Digitising SmartData Technologies - Bangladesh | Interview

Founded in 2008, SmartData Technologies (pvt) Ltd. in Bangladesh provides industry leading cyber security solutions not just in Bangladesh but also to Sri Lanka, Singapore & UAE. With more than 20 years of knowledge and experience, SmartData Technologies successfully brings about the world’s most promising solutions to to close the cyber security gaps.

We were given the opportunity to speak with the SmartData Technologies CEO Mr. Fazlur Rahman, who’s responsible for the dynamic development of SmartData and providing unparalleled cybersecurity products and services which meets all the critical information technology needs.

Q1 : My first question to you is how did you see the necessity of collaboration & networking for the growth of your company, especially the impact of cloud services. What difficulties and technology gaps you saw that needed to be addressed & why did you think Google will be the best fit.

We started long back in Bangladesh, obviously that time cloud was not there, but nowadays everybody’s using the cloud, or any related services. So, during 2008 - 2012 when we were starting up SmartData, collaboration was the main element that we noticed which changed dramatically. Google started Cloud services with Gmail with about 1gb free space given, at the times it was a huge space, but gradually these capacities grew exponentially. Gmail started this service and later it was named G-Suite. So I would like to thank Google and Microsoft and many other companies which provided Cloud services and it has caused a big advancement in the IT industry. Collaboration & file sharing is very important to us, we often share files and documents with our clients, partners & team members, we do video conferencing, we use Google Sheets. I think Google & all other cloud service providers have successfully established Cloud technology after 20 years, that we enjoy today. So I would like to pinpoint the key word collaboration and that's the main advantage we acquired from Google.

Q2 : I would like to take you back to the days you first obtained Google solutions with us. How did you see that transition and what made you choose Finetech Consultancy, who is also now the Google premier partner in Bangladesh & what was your experience? Was there any difficulties & challenges during the implementation, and how were they taken care of.

The Google interface has been very fast and and very easy that that of the competitors. Transitioning from other email solutions to Google was very easy because Finetech is a very good team and was given us with the all necessary migration tools.Finetech always guided us through the whole migration process. We have never faced an issue and we have been using it for many many years. So I would say that’s how I knew choosing Google and that through Finetech was the best decision.

I would also like to add that Google has the best email spam protection service. As a technical guy I would thank Google for this excellent feature, while the other email providers are the worst, as we get hundreds of spam emails, which Google can give very accurate results.

Q3 : I think it's safe to say that to be sustainable and to last long in the business we have to have the best infrastructure, so people learn to work together. I assume Google allowed you to create that environment and to improve efficiency and productivity. How would you like to comment on that?

Obviously we can collaborate faster & and the efficiency is much better now. I would not limit myself just to Gmail and G-Suite as we have many other services like Google Classroom. Entire Google services mpact the massive change in the social environment. I believe during COVID Google Classroom was hugely adopted by the schools in Bangladesh. It’s not easy to design such a user -friendly interface. I would say, that’s why Google is the best!

Q4 : Did you find the customer service element, the support team to be true towards what Finetech claims and was it on par with your expectation.

My honest opinion is that when we directly go to Google, we do not receive any special services and even though they provide accurate solutions I have noticed they take more time. In comparison, we got a very good service during the implementation from Finetech, and after that when we needed them, for example we faced a very advanced level of technical issue one time, with email spoofing, we got very good support from the Finetech team.

Q5 : If we give you an opportunity to write a wishlist for Google, Finetech Consultancy, what would you like to have different or have provided for you in the future.

For Finetch I would request to have sesion, once in 6 months or so, to introduce us to new features of Google, so we can see how we can develop and change accordingly. As an IT guy I would like to request from Google I would request to have more security features in Gmail.

By Finetech Google Partner in Bangladesh.