Zeux Emerges Amongst The Top Full Circle UX Design And Innovation Firms In India
ZEUX’s co-founders are Saurabh Gupta and Hemal Gathani – both being first generation entrepreneurs as well as pioneering contributors to the UX landscape in India for the past decade and a half. Together, they account for 1000+ hours of teaching experience on UX Strategy. Headquartered in Mumbai, ZEUX caters to more than 30 clients including Vodafone, Discovery, Money Control, DBS, Reliance Retail, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, E&Y, Yes Bank, Network 18, BCG and InCred etc.
What was the rationale of starting ZEUX? What is the industry challenge it aims to resolve?
Saurabh and I have been amongst the most experienced professionals with in-depth experience in delivering UX solutions to marquee global clients – including Fortune 500 companies – across locations. Having spent close to one and half decade formulating strategies, executing ideas and delivering results, we foresaw a huge opportunity in starting an organization that delivers outcome-driven design solutions (not just focused on aesthetics) and adapting the traditional user experience process to be agile and lean.
How has ZEUX's journey been since its inception in 2016?
In the third year since our inception, we at ZEUX have grown from two-member team to 30. In the process, we have not only established ourselves as one of the fastest-growing holistic UX solutions companies in the country but also executed multiple innovative projects for marquee clients including reputed banks, telecom companies, and travel and tech companies. About 80 per cent of our business comprises of repeat and referral clients. More importantly, we have managed to take the discussion around UX into the boardrooms of our clients through our thought leadership and advisory services.
Considering the sheer number of players in the segment, do you see a challenge in scaling up?
While there are several UX companies, only handfuls qualify for being a true UX company. Of the few ones, there are some premium UX companies and there are some, which provide routine and workable designs. However, scaling up in a country where the UX industry is still at a nascent stage, we are working on three key areas – Training, Talent Management, and UX Evangelism.
We have developed a robust in-house design-training program that mitigates our risk of hiring only trained UX designers with prior experience. This not only makes the hiring process more efficient but also helps to build an organization with diverse skill sets with standard quality. Training coupled with a culture that fosters creativity, harmony, and happiness and led to zero attrition in the company since the last two years.
We are equally focusing hard on building the right ecosystem in the industry. We evangelize UX by doing several speaking engagements in various conferences. We are helping reputed design schools to come up with a robust UX Design graduation programme. In addition, most important of all is improving customer experience and comprehension of UX design through innovation, knowledge exchange and delivering experiences to achieve client's business objectives.
Can you explain what UX/UI Design is?
User experience design denotes the emotions or feelings that a user is left with after she/he has used the product or the service. UI refers to the actual interface that a user would use to engage with the product or the service. UI and UX are not interchangeable. UI design is a part of the overall UX Design process.
What are the potential and growth drivers of UX/UI industry in the country?
As per NelsonHall, the current market size of global User experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) industry is $5308 million – expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.4% to $10956 million by 2022. Indian UX industry remains fragmented and nascent as compared to the developed countries. However, given the thrust of companies across sectors namely finance, retail, telecom, media and tech – digitizing their offerings as well as engaging with their stakeholders with greater efficiency – the UX industry potential has gone up significantly.
What kind of technology or behavioural advancements do you foresee in the coming years in the Indian UX/UI space?
UX design will continue to deliver simpler and user-friendly experiences that appeal to behavioural, cultural and attention barriers of the consumers in increasingly complex, and challenging technology environments. Internet of things will take UX to multiple platforms - thereby presenting a unification challenge in terms of creating a common UI language. Interaction mediums will continue to evolve from physical to voice to intelligent & finally self-aware. Closer to home, as Bharat mingles with India – there will be new opportunities to facilitate interactions in terms of increasingly complex customer preferences & purchasing power. As the industry matures, which it will, owing to the influx of global practices, it will present unique and exciting opportunities for companies like us, in the coming years.
