time. We want to ensure that this is done safely.
BNamericas: Can you name some of the company’s clients?
Bocchi: In Brazil, we are currently strategic providers in data observability, cybersecurity and managed technology services for the largest private banks and telecommunications companies.
Overall, we have 150 active customers in all segments. In addition to the traditional financial and telecom sector, we also register good performance in the retail, e-commerce and fintech industries.
