| | 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 | |
| |
| |
“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
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-consultant
.com | |
|
Previous Page 
