| | As the outsourcing
market has matured (see
article on page 1) the
list of outsourcing
destinations has grown.
However, despite many
obvious advantages,
Russia is rarely
mentioned. Russia has a
large population, a
strong education system,
and is physically close
to both the US and
Europe.
I spoke to Lilia
Tsalalikhin, vice
president of software
developer LUXOFT, about
the need to demystify
the industry.
“The Russian
outsourcing industry is
not well-known. We see
this every day when we
deal with new clients,”
she says. “They either
don’t know anything
about Russia or their
knowledge is based on
information that is five
years old—it is almost
as if they think the
mafia are still walking
the streets.
This can be seen by
some of the clients that
LUXOFT already services
with dedicated software
development
centres—Deutsche Bank,
Boeing, IBM and Dell
Europe and Dell USA.
“In the beginning we
focused on offshore
dedicated services,
which were easier to
work with and more
long-term, says
Tsalalikhin. “These days
noone wants to commit to
large projects all at | |
|
| | once, they want to start
from the small projects
which feeds into our
project lifecycle work.
If the relationship
works well then we can
up-sell to dedicated
resources.”
LUXOFT was set up as
an independent company
five years ago and has
grown in that time to
employ over 1,000 staff.
Of its $25m revenues,
about 90 per cent come
from overseas clients.
According to
Tsalalikhin, the Russian
offshore development
industry is highly
focused and of very high
quality, a reflection of
the country’s high
educational standards
“In Russia the
computer science and
applied math graduate
market is pretty
healthy” she says. “At
the moment less than 10
per cent of these
graduates work in the
industry, so there’s a
tremendous base of
people to hire.”
The challenge for the
industry is to scale
fast enough to meet
demand:
“Russia has
traditionally had a
reputation for producing
talented professionals
who know how to solve
complex problems, but
the question has always
been Can the Russian
industry scale?” says
Tsalalikhin. To meet
this challenge LUXOFT
has active in-house | |
| |
| | generation well-versed
in English.
“The only potential
problem with
communications is that
they can sometimes be a
little bit high-level
for what is required,”
says Tsalalikhin. “To
keep things simple and
better avoid
mistunderstanding we
tell our people to
forget the academic
vocabulary, and to
communicate with clients
in a direct and
conversational manner.
Communication with
clients is rarely an
issue; beyond solid
English language skills
this can be attributed
to a common
understanding of systems
architecture and
design.”
One feature of the
Russian outsourcing
industry is that it is
very focused; and hasn’t
taken on the big process
outsourcing projects
that have gone to India.
It has, however been
pegged as a likely
candidate to enter the
growing trend towards
knowledge process
outsourcing.
“We’ve had several
discussions on the
subject of KPO,” says
Tsalalikhin. “We don’t
discard even BPO, not
the consumer side but
things like data entry.
Russia could participate
but the question is how
big the market is, does
it justify building the | |
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| | infrastructure—we don’t
have clients asking us
if we can do data entry.
KPO on the other hand
would actually fit very
well with the Russian
education.”
LUXOFT currently
doesn’t get any work
from France and Germany,
but these countries are
the next step as they
gradually wake up to
outsourcing. Tsalalikhin
believes that the
Russian approach to
education and business
will be a very good
match with Germany.
“There are two planes
to outsourcing, one is
just business, whatever
works, works, a very
mechanical view,” says
Tsalalikhin.” The next
layer is the links
between nations which
are cultural or
political and can even
include time zones. A
lot of people are
working 14 hours a day
just to keep in touch
with their global
partners.”
If you want to know
more about the Russian
outsourcing market
Russoft, the Russian IT
services association has
just published a
comprehensive report
which can be obtained
from
http://www.russoft.org/
Contact Mick with
your views or
suggestions at:
mick.james@top-consultan
t.com | |
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