EFutures is a software product engineering company that develops innovative software for start-ups and other businesses, co-founded by Chief Executive Prashan Nagendra and Rishen Fernando in 2000.
Over two decades, the company has endured and emerged stronger from several crises (the Dot Com crash in 2002, the Great Recession of 2008, Covid-19 and the worst economic crisis unfolding in Sri Lanka today) and completed over 600 projects. Today, EFutures is a fast-growing company with strategic partnerships with several leading companies in Europe and North America, aiming to become a sought-after boutique product engineering company in South Asia in the domains of fintech, healthcare, climate change, and retail. Behind all its successes, and now driving its future endeavours, are the people at EFutures, explains Prashan Nagendra and Rishen Fernando in this interview. They begin by sharing insights into why culture matters to EFutures.
In the software industry, culture is a crucial factor that increases efficiencies, lowers employee turnover, helps attract and retain the best talent, and elevates customer experiences. Successful businesses are often successful because they have invested in strong, empowering cultures. Our journey as a company has been richly rewarding for all our clients and employees because building the right culture was a priority for us at EFutures from day one.
However, with the emergence of Working from Home after the Covid-19 outbreak, it has become challenging to maintain the culture that has brought us success because there are hardly any face-to-face interactions with the team members. As a people-centric company, engaging teams at a deeper level is critical for growth. We are encouraging people to work from the office for a couple of days each week at the very least because that would help us strengthen our bonds, deepen our relationships and enable effective collaboration.
So, how would you define and describe the EFutures culture?
We are a culture of empathy, integrity, and fun that drives and fosters high performance, autonomy, and passion. By practising such values, our people consistently perform at high productivity levels, taking pride in their work. Employees are allowed to work autonomously and independently, and we have found that that approach encourages them to take the initiative and assume responsibilities like leaders and unleashes their potential to go above and beyond the expectations they had for themselves. We treat our employees as unique individuals, taking great care to provide opportunities that best suit their strengths while giving solutions to their problems that best serve their individual needs to make them feel safe and valued. The EFutures culture held us in good stead during the global pandemic, where working from home was mandatory and performance was highly dependent on the work ethic of each individual.
EFutures is an HR-driven company that focuses on employees as much as we do on clients. Our approach to people has resulted in a continuous increase of work from our existing clients and a steady stream of new referrals. Our staff turnover levels are also far below the industry average, thereby increasing clients’ willingness to keep re-engaging with new projects because relationships and trust matter to them.
How was the company challenged by the 2019 Easter bombings, Covid-19, and the unfolding economic crisis?
These were extremely challenging times for the country and the company. However, Covid did have a positive impact as more companies digitized to become more efficient, resulting in more demand for our services. Being a tech company working from home allowed us to continue and grow the business, but on the flip side, it significantly strained the work culture. The tragic Easter bombings and the recent economic crisis caused a sudden surge in migration across our industry. That caused some level of disruption to our business. International clients were very concerned about the stability of the country and the economy, which increased sales cycles on projects in our pipeline. Even during these challenging times, EFutures remains resilient, and many of our clients are empathetic and continue to support us.
How are you responding to these challenges, building resilience, and motivating people to excel in what they do?
We continuously communicate with our staff on the ground situation and keep them updated on how the company is progressing. Employee well-being is paramount to the company, and we continuously engage staff to address their issues and motivate them. We invest considerable resources in training and continuous professional development, encouraging our people to build capabilities around emerging new-age technologies and diversify their skills across multiple technology verticals. As a result, we have a team of highly-driven, well-rounded fullstack developers with extensive knowledge across various technologies. They are empowering our clients to keep pace with the rapid advancements in technology, ever-evolving consumer demands and volatile global market upheavals.
Our focus and all the work towards the EFutures culture continues to bear fruit, driving value for our clients, creating better opportunities for our people, and generating growth for the company.
An emphatic testament to this is that many of our former employees have returned to EFutures because they yearn to accelerate their career progression, knowing that EFutures is undeniably the best place for that. During the current economic crisis, if people resigned from EFutures it was mostly for migration opportunities and not to join another company in Sri Lanka, affirming our conviction that investing in culture and people was one of the things we did right.