Media about DataArt
Samsung Aims for Stars With Galaxy S
March 24, 2010
By Erika Morphy
An article in LinuxInsider, picked up by TechNewsWorld and USA Today, reports on Samsung’s plans for releasing a Galaxy S smartphone, which at less than 10 millimeters, is expected to be the thinnest Android phone on the market, designed to render as well as possible the movies and e-book content Samsung will be licensing in deals it has inked with Paramount Pictures and Skiff.
The magazines seeks commentary from DataArt on what the release means for the mobile handsets and their streaming video capabilities. ‘There is another element to this announcement, Dmitry Bagrov, SVP and developer for DataArt, pointed out — namely that Samsung is giving more attention to Android development.
“The fact that it is rolling out its product able to download movies and e-reading content is nice,” Bagrov told LinuxInsider, “and I believe the media and device will work well together — but the big story here is that this is a major boost for Android.”’
Client Communication with Outsourcers Enhanced by Web 2.0
March 29, 2010
by Alyssa Dver
Software Magazine devotes a lengthy article to the importance of Web-enabled methods of client communication in outsourced software development, and shares outstanding practices of collaboration based on the input from Alexei Miller, Executive Vice President at DataArt.
‘Clearly, what makes these new models of outsourcing succeed is a combination of newer development methodologies that ensure smaller, discrete units of work that can be closely managed, monitored, and corrected before problems become too large to rectify.
However, Agile and other time-based methodologies aren’t the single solution to efficient outsourcing. Alexei Miller is an executive vice president at DataArt (www.dataart.com), which specializes in financial services outsourcing. He observes, “What is often missing is a much deeper change in thinking about software - the quality, the adaptability, the process of how systems evolve together with business needs, and the timing. To work most effectively, Agile principles must be carefully adapted to each particular situation, and therefore are implemented much more efficiently when the outsource provider is very experienced not only in the principle itself, but also in the client’s specific domain.”’
Can WinMo 7 Give Microsoft New Mobile Moxie?
January 27, 2010
By Erika Morphy | TechNewsWorld
TechNewsWorld discusses what Microsoft has to achieve to stay on top of the mobile software game and offers opinions of several industry experts, including Denis Margolin, Vice President of Mobile Technologies at DataArt.
“With buzz building, the pressure is even greater for Microsoft — which has already been under enormous pressure from advances made by the iPhone and Android.
In particular, Apple’ formidable array of mobile apps — followed by a sizable number of apps for the Android platform — is proving to be a serious competitive factor.
The emergence of centralized, heavily promoted application storefronts like Apple’s App Store can be credited at least in part with moving smartphones into the mainstream. Many people have had phones with smartphone capabilities for years — like the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Series 60 phones popular in Europe, for example — they just never used them as smartphones because it was not convenient, said Denis Margolin, DataArt’s mobile practice leader.
“Technology advances, including the apps, have made it possible to create products and mobile services that people other than IT professionals could benefit from — such as navigation, messaging, geographical search, Internet access and others, without having a steep learning curve or paying heavily for the data transfer,” he told TechNewsWorld. ”
Risk Management: The Pros And Cons Of Building Your Own System
July 21, 2009
Alexander Makeyenkov, Senior VP of Capital Markets at DataArt, collaborated on a by-lined article for FINalternatives, the premier, independent source for news on the alternative investment industry. The article focuses on the culture, policies and procedures necessary for effective risk management at hedge funds and discusses what it takes to develop internal risk management architecture. Besides the tools necessary for implementing an effective risk management system, Makeyenkov addresses the ongoing debate of Build vs. Buy.
“If anything can be learned from the current crisis it is that risk management needs to be part of a core strategy of any investment firm,” writes Makeyenkov. “What this means is that risk management systems need to be part of the core strength of any hedge fund that wants to stand out. For such hedge funds, buying an off-the-shelf product may be a first step in developing risk management architecture, but it shouldn’t be the only step… Depending on the complexity of the fund’s portfolio, the vendor system may not be capable of handling certain instruments. In such situations, the solution may involve either building an internal system to handle these instruments or purchasing an additional vendor system(s).. While ensuring seamless dataflow and building custom reporting that integrates all the systems is a big task in itself, there is an even a bigger issue. At the end of the day, a risk manager needs to have a complete picture of portfolio exposures. Such a picture needs to incorporate correlations among various products that exist in disparate systems. Building a tool to bring all these exposures together is akin to developing a complete risk system from scratch.”
What Constitutes a Successful Project?
June 24, 2009
Global Services magazine published the second article in the series of expert opinion stories by DataArt executives. Denis Margolin, Vice President of Mobile Solutions at DataArt, takes a look at different metrics which help determine whether an IT outsourcing project was successfully implemented from two key perspectives, that of a client and a vendor.
“There is a well developed theory for evaluating project outcomes based on two sets of metrics, each of them important: one targets the project as a process, another targets deliverables. More specifically, we ask the following questions when evaluating a project as a process: was it done on time, was it done on budget and did it meet quality requirements. With deliverables, we need to see if the end-users use the software, and whether it benefits personal and/or organizational efficiency.”
Russia & Ukraine as Financial Technology Outsourcing Destinations
April 08, 2009
Alexei Miller, Executive VP at DataArt, and Mikhail Zavileysky, COO, contribute a by-lined article to FSO Knowledge Xchange, the leading resource on the latest news, market research and analytics for the worldwide banking, insurance, and capital markets industry. The article compares two largest countries in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Ukraine, as key destinations for outsourced R&D work in financial services, and discusses the differences in labor pool and costs, IP and cultural risks, and infrastructure challenges.
“Industry-specific knowledge, critical for financial firms, hasn’t been easy to find in Eastern Europe. That is changing fast,” writes Miller. “Russian banks, money managers and insurance firms are now among the most active buyers of Western financial technology, most notably in electronic trading, derivatives, portfolio analytics and risk management. Many top technology executives are “returnees” – Russian or Ukrainian nationals who emigrated to the U.S. or the U.K. in the 1990s, made a career in investment banking technology and moved back home to oversee massive technology upgrades. This will produce large pools of qualified technical staff.”
“The cost of IT labor in Russia is determined by the competition among local IT companies, off-shore service vendors and R&D centers of large western firms,” writes Zavileysky. “As a result, IT salaries are higher in cities with a large concentration of IT firms. Historically, the salary benchmarks are determined by local companies in Moscow, R&D centers in St. Petersburg and off-shore companies in the regions… In contrast with Russia, there are no large Western R&D centers in the Ukraine and IT salaries in the entire region are determined by the off-shore industry.”
Crisis Tactics - Staff and Internal Communication
April 03, 2009
Mikhail Zavileysky, COO of DataArt, was approached by AmCham News, the official publication of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, to share his expert opinion on how to better manage a market crisis with the least consequences for a company.
DataArt has successfully managed two previous market crises, the dotcom burst of 2001 and a loss of a major client in 2004. Zavileysky observes that for DataArt, the current crisis is closer in its dynamics to that of 2004. “For all businesses, crises end either in fatality or recovery,” writes Zavileysky. “A company either dies or adapts. Therefore, the most constructive position is to focus on future turnaround and view current choices in their context.” He stresses the importance of clear internal communications and management’s loyalty to employees, and outlines pros and cons of several strategies for their implementation.
Faces: Eugene Goland
February 19, 2009
Finance magazine, a Moscow-based business weekly, profiles Eugene Goland, President of DataArt. The feature article addresses the history of the company’s formation, its resilience during this and previous crises, and discusses measures that help DataArt overcome turbulent market times. Goland notes that a tremendous revenue growth in the first three quarters of 2008 allowed the company to stay on target for the projected annual revenue, which has increased by 49%. “DataArt had anticipated the crisis, and we’ve been taking measures since early 2008 to make sure the company is prepared to handle its possible effects, such as delays in accounts receivables, delays in starting new projects and a general “waiting mode” of the market,” said Goland. “We’ve slowed down on our expansion efforts until at least next year, and believe our situation is stable: the company is well-diversified, we don’t depend on any one large client for our financial health, there are no debts and we’ve modified our corporate governance structure, making it more flexible. We see this crisis as an opportunity to flesh out our long term goals, and in the meantime focus on retaining clients and personnel, not on increasing profits.”
Effective Usage of Public Money through Outsourcing
January 05, 2009
Global Services magazine demonstrates DataArt’s success in the online travel solutions space with a case study of VisitBritain.com, the official Website for travel and tourism in the U.K. In an interview with Tim Holt, UK Marketing Manager for Enjoy England, the magazine discusses the nature of the engagement and the reasons DataArt was chosen. “To deliver all travel-related services effectively — with anytime and anywhere access of various maps, destination and city guides, hotel booking systems, B&Bs, accommodation directory, travel and transport information, and practical travel advice — VisitBritain.com partnered with outsourcing services and solutions providers. It has now developed a download service available at www.enjoyengland.com/tomtom with the help of TomTom and DataArt.”
“National tourism agency VisitBritain signed a new partnership with TomTom, the world’s largest navigation solutions provider to put Points of Interests (POIs) such as attractions, tourist information centers and quality assessed accommodation across England onto TomTom satellite navigation systems… The ‘Add-to-my-TomTom’ button on www.enjoyengland.com/tomtom helps TomTom users to easily plan the best route to over 5,000 attractions, 17,000 quality assessed accommodation options and 500 tourist information centers. Specific icons will appear on their screen when they get near to attractions, tourist information cent res and quality assessed accommodation. DataArt converted our POIs into a format that could be used for TomTom mapping and designed a micro site that explained to the consumer how the download works and step by step walk through. We were working with a previous agency but DataArt supplied a very competitive quote that enabled us to save a considerable amount of budget that we could then redeploy into consumer marketing activities.”
Eastern European Trends in Software Outsourcing Services
January 02, 2009
Outsourcing Journal, the publishing and marketing channel of Everest Group, one of the world’s most prominent consulting firms, devotes a feature article to the trends in Eastern European Outsourcing and showcases DataArt as a successful representative of the region. “Alexei Miller, executive vice president overseeing customer relations and project management at DataArt, a global provider of high-end software outsourcing services, says it won’t be “doom and gloom” for corporate IT spending over the next two years. In fact, he predicts that as the dust settles, Eastern Europe’s outsourcing service providers will emerge relatively unscathed.”
“Miller’s opinion is that the Eastern European software services market is at a crossroads and will split into two distinct categories: (a) the specialist firms such as DataArt, which could each have 100 to several thousand people but will remain small, niche players on a global scale and (b) the firms focusing on a commodity, labor-arbitrage play.”
“One area of software services specialization for DataArt is development of complex online trade marketplaces, writes the magazine. “A client for these services is artnet Worldwide, an innovator in the art business and the leading Internet portal for the art market. DataArt built for artnet an online auction platform that offers continuous online auctions of modern and contemporary fine art, prints, and photography. Jacob Pabst, vice president of technology and product development at artnet, says his firm did extensive research for half a year and reviewed providers’ proposals. “We were very convinced by DataArt’s abilities,” recalls Pabst. “We were convinced that DataArt could provide the kind of quality that we already have on our team.” He adds that it’s difficult to find enough resources with the necessary skills at reasonable costs in the United States, even though the company has a job search running all the time.”
The article concludes with Lessons from the Outsourcing Journal on selecting an Eastern European provider.
Best Practices for Working with Eastern European Technology Providers
December 15, 2008
Alexei Miller, Executive Vice President at DataArt, contributes a by-lined article to FSO, the leading magazine on outsourcing in financial services, discussing vendor landscape in Eastern Europe and best practices of working with them. “On the one hand, Eastern Europe is firmly in the “mainstream”,” he writes. “On the other hand, it’s not a featured destination on procurement department’s “rating sheets” to this day.” In the Practice Leader’s Forum section of the magazine Miller cites a few things to take into consideration: the region’s segmentation in terms of talent, impact of evolving economies, vendor specialization and consolidation, level of specialized training, importance of sourcing the right work and proper vendor management.
DataArt and the Global Financial Meltdown
October 14, 2008
Alexei Miller, DataArt’s Executive Vice President, talks to Steve Hamm, a senior technology writer with BusinessWeek, about the impact of financial crisis on IT outsourcing providers.
“The global financial meltdown is shaking up the IT off-shoring industry, and it’s not just India where uncertainty about the future reigns. I got on the phone with Alexei Miller, an EVP at DataArt, the New York-based but Russia-centered boutique outsourcing firm. Miller, who was in St. Petersburg, was cautiously optimistic. Still, DataArt has put all of its expansion plans on hold.
A lot of the company’s clients are in the financial services industry, though none of its biggest banking clients, such as BNP Paribas, have been hit hard. (A couple of hedge funds that DataArt did some work for actually went out of business late last year, but it had minimal impact on the firm.) Miller predicts a couple of quarters of chaos, then a recovery. “A lot of people (on Wall Street) will get burned but it won’t kill the business,” he told me. “After this madness is over we hope to ramp up after about six months.” In the meantime, DataArt is playing it safe. It raised about $6 million from private equity investors over the summer–as a financial reserve to cushion it in the event of a slowdown. Revenues grew so fast in the first half that it’s on a pace to hit $18 million this year, up 50%, even though revenues have been flat for the past three months and could slow in the next couple of months.
The company, with 450 employees, has programming offices in Russia and Ukraine, and was planning on establishing an office in Belarus. Those plans are on hold now. Also, it had started marketing in France and Sweden, but will pull back now. Its main markets are the US and England. DataArt learned some important lessons from the crash of 2001/02. Back then, most of its clients were dot-coms, and it lost 95% of its business in two months. Now it’s much more diversified, with clients in financial services, health care, media, and travel. For determined companies, difficulty only makes them stronger.”
Capacity Management: Voices from the Trenches
October 13, 2008
Alexei Miller, Executive Vice President at DataArt, and Suhail Nabulsi, a Managing Director at Accretive Technologies, contribute a byline article to Dealing With Technology, the Incisive Media publication dedicated to the trading technology for the sell-side. The article, “Capacity Management: Voices from the Trenches”, discusses benefits of predictive technology and system re-engineering vs. refactoring.
“In recent years, as data volumes explode and latency requirements tightening ever further, most firms find themselves constantly upgrading mission critical systems. Too often, it takes shape of a massive revamp of systems from scratch, often with a complete re-write of software code and purchasing a new set of hardware. Multi-year development and testing efforts result in a system with only a few years of active life, only to be replaced by a new system, a new multi-year effort and multi-million dollar investment,” writes Miller. “Opportunities provided by a gradual improvement and optimization of an active system—a process commonly called re-factoring—are often overlooked. Specifically, processes requiring real-time analytics such as correlation analysis, and massive data processing often benefit materially from applying smarter mathematical algorithms to select areas of existing code base, rather than re-writing the whole package on a fancier platform.”
DataArt Announces New Recruitment Scheme
July 25, 2008
IT Europa, a leading provider of strategic business intelligence, news and analysis on the European IT marketplace, features DataArt’s new initiative, DataArt Labs, aimed at engaging top students from two leading Kharkiv Universities in the company’s projects. The article quotes Mikhail Zavileysky, DataArt COO as saying, “Our key goal is to introduce innovative technologies and to implement the latest IT market trends in university programs, so that we can reap the benefits of the best IT talent working for DataArt.”
Not All Quiet on the Russian Front
May 29, 2008
Posted by: Steve Hamm
More action in Russia. DataArt, the Russian outsourcing company with its headquarters in New York City, is raising $6 million from private equity folks to fund expansion. Rather than opening new development centers, its expanding into new verticals, including media and publishing, telecommunications services, and online travel. DataArt got its start by providing high-end custom programming for the financial services industry in the US. It has programming centers in St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Kherson, and Kharkov. I love writing those Eastern European city names.
VC Pipeline Still Flowing to Local Tech Firms By Amanda Fung
May 28, 2008
Crain’s New York
Following DataArt’s announcement on raising private equity investment, Crain’s New York Business features the company as one of the champions in New York technology space as it managed to secure the funds despite the markets’ volatility. “DataArt, which develops custom software for companies particularly in the financial services industries, said it raised $4 million in private equity funding—the first time the company has taken outside money since it was founded in 1997,” writes the paper. “DataArt will use the investment to expand sales and marketing efforts to companies in the online travel and telecom fields. Its clients include Standard & Poor’s and BNP Paribas. The 400-employee company acts as a tech consultant to corporations and does all of its tech research and development out of centers in Russia and the Ukraine.”
Software firms with CEE operations pull in investment capital
May 27, 2008
EE Times Europe reports from Berlin that “two software-related firms with core operations in Eastern Europe have raised funding from investors, underscoring the opportunity in the software industry throughout the region… DataArt, a New York-based software outsourcing provider with development centers in Russia and the Ukraine, secured a $4M in private equity investment and hopes to close an additional $2 million.”
DataArt targets additional $2M
May 16, 2008
With $4 million in its pocket from a February venture capital investment, outsourced financial software startup DataArt Inc. is aiming to close on an additional $2 million in June to boost development of its product in Russia and the Ukraine.
London-based Tower Gate Capital led the deal, joined by New York-based Third Millennium Russia Fund and an unnamed Russian hedge fund. The investment round is the first outside capital the 11-year-old company has taken in, and is expected to accelerate revenue growth with additional business development for high-end financial applications development by a team of 450 programmers, as well as support recruitment of additional developers.
DataArt founder and CEO Eugene Goland said the company was formed in 1997 as an applications developer focusing on Internet startups; it assembled a core team of developers in Russia and the Ukraine, working with university computer science departments. But he said the company lost most of its clients in 2002 and reduced staff from about 300 to 30. The company, headquartered in New York and St. Petersburg, Russia, reorganized as an IT software outsourcer and gradually rebuilt its business to $12.5 million in revenue last year.
“Don’t Diligence” by Phil Albinus
April 16, 2008
“A panel of industry elites confirmed one glaring concern in the financial services world: major investment firms do not perform adequate due diligence when choosing an outsourcing partner,” writes Special Projects Editor of Waters magazine in his weekly newsletter, covering DataArt Financial Technology Executive Seminar Efficiency vs. IP Protection in Outsourcing held at Harvard Club of NY on April 14, 2008.
“One speaker at the intellectual property panel, sponsored by DataArt, asked whether or not it is possible to truly perform tried-and-true due diligence. No outsourcing firm will ever admit to shoddy security and data-handling practices, so the best testimonials come from other leading banks. The same speaker recalled asking an outsourcing firm how they handle precious data. “Easy,” the outsourcer replied. “We do what you, the bank, would do.”
Six Russian IT outsourcers in global Top-100
March 26, 2008
CNews, the leading Russian IT review publication writes, “Six companies with dominant presence of Russian developers have been included into the Top-100 2008 of the International Association of Outsourcing Professional.” While some companies were selected to the list for the first time, and others no longer included in it, only DataArt, EPAM and Luxoft have remained among Global Sourcing 100 for three years in a row.
Aberdeen Group Names DataArt Best-in-Class R&D Outsourcing Provider
March 01, 2008
Aberdeen Group names DataArt a best-in-class outsourcing provider in its Market Alert, DataArt Leverages a Unique Delivery Model and Europe-proximate Facilities to Win Marquee Business.
Referencing its recent report, Aberdeen writes that from the end user’s perspective, the key benefits to outsourcing R&D functions lie in the opportunity to minimize time-to-market, reduce cost of development, enhance ability to focus on core R&D and access new professional resources. “DataArt’s solutions are designed to meet the needs of companies seeking R&D outsourcing services as its delivery infrastructure provides cost, time-zone and time-to-implement advantages,“ says the alert. “While in most companies domain experts are highly present in customer-facing positions, developers work primarily remotely. At DataArt the developers are the domain experts themselves, they bring detailed knowledge of platforms and expertise in tools, and are involved in all aspects of project scoping, customer facing and delivering allowing end-to-end development, and delivery capabilities.”
Aberdeen believes that “as a company with a high degree of expertise and specialization across several key verticals, DataArt gives extra benefits to end-users by the fact that both domain and functional knowledge are characteristics of its delivery staffers, precluding the delay of knowledge transfer that affects other firms.” Citing the company’s numerous industry awards, Aberdeen writes that “DataArt is being recognized for solid project execution, significant growth.. and the unique skill sets its staff brings to all parts of project development and delivery.”
Social Report: Open Leaders
February 28, 2008
Kommersant Daily, the leading Russian business daily, published a rating of the most open executives in St. Petersburg, those with flexible management style and transparency of operations. The Social Report, based on the data from several city newspapers, lists DataArt COO Mikhail Zavileysky among the top 100 most open business leaders of Russia’s Northern capital.
Russia Today
February 26, 2008
Russia Today, the only English-language TV channel covering exclusively Russia, interviews two DataArt executives on the subject of Russia’s IT future. “Huge economic growth in Russia is impossible without further support for technology, according to one of the leading figures of St. Petersburg’s IT scene, Artyom Astafurov,” RT quotes Senior Vice President of Global Projects at DataArt.
In another interview, Dmitry Bagrov, Senior VP of European Business, comments that Government support of higher education and cultural proximity with the West gives Russian producers an advantage compared to other popular software development destinations.
For full reports, please see http://www.russiatoday.ru/guests/detail/864
http://www.russiatoday.ru/guests/detail/1005
Russia Today is the first 24/7 English-language news channel to present the Russian point of view on events happening in Russia and around the globe. The channel was established in April 2005 by TV-Novosti.
Germans Get Engaged in Software to Order in Russia
January 25, 2008
CNews, the leading Russian IT review publication, discusses the plans of German T-Systems to start developing software for order by Russian gas and oil companies. “Mikhail Zavileisky, DataArt executive director, says it is rather difficult for a new brand to expand to the Russian market, but T-Systems, which has connections in other business lines, will easily overcome the difficulties.”
VanceInfo IPO buoys VC backers Sequoia, DCM
December 13, 2007
The Deal magazine devotes an article to the IPO announcement by VanceInfo Technologies Inc., the first Chinese technology services company to launch an initial public offering, and offers comments by DataArt Executive VP, Alexei Miller.
“Alexei Miller, executive vice president of DataArt Enterprises Inc., a New York provider of software outsourcing services with development offices in Russia and other locations, said Western companies are increasingly turning to foreign tech developers for sophisticated information technology tools, rather than for only call center, systems management and other lower-level services.
“Initially the offshore outsourcing industry was all about cost,” he said. “Eventually, people started to think in terms of efficiency, not just cost, because there’s a shortage of IT professionals in the U.S., London and other areas. You have to plug in all those talent holes.””
Cisco Launches Euro VC fund
November 12, 2007
The Deal magazine runs a story on Cisco preparing to launch a new VC fund aimed at technology companies in Central and Eastern Europe, with commentary on the deal from Alexei Miller, Executive VP at DataArt.
Cisco is teaming on the initiative with 3TS Capital Partners Ltd., a private equity and venture capital firm with offices in Budapest, Prague, Vienna Warsaw and Bucharest, Romania, and said it will make the anchor investment in the new $44 million 3TS Cisco Growth Fund III fund. From a private equity perspective, according to Cisco, Eastern Europe is “probably a little more advanced than Russia”.
“In a sense the entrepreneurial spirit has always been there, but the social and economic environment was not always nurturing,” added Alexei Miller, executive vice president of DataArt Enterprises Inc., a software development company that has offices in Russia and Ukraine. “Today there’s an opportunity for more innovation and more investment.”
Hedging With Technology
November 02, 2007
Global Services magazine devotes an exclusive cover story to the successful partnership between HedgeSpeed and DataArt, detailing DataArt’s expertise in financial technology and extensively quoting Alexei Miller.
According to the article, HedgeSpeed “realized that a generic software development company wouldn’t be able to provide what they were looking for. They needed someone who was familiar with the capital market and was open to change and innovation. The provider’s understanding of the domain was critical to HedgeSpeed”. The grip on time to market issues was another reason for trusting DataArt with handling development of middle-office liquidity management solutions, which resulted in a “happy customer-provider alliance”.
John DiRocco, CEO of HedgeSpeed, declared that this would be a multiyear strategic deal, to which DataArt brought a “bit of uniqueness with their model of working. Less than 10 percent of DataArt’s team works onsite unlike the industry average of 30 percent. The majority of development work is done offshore in the R&D facility of DataArt in Russia… This 1:9 ratio of onsite to offshore workforce not only saves cost for HedgeSpeed but also enables efficient resource management for both the customer and provider,” writes the magazine.
“In the hedge-funds market, you should be able to reduce the time between product vision and implementation,” the magazine quotes Alexei Miller, Executive Vice President at DataArt. “The whole premise is acceleration.” The deal targets 30 to 50 percent saving on time and roughly the same range of cost savings for HedgeSpeed.
“I like the personal attention we get at DataArt,” adds John DiRocco, CEO of HedgeSpeed.
Offshoring Goes West
August 21, 2007
Screen Magazine, a U.K.-based monthly magazine covering developments in the global financial IT and data businesses, devotes a feature article to the fact that firms are increasingly turning to Russia and Eastern Europe rather than India and China for their offshoring projects.
“While India and China get all the attention in discussions of offshore outsourcing, countries in the former Eastern Bloc are jockeying for the attention of financial services firms looking to move processes overseas”, writes the magazine. The article provides an impressive amount of analytical data proving its assertion. “Fewer than 10 percent of major financial institutions had moved processes offshore in 2001, according to a recent study from accountants Deloitte. By 2006, over 75 percent of major financial institutions had operations offshore”. The article quotes Alexei Miller, “There is a shift from an all-India strategy to a global multi-sourcing strategy involving emerging geographies such as Eastern Europe,” says Alexei Miller, executive vice president of DataArt, a software developer that helps companies use global resources for outsourcing.”
Re-engineered Globally
July 30, 2007
Global Services continues to point that Russia is as an offshore destination of choice for many, and is specifically “very attractive for engineering work, as almost 50 percent of the student population in the country majors in technology, science or engineering, which is far more than in China, India, Japan or the U.S. Moreover, Russian science graduates spend between five and six years at university before entering the workforce, ensuring a more thorough training, according to Russoft, the Russian IT association.”
The article points to DataArt as a provider of engineering services in financial, telecom, media and life sciences domains, which differentiates itself with high-end projects. “We do new application development, and software R&D in our chosen verticals. We serve both end users (e.g. investment banks) and third-party software manufacturers (ISVs), primarily in the mid-size sector,” says Alexei Miller, Executive Vice President at DataArt.
“The advantage [of engineering services offshoring] is in the combination of cost and value, which make certain types of high-end, analytical work very relevant to Russia,” says Miller. “While cost is comparable to destinations like India, the quality of easily available R&D talent [in Russia] is higher. Russia has the resources to offer for advanced mathematical research, quantitative analytics, etc.”
Russian IT Outsourcing Market on a Roll
July 27, 2007
CMP Media’s Global Services magazine profiles Russia as an outsourcing destination of choice, based on a comprehensive report of Russian IT sector by IDC Research, and features DataArt as one of its leaders. “Russian IT service companies are now counted amongst the world’s best providers,” writes the magazine. Stability in relationships, technical expertise and relatively low staff turnover are the key advantages of Russian software-development companies, according to the study. “Recently, DataArt was amongst Russian companies that were recognized by IAOP (for Employee Management). Global Services, too, recognized DataArt in its annual listing of global service providers in February this year.” Companies participating in the study point to the availability of very well-educated engineers, strong technical skills and sound methodologies as the benefits of outsourcing to Russia.
The Bangalore Experience Goes Baltic
June 30, 2007
Asia Times, a leading business newspaper covering the region, devotes a feature article to the recent trend of outsourcing projects moving from India to Eastern Europe. “What is unusual about this trend,” writes the paper, “is that even as costs in Eastern and Central European countries are relatively high and human resources are still scant compared to their Asian counterparts, something other than cost savings is driving companies to the region.” The article goes on to quote Alexei Miller, Executive Vice President at DataArt:
“There has been a significant shift in the outsourcing strategies that many companies are adopting lately,” said Alexei Miller, executive vice president of Data Art, a provider of high-end software outsourcing services for small and medium-scale enterprises. Although Data Art is headquartered in New York, it runs its development center in St Petersburg, Russia, and also maintains an office in London, a market that according to Miller contributes almost 50% to his company’s total revenues because Data Art can serve from Eastern Europe.
“Outsourcing from India has been the mainstay for many smaller and medium companies globally. And in the last five years there have been many success stories, but many negative stories as well,” said Miller. “The current realization is that if you want to strike value out of an outsourcing relationship, you have to think deeper and look beyond India to get something else. And that something else cannot come from one location but from many locations and from many vendors.”
Expert Magazine
June 18, 2007
Expert Magazine, a leading Russian business weekly, profiles DataArt executives, COO Mikhail Zavileysky and EVP Alexei Miller, in two feature articles dedicated to market competition and innovation. According to Zavileysky, the key component of current competition is not only among target markets, but also on HR and capital markets. The focus on the latter is part of DataArt success, and one of the reasons the company managed to overcome the Internet bubble of late 90s. Miller discusses innovation, and company’s position as an expertise-based outsourcing provider. While some clients understood the uniqueness of the company’s offering, a large cluster of buy-side companies are still unaware of “smart brains” offer and continues to insist on staff augmentation. Crossing this divide in perception is one of the major strategic initiatives at DataArt.
DataArt Employs Java Developers in Ukraine
April 12, 2007
Small Facility Creates Jobs in Eastern Europe.
Java Developer’s Journal, a leading IT publication for all things Java, picked up the news of DataArt expanding its R&D operations to Kherson, in the Southern Ukraine.
“The company’s third development facility will handle projects in all core competencies of DataArt, including .NET and Java, and will employ over 30 engineers by the end of the year,” writes the magazine. “The University of Kherson was selected for its tradition of academic excellence and advanced IT and telecommunications infrastructure. 8,000 students attend Kherson University, taught by more than 300 professors and 18 academics.”
Globalization & The IT Organization
February 09, 2007
Can A Global Workforce Work For Your Company?
Processor.com, a leading trade publication on computer products and marketplace news, addresses the issue of managing a distributed workforce in global sourcing, extensively quoting Alexei Miller, DataArt Executive Vice President.
According to research VP for Gartner, “a truly global economy… creates heightened competition both in terms of business efficiency and the hunt for the best talent.” DataArt is showcased as a company that has successfully adapted to the challenge on behalf of its clients. “We have adopted the agile methodology for all our projects because we believe that it lends itself well to distributed teams. It also provides the customer an opportunity to redirect a project before it gets too far off track,” says DataArt Executive Vice President Alexei Miller.
“We believe there’s no project or effort too small for us to undertake. Our goal is to work with a customer to gain their trust and to show how we can provide the best value for their investment. We spend a lot of effort up front in an attempt to understand their business and specific project to the fullest extent possible. From there we hope that our results speak for themselves,” says Miller.