Technology is the tide that lifts all boats

Vadacom's Igor Portugal believes telecommuting can improve New Zealand's productivity, and standard of living

By Vera Alves, Auckland | Friday, 01 July 2011
Igor Portugal, the co-founder and CEO of open source PBX provider Vadacom, says 2011 started off slow, but in the past couple of months, has turned into a good year with the company winning “a number of high-profile customers”. He expects the trend to continue.

His company is days away from releasing its new solution, Buddy, a web-based product that integrates social media with telephony, among other functions. Some Vadacom customers are already beta-testing the product.

Portugal, a veteran entrepreneur, helped launch Vadacom six years ago, after co-founding Asterisk, now part of Telecom New Zealand. Today, Vadacom has more than 200 business customers in the country and a growing partner network.

“At the moment we have than half a dozen partners but we are looking at adding more this year,” he says. “Our strategy is to grow it slowly so we can provide adequate support.”

Vadacom’s staff has been growing and shrinking along with the economy, but its customer-base has continually increased.

These days, with mobility more than just a fancy buzz-word, Portugal says there are even more opportunities for his business than when he started Vadacom. “Smartphones are really helping drive that,” he says. “We launched our iPhone app about eighteen months ago and the Android app should be out some time this year.”

Portugal is a big fan of social media and the many ways in which it enables people to connect, no matter where they are. “I’m out and about a lot so it is a really good way to stay in touch with people. I have a pile of business cards in my office, but now I can just send people a LinkedIn invitation,” he says. “The way I see it, if it is good enough for you to give me a business card, it is good enough for a LinkedIn invitation. I think some form of social media invitation will eventually replace business cards.”

Social media also works for Portugal as a business-enabler, as he spends a lot of time working from home, a philosophy that is extended to Vadacom staff. “Remote working is great. I get to work and spend time with my two-year-old son,” he says. For Portugal, the blurring of boundaries between personal life and business can be controlled. “I am a great believer that technology has an ‘off’ button and you are the one in control of it.”

If more companies here embraced telecommuting, Portugal believes the country would become more productive, as a whole. “There would be less traffic, less time wasted commuting and even people who sometimes cannot work, like some single parents, would be able to do it,” Portugal suggests. “Some companies still fear that if the employee is not in the office, they might not be working. The way I see it if you don’t trust your employees, maybe they shouldn’t be your employees.”

“I believe technology will eventually help more people embrace telecommuting. We are helping that and it is very exciting because it is about improving people’s lives,” he adds.

Born and raised in the Ukraine when it was still part of the USSR, technology was not a field that Portugal embraced at first.

“Growing up in the Soviet Union, I didn’t have a lot of choices. You have to follow a format that is decided for you by someone else. I had my whole life mapped out for me by my parents and never really thought about it. In my teens, my father and my older sister taught me to programme computers.”

Portugal studied computer science in Ukraine, and continued when he migrated to Israel. He then spent time in Australia, where most of his family still reside, before coming to New Zealand to join his father who had come here to work as an associate professor at Auckland University. It was there that Portugal earned his degree.

Today, Portugal lives in Auckland with his Russian wife and their son. With his immediate family across the Tasman, Portugal no longer has strong ties to Ukraine. At home, however, the family speaks Russian. “We’re not that precious about it, but I’ve spent my entire working life in New Zealand and, because of that, can’t do work in Russian. Just like I don’t do work in Russian, I don’t do baby-talk in English. I just can’t do it,” he says.

Portugal works from home often, but must maintain a routine presence in the office as well.

“As a CEO, I’m a chief everything officer. I help the sales team with pre-sales, I help with technical architecture and also lead the R&D team in some way. Some days I do software development, others I meet with customers. I always keep a close eye on our financial situation,” he says.

He believes it is an exciting time to be in the business of technology, as it means helping improve people’s lives. New Zealand, he says, is a small market but a good place to start a business. It is also, according to him, the right place to raise a family – and that is his main priority.