Praised as best open source application in 2014 and best document management system in 2016, LogicalDOC is the ultimate software solution for companies and organizations.
Founded in 2006, LogicalDOC has successfully served hundreds of customers worldwide.
At its core LogicalDOC is a cross-platform, DMS (document management software) and KMS (knowledge management software) designed to meet the needs of every modern business.
Thanks to the many features of the platform, it can save you from a lot of hustle and keep your files organized in a smart, paperless way.
With the neat web based user interface, LogicalDOC brings you DMS features like: file sharing and collaboration, centralized security policies, intelligent searches and compete control over corporate documents and records.
It enables an effective management of documents and facilitates communication among employees.
Additionally, LogicalDOC gives the option for: on-premises installation (Windows, Linux, macOS), or LogicalDOC Cloud – the SaaS approach, installation on LogicalDOC servers.
About Alessandro Gasparini
Alessandro Gasparini is CTO at LogicalDOC since 2015.
It has a first-class technological background thanks to its experience of over 18 years, in the fields of software engineering and systems architecture.
Its sensitivity and openness support day-to-day evolution of LogicalDOC providing creative and effective solutions to the problems raised by customers.
Let’s here it from Alessandro on how logical doc is rolling the rock ever since their beginning in this insightful Interview;
Q1) What according to you are the four pillars on which LogicalDOC stands upon?
- Advanced ability to organize and classify documents
- multi-platform and modular architecture
- internationalization and localization of the product
- integration with third-party software.
Q2) How did you hit upon the idea for your Company?
As I said the business idea with which we began is very different from what we’re doing now, even though from the start we expected that our education software project would integrate a document management feature.
And initially, that project was released with a customization of a third-party CMS named Magnolia. Following our partners asked us to produce a lightweight document management system for sale in small appliances and so we took part to the open source community Contineo providing to evolve for at least 18 months the platform. Later there was a kind of friction within the community because we needed to give a more commercial approach to the software and because of this, we started a new project called LogicalDOC.
Q3) Who do you consider your biggest Competitor and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Competition in our industry is very fierce just to name a few Alfresco, eFileCabinet, Docuware and much more…
What differentiates LogicalDOC is the user interface of the product which in our case is technologically more advanced, the number and quality of the features offered by the software, the internationalization of the product and the ability to index documents in different languages using specific algorithms, integration with Microsoft Office/Outlook and mobile applications.
Q4) How has sales evolved since you first got into the business? What hasn’t changed?
Because of poor choices in the course of 2010, the year sales were not satisfactory, the following year, 2011 product sales began to take off consistently.
In practice, this process began when we started in 2010/2011 to implement the dedicated website for the product and then to internationalize this site.
Another key aspect that has allowed us to increase sales is to the partners, a network of the effective partner in the territory is very important: in some countries, it is impossible to sell without the support of a local partner.
However, to give you some statistics in 2015 the company’s sales increased by 25%, while the year 2016 was the best year of the company with regard to sales.
Q5) How do you balance the emphasis on Activity vs End Goals?
Every year we do a verification checklist to monitor achievement of the annual objectives and the actions we take are a direct result of the annual targets.
It must be said that in our industry you have to be very active, both as product news and as marketing promotion and reactive customer support.
Balancing all these things is a job from tightrope walkers and I must say a big thank you to all our employees and partners for the dedication with which every day they do their work!
Q6) Would you rather be respected or feared?
Our ambition is to be respected and appreciated by the public and even by competitors.
Frankly, we don’t care to be feared, we are peaceful people and rather than fight the enemy we prefer to develop business alliances that are profitable in the long run.
Q7) Think of something you’ve done in the past; what would you have done differently?
Well, in 2010 the company has suffered a lot due to an acquisition that has not materialized and the resulting trauma to the organizational and management level.
This was a big problem that might have been avoided, and that has added to poor choices in personnel management.
In hindsight, we would have rejected that proposal and reduced the staff time while keeping their jobs.
Q8) How do you approach a decision where people disagree with you?
It depends on the type of decision, normally I try to build consensus around me, in order to prevent tearing in interpersonal relationships.
I think this is a good approach because a decision shared by more people is more likely to be correctly implemented rather than a decision forcibly imposed.
Q9) What do you expect to see over the next 5 to 10 years in the Industry?
As much as I think it will exacerbate the current process of abstraction and virtualization of the software in the Cloud.
Also, a key aspect of document management is being able to access and work on your documents on the go; this is one of the fundamental demands that we are asked every day from the market.
Another warm front is that of digitization and dematerialization of documents; contrary to popular belief, many companies are still skeptical about using Cloud and prefer to manage in-house their own documents and digital assets.
Q10) What according to you are Do’s and don’t of B2B Prospecting?
For our part, we believe that building a strong partnership is essential,, this is because it is difficult to relate with people who don’t know you at all and very often are located in another country.
The same applies to language differences, in some countries if you don’t speak the native language is impossible to sell because that’s the first thing they ask, whether we can do support in their own language.
To do business in the South American nations must have excellent references and local partners otherwise even those contacts become unattainable.
The other aspect is that of integrations, ours is a cross product that thanks to its API web service can be easily integrated into many management, for example, we have customers who have integrated LogicalDOC into a CRM SalesForce or others who have incorporated it into their ERP.
There are countless ERPs on the global market and only one partner with a good knowledge of his product can make a bridge between the two applications.
Q11) What are your experiences with highs and lows at LogicalDOC?
I can say that my experience is very wide on this issue, as I work in the company for many years. The worst time was definitely the 2010 and especially the latter part of the year.
Then came the rebirth, so I think it was determined the technical and unconventional choice of the technology we used to create the GUI of the software: Google GWT.
Lately, more and more Professionals are leaving their cushy and well-paid jobs to follow their passion. What’s your take on this?
I was one of them, I must say that my previous salary was not so bad and the tranquility of a fixed place is always a nice cushion to sit on, in the end, though I hadn’t seen particular growth prospects, neither professionally nor regarding the compensation and then I did that plunge and became an entrepreneur myself.
Now things are going well, but at the beginning, we made a lot of effort, even if we had made a very good business plan clearly the market wasn’t ready for our initial product and then we were blanched.
Lastly, We would be glad to have your valuable suggestion for the new age Entrepreneurs thriving in the industry today.
It is important to make a good business plan, but it is even more important to find partners and investors who believe in your business plan.
Then it is important to surround yourself with smart people who can help you to develop your idea and above all, you must be tenacious and believe to the core in what you’re doing.
Chirantan Patel is the Product Manager at Softwaresuggest & Callhippo, an Inc. 275 company that researches and analyzes software to educate, advise, and connect buyers and sellers of business technology.
