In the US, companies that provide self-storage generate USD 45Bn a year in revenue. To put things into perspective, there are five times more storage units than hotel rooms in the US! With more than 50% market share, Austin, Texas-based Storable handles upwards of 15,000 storage customers at 33,000 facilities.
Storable delivers the self-storage industry’s most comprehensive suite of technology products—the Storable Platform. The platform’s foundation is facility management software. From this foundation, Storable offers owners and operators a variety of solutions to maintain and grow their businesses, including facility websites, access control, tenant insurance, payment processing, and the industry’s largest storage marketplace. Storable’s integrated solution helps storage operators and owners increase efficiency, enhance occupancy, and improve profitability.
Storable was formed in 2018 when multiple companies joined forces to deliver more value to customers. The company is backed by two Private Equity firms, Cove Hill Partners and EQT Partners. The latter, which invested in Storable in December 2020, enables the firm “to further enhance our existing products and launch new technology tools to help our storage clients increase their bottom line,” says Chuck Gordon, Storable CEO.
To continue delighting its clients with industry-leading technology, Storable had to dramatically increase its software development capabilities. Storable needed to come to market faster with new technological features while adding new features to existing products.
Setting up a software engineering center in a location with deep talent such as India was key.
One of the biggest challenges we face as a company is delivering more products, more innovation and more iterations of our existing products for our customers, Opening Storable in India is about adding more engineering capacity to do just that. Chuck Gordon, CEO, Storable
To attract top talent and accelerate innovation, Storable had to set up its center quickly, build deep domain expertise, create a robust technology infrastructure, and establish progressive employment policies. The firm sought to hire 100 employees in India within two years.
The engineering talent in India had little to no context about the self-storage industry. The Zinnov team had its work cut out for them to not just acquire the right talent, but also help them ramp up their domain knowledge.
Zinnov consultants recommended that Storable set up its digital engineering center in Hyderabad. The city is an engineering talent hotspot that accounts for 13% of India’s digital engineering talent. Zinnov provided end-to-end support in three phases: Setup, Operations, and Governance. We recommended:
Leveraging Zinnov’s proven Global Capability Center model to set up the center in less than 6 months.
Hiring trainable, technologically competent talent.
Equipping the hired talent with the required domain knowledge through targeted Learning & Development programs.
Adopting the latest technology and tools to streamline internal processes and enhance efficiencies.
Mapping out the skills required to accelerate the center’s growth and maturity.
Storable leaders agreed with Zinnov’s recommendations, and we kicked off a six-month phase to design and establish the center. Zinnov’s proven Global Capability Center model reduced center setup time by half. Using best-in-class infrastructure and policies to attract top talent in Hyderabad, the center “will be instrumental in our efforts to stay on the leading edge for innovation,” Gordon stressed.
The India GCC will be instrumental in getting new, enhanced features to market more quickly, added Charles Marriott, Storable President.
The targeted L&D programs helped the new hires gain domain knowledge at an accelerated pace, especially in an area that was unfamiliar to the engineers.
Today, Storable’s Hyderabad center houses six product engineering teams across five product lines, with world-class engineers accelerating Storable’s product roadmap. They have been developing new software, enhancing existing products, and managing two entire product lines from end to end. In this way, Storable India’s one-year journey has been nothing short of inspirational.
To keep expanding its global footprint with product innovation, Storable will do more in India and continue to ramp up its software engineering capacity. The center is on track to meet Storable’s 2024 headcount goals which required moving into a bigger office space in March 2024.
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