Custom Software Development Services

Retention Game

Finance magazine, a Moscow-based business weekly, devotes a feature article to the issues of retaining top personnel in financial institutions and companies serving the financial sector. Besides traditional tactics that work for Russian leading banks, including competitive salaries, top health insurance and flexible schedule, other important factors are career growth opportunities, self actualization of employees and acknowledgement by superiors and peers.

While all the tactics are used at DataArt, the company is highlighted for its stock options plan, where any employee is entitled to own DataArt stock options - after being with the company for more than a year. Eugene Goland is quoted as saying that this American approach works well with DataArt St. Petersburg based employees, who feel more involved with making the company profitable as its growth is reflected on the value of their personal assets.

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Software Developers Making Global Impact

St. Petersburg English-language business daily salutes the fact that Russia is now being included in the "lists of the world's leading markets for IT outsourcing" by Gartner and Forrester. The article underlines important achievements by Russian IT providers, including a consistent growth rate, establishment of local offices in the U.S. and Europe, and overall market volume reaching $1 billion.

Quoting Mikhail Zavileysky, DataArt's COO, the story compares different groups of Russian outsourcing providers. "The first group has chosen the 'Indian way' - make a stake on large size, low prices and adequate quality. This way was tried out and is understandable to foreigners. The main problem is that the labor force in Russia is significantly smaller than that of India or China." DataArt belongs to the second group of companies – those following the "'Irish way' — integrating into the world system through outsourcing and the realization of complicated, science-intensive, informal and 'impossible' projects. Specialization in applied fields and close, focused ties with a limited number of clients is typical of such companies," Zavileysky said. The third group of companies follows the 'Russian way' of trying to increase sales in the Russian market.

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Offshoring and QA

Software Test & Performance Magazine focuses its Best Practices column on "working with offshore teams to create the best software possible." DataArt is one of the companies asked to offer its "advice about how other companies can work efficiently with teams from afar, and to create software that exceeds quality expectations".

The story stresses the importance of building communication skills, integrating cultures and evolving testing responsibilities. Alexei Miller, DataArt's EVP of Project Management, says that "each project at DataArt has a separate communications plan which is created based on specific situation: 'available client resources, rime difference, type of project.' In some joint-development projects, DataArt has found, daily conference calls are a must; for others, in which responsibilities are better separated, biweekly conference calls can suffice". Miller also advises on software testing, suggesting that "test automation based on formal specifications, and stress and volume testing, are good candidates to be done offshore. A Web-based bug-tracking tool must be in place for the client to keep a close eye on the QA process, and formal acceptance metrics are helpful to ensure that the end result meets quality standards".

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