Pentalog has grown a lot and has succeeded in taking on important contracts with some of the largest companies in the world. Larger… means listed, it means also more media-orientated, with more charters, more visible, and more… politically correct. And I am not throwing stones at them, it is just the system. But of course we must follow them in this political system. Our services must be compatible and easy to incorporate for them.

I must say at this moment my little fellow entrepreneurs make me laugh on Facebook. Hey guys, I don’t mean to hurt you but it is turning ridiculous: the one with the greenest networks, or those who propose the latest green gadget or a thingamajig in rattan. What energy!! But what to do, how can I avoid plunging us into this collective hysteria precisely because Pentalog is now a supplier, sometimes strategic, for super green enterprises?

I admit we have thought about this question with more consideration for the communication associated with it than for the level of CO2 produced by our activities. I am one of those who think, on a more personal level, that the solution to the problems of the planet can be found more in the philosophies and religions than in consumer behaviour. They must be integrated into the energy requirements of raising livestock for meat, energy for tractors which are required to produce grain, and fishing boats that are used to feed 6 billion people. In the three major monotheistic religions, you are inded asked to “grow and multiply.” And I do not think I’ve heard to date, of a green version of these three books. The variation of this dictate that has come down from on high has won both the Conservatives over, and of course, the Left, as demonstrated particularly in France, with the weight of the law in favour of family policies the country proclaims with so much passion as Christine Boutin!

So yes, of course, when we are 6 billion (of merry repugnant revellers, as the poet says), it’s necessary to organize ourselves, to cultivate, produce, fish… In short, I do not believe this millenarian bla bla (storms, grasshoppers, soon we will say that these repetitive earthquakes are the result of oil extraction!). And in a few more years maybe we will be switching over to a new form of post industrial animism which would make Pasteur and Leibniz both laugh, wherever they are now.

But why not? From the 1950’s to 1970’s, informed scientists told the French people that they had to eat at least 5 dairy products per day (I think it was rather a means to consume the surplus)… and they did, committing themselves resolutely to the path of cholesterol for all! But let’s forget about rationalism, the Grenelle Environment Round Table and the Picnic tax has showed us the way and we all will soon be eating just fresh mint. Pentalog will then become green with the same conviction as the rest of the enterprises… My opinion does not count.

In this case, if we have to do it, why not think outside the box of a green IT (consumption of servers, air conditioning, server rooms and offices), of course without forget it but pose the real energy issues connected to the production of software? After all, scientists who talk about this subject show that truth is not necessarily within the reach of anybody. So here we go, let’s get on this paradigm of chlorophyll and look deeper into this question. So I used a specialized firm, led by two friends, less skeptical than myself and more scientific, and with the assistance of Pierre Peutin we are examining what could be a green IT software industry.

Continued…

PS: I do not want to sound like a reactionary. I do not see the interest in making smoke when you can avoid doing so. I do believe in renewable energy and efficiency. I do not believe however that they can bring us, any more than any other innovation, the solution to a problem which is essentially a demographic problem, a problem of extracting water or desalinate, or the question of mass production of proteins and carbohydrates. To the overall issue, I see no solution and I fear that these observations, today address less than 5% of the problem.

Build your own dedicated team with our Pricemaker!

Here is an article that Livia Rusu asked me to publish:

“OPENi is a project organized to bring relevant and valuable impact on all its participants in terms of IT knowledge to which they don’t have access during their studies.
Professors, IT Companies and IT Experts have the opportunity to interact with each other and with students.

Aleth Delcenserie, our Quality Manager, had a presentation this morning on “Sensibilization to Quality in software development process”.

Don’t hesitate to follow also Monica Jiman, Pentalog COO – Vice President Business Development, online on http://www.privesc.eu/ at 4PM presenting “ITOO strategies for East Europe”.”

How long has this lull lasted? Thursday, the 4th february saw the return of fear in the financial markets. The debts of developing countries have created a lot of panic. Whether it’s in countries like Greece, Portugal or in Spain. What I find extraordinary when listening to JC Trichet (head of the ECB), Ben Bernanke (from the FED), the Spanish Prime Minister, or the Bank of England, is that they keep repeating the same discourse that we have been hearing from the bankers for a little over a year now. How pathetic. The same central bankers and politicians were demanding the truth from the banks concerning their actual situation. They must play fair and finally tell us the truth now. What will Spain do now with its 20% unemployed, with no budgetary room to maneuver? What will happen to American power if it loses its triple-A standing? The truth about markets, and the truth about power, is simply that no one is telling us the truth.

However, some members of Congress and Joe Bidden, the American Vice President himself, acknowledge the fact that the U.S. debt raises a national security issue.

The response of supporting the concept of consumption is fundamentally the most stupid idea that anyone could have been imagined. This demagogic shortsightedness will widen even further the deficits of developed countries and will simply strengthen the Chinese and Indian industrial and commercial machines. Fiat asked Rome to stop paying car scrap allowance! All for what? Gain 6 months, one year for something that will eventually happen? All these astronomical sums that today’s parents are transferring shamelessly on to their children! Do they really care for them or are they simply simple-minded, glued to the radiators of the Euro and the Dollar, in a class were the best would be the Brazilians, Indians and Chinese?

The financial and monetary wars are perhaps not very far away. Obama took a tougher stance with China last week, but isn’t it too late for America? Europe can still do it, but it has no economic government. So what will happen? Cyber attacks, massive sale of currencies, bull operations on the Brazilian Real, border closures… I do not know, but this is probably the most disturbing part of the crisis which is just now beginning. And when we see the politicians who have not been able to confront the banks seriously, how can we imagine they will be able to reform the state, in short, to reform themselves? Here, we are at the top of the pyramid in regards to responsibility. After this there is nothing. And courageous politicians, well, there are few of them around.
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In this context, deflationary pressures on intermediary prices and sub-contractors is not yet over. I return now to the realities of my management, tactics and strategy. Companies like Pentalog must remain focused on their business model and control their prices. The companies which benefit from government contracts and nationalized companies, everywhere, will see their orders drop and then collapse literally, starting in 2011 because of the failure of the states. Central banks are on the verge of running the printing presses at full speed. Otherwise, how does one support Greece? What to say, in the context of the huge volume of demand in our industry (Pentalog has never had so many requests for a month of January in its history)? But isn’t this just a “technical” recovery following a year of downturn? Certain projects must be started! We feel the febrility in every decision that our big accounts must undertake. Only those working in Asia are a little more confident in themselves.

I have no regrets over our past strategies that have enabled us today to dispose of an economic situation and financial margin which allows us to have significant growth opportunities. We will remain very attentive, torn between these tremendous opportunities and the obligation to be careful.

I never thought one day of attending business meetings wearing snow boots… In Russia, it is common. And rare are the few people who do not wear the fur hat, it is THE essential accessory for your survival on the streets of St Petersburg as well as in the Ural countryside in winter. There are hats for everyone, of all colors, leather, rabbit skin, felt, with brilliants, pearls, but in any case, always something that goes with your coat! Going up Nevsky Prospect in the early morning, amid all these people wrapped up in their own way, going to work with a firm step, reminded me of my literature courses in highschool, and the grotesque characters that Gogol portrayed in a satirical tone in his St. Petersburg Short Stories, which I reread at the moment of this trip: Akaky Akakyevich Bachmatchkine, petty official shivering in his worn coat on the way to the Ministry (The Overcoat) or Major Kovalyov who awoke one morning without a nose (The Nose)…

In Perm, after we had been introduced to the ritual of tasting the “Ruski Standard” (remember to drink only half of your glass and then leave it on the table is very rude to the person who invited you to drink), Denis and his colleagues talked to us about survival skills in the taiga, that we (thankfully) did not have the time to practice. Besides these very good moments that made me completely forget my prejudices about Russian austerity. Anyway, our friends both in Perm and St. Petersburg demonstrated to us their strong commitment to international development and improving their technical and business skills from every point of view. This was an encouraging attitude when thinking of creating a prospective partnership in this country, despite the past legacy which seems to continue to weigh heavily on professional relationships. One entrepreneur explained to us how he launched his business at the time you could read signs saying “No business is no good” in the streets. Today the dream of Russian entrepreneurs is to do business with France, Germany …

Fred spoke of the language problems in his post; it’s true that the use of English is not yet systematic amongst IT engineers. But after thinking about it, overall I didn’t feel any more difficulty in communicating than I did in India, where people spoke English well enough but with a “local” colored accent and with various expressions which I didn’t have the habit to use. I will not speak of French language (the “Alliance Francaise” courses in Perm seemed to be attended mostly by young women from well-to-do families) but on the other hand we met German-speaking people, which is an additional positive point. The language problem is of course less obvious in Saint Petersburg which is a doorway to the Western world, a very cosmopolitan and modern city of 7 million inhabitants, with 120 universities and engineering schools. It is probably the 2nd largest city in the world for engineering outsourcing, maybe even the 1st when compared to Bangalore in terms of the percentage of the population going to university.

So in conclusion, many interesting things to think about after this trip, both in terms of SAP, as well as embedded systems or the opening of new markets in Scandinavia. We were really impressed by the people we encountered. Russia almost seems an obvious choice for the future development of our business and the presence of Pentalog. These projects came at the right moment; the France-Russia year was inaugurated yesterday in Paris… We will return with great pleasure to these frosty regions, but so welcoming!

Pictures can be seen here: Perm & Ural, Saint Petersburg

December 08, in Iasi (Romania), December 09 in Bucharest and finally on the 15th of December in Orleans AFNOR auditors in charge of monitoring our ISO9001-2008 certification, which we acquired last year, came to make their first monitoring audit.

Development projects (our biggest one and 3 smaller ones), the Human resources process, Technical assistance services and facilities management but also the transversal processes (IS, sales ,..) were scrutinized. The findings were direct and unambiguous: 7 strong points, 0 sensitive issues, 0 non-compliance, and 4 process improvement tracks.

These results are very encouraging concerning our approach to quality. Our improvement loops (PDCA) will continue to monitor our development program to approach CMMI level 3.

This could not have been possible without the effort of everyone involved in executing the processes but also those who were audited and those who helped in the preparation. I would also like to note another key to this success: Aleth and her strong personal investment in her function as quality director.

The next set of guidelines has already been launched. I will soon write another note on a topic which I hold close to my heart: Change management and the training we will provide to Pentalog managers on this topic.

When Croissance Plus proposed to us this trip to the heart of the Israel Valley last July, I did not hesitate one second but without really understanding why. Was it for the leads and the potential partnerships that we had received in Romania and Moldova, from Israel? Or was my motivation the magazines or stories extolling the dynamic innovations coming from the Hebrew State? I really did not know until this morning, when I had breakfast with Frederic Beudin, the President of Croissance Plus. After spending the last 24 hours in a coma, laying on my couch in front of the fireplace, after a chauffeured limousine – goodness gracious! -picked me up at the Roissy airport, I really couldn’t figure out why I ended up again in Terminal 2A this morning!

Frederic then reminded me why we were going there, which helped me to better formulate a few ideas what I could expect from this trip. Israeli technology, he reminded me once again, was probably the second global source of IPOs on the Nasdaq and if these companies succeeded, it is because of the local venture capital that had the nose, and the balls and means, well… Perhaps also, there are incentives and innovations particularly efficient in terms of taxation. This is what we will look at tomorrow with Christian Estrosi, when he gets there. Because, if we can find a few good ideas there we will bring them home to France, and suggest them to our government. In this regards, without playing the alarmist, I must say I felt a lot of panic in the French entrepreneurial movement, whether it was with the Medef people in Hanoi or amongst the other members of the delegation. Whether it is the professional tax reform or the budget deficits, many fear the uncertainties of the government and the storm is far from being over. I saw many difficult moments between the political and business leaders. I saw tears in the eyes of a founding chief executive who is 70 years old or more, because he believes his group which had sales of over € 350M in 2008 but realized only 150 in 2009, may not get through 2010. I’m not allowed to share names, but I am speaking of a great innovator, someone that the recovery plan should have saved but has not. Because the recovery plan finances have already been invested in the automotive industry, at a pure loss!

Because the world is in bad shape and we know that France needs GOOD reforms, Croissance Plus is playing its part in finding solutions on the eastern borders of the Mediterranean.

I am going there also, because actually twice in the past two years we have been consulted in Romania and Moldova, by companies from Israel, whose leaders have remembered their family histories are also Romanian, Ukrainian, Russian or Moldovan. Pentalog has received an active partnership proposal from Israel and is considering with interest all the potential lines of distribution of its services and technology. A country that is so innovative cannot be ignored, especially when the opportunity arises.

The Israeli economy is now benefiting from an important effort in R&D in the public and private sectors which has been done over the past 15 years. The country has become a technology hub which has gained international recognition, with a sustained growth of 5% (average) per year since 2003. The French presence is increasingly being felt.

From 22 to 25/11 Frederic will be in Tel Aviv, with a prestigious delegation from Croissance Plus to meet with the Israeli High Tech sector. On the agenda: meeting with start-ups, potential customers and partners, R & D centers and local personalities.

For more information: http://www.israelvalley.com

- China verbietet Twittern zum Mauerfall (29 October 2009, netzeitung.de)
- Firms turn to IT outsourcing to lower costs (28 October 2009, Business and Leadership)
- Who do you trust when you’re spending your IT budget? (28 October 2009, Silicon.com)
- Die großen Widersprüche Chinas (27 October 2009, Financial Times Deutschland)
- Deutsche vertrauen der IT-Branche (27 October 2009, Silicon.de)
- British Software Industry Is Still Alive (26 October 2009, BusinessWeek)
- Zweistellige Wachstumsraten trotz Krise (26 October 2009, Computerwoche)
- Unternehmen wollen 2010 sparen (26 October 2009, Silicon.de)
- China ready for cyberwar, espionage, report says (23 October 2009, Computerworld)
- Africa to compete on outsourcing (23 October 2009, Offshoring Times)

- Gartner: flat IT budgets, but get ready for growth (08 October 2009, ComputerWeekly.com)
- Indian IT mid-cap firms to post mixed Q2 results (08 October 2009, CIOL)
- Deutsche Unis in weltweitem Ranking abgeschlagen (08 October 2009, Financial Times Deutschland)
- 60% of outsourcing firms hiring more this year: Survey (07 October 2009, Sourcingmag.com)
- How To Deal With Corruption In China (07 October 2009, Forbes)
- Mehr Intelligenz fürs Software-Outsourcing (07 October 2009, Silicon.de)
- Study: 54% of companies ban Facebook, Twitter at work (06 October 2009, Computerworld)
- Bulgaria Gets Real about Its Economy (06 October 2009, Business Week)
- Indien verliert an Boden im Offshoring-Markt (05 October 2009, CIO)
- China’s Statistical Setback (01 October 2009, Forbes)

- IT professionals fear ‘brain drain’ as UK opportunities dry up (5 October 2009, Computer Weekly)
- India to add more rules in IT Act soon (2 October 2009, CIOL)
- Europe finds flavour with Indian outsourcing (October 2009, Offshoring Times)
- China’s Online Censors Work Overtime (30 September 2009, Business Week)
- Germany Benefits from Global Recovery (30 September 2009, Business Week)
- India’s new outsourcing rival–Romania? (11 September 2009, cnet); missed that-one a few weeks before, but it’s very interesting…

What’s up?

- Phone calling coming to Twitter (17 September 2009, CNN.com)
- BPO-Markt Deutschland: Umfang der ausgelagerten Aufgaben nimmt zu (16 September 2009, CIO)
- IT soll Finger von Web 2.0 lassen (16 September 2009, CIO)
- How Russia could be more productive (September 2009, Mc Kinsey)
- Infrastructure outsourcing on the rise (15 September 2009, Offshoring Times)
- Outsourcing demand to pick up in H2: NASSCOM (15 September 2009, CIOL)
- Löhne: Arbeitskosten steigen stark (15 September 2009, CIO)
- Finland to set up tech innovation centre in Delhi (11 September 2009, CIOL)

“But even if that vision is taking shape, another danger lurks in America: unlike in the past century, America is no longer the sole center of attraction for the best brains in the world. A recent investigation of the Kauffman Foundation showed that 50,000 Asian immigrants have left the United States these past two years. A movement that has just began. The worst is that 90% of these people returning to their countries are postgraduates, attracted by new opportunities being created in their own countries.”

This small text is an excerpt from an article in the Echos that I twitted yesterday. It illustrates the reality of which we spoke about a few weeks ago. It also reminds me of a debate going on in Morocco where there are many people returning home also in large numbers. Monica recently confirmed to me that in Bucharest she had seen many people who had returned home from the U.S., Canada or Australia.

The article also forgets to add that even if there is a boost in the American economy, unlike in the past, it will be based on a volatile tax burden for years to come. Furthermore the quality of life poses many problems today, especially for non-Americans.

Maybe not striking enough … that’s what I said after the operation I started a few weeks ago in Moldova. We gathered a lot of information, super interesting which will be very useful for the second phase of this plan, when we establish contact and bring the collected information to the attention of the political and economic powers. Pentalog joined recently the board of Moldova Club France. We will make this presentation through this organization. For if our telecom operators and banks want customers, they must give consideration to the subject of emigration in general and that of Hi Pot in particular.

Not striking enough because it is easy to accuse me of walking on the dreams of others…which is nonsense. I never stopped saying how much I admired those who have the courage to go abroad and try something new. My own personal experiences attest to this.

We have already gained a number of positive results in addition to collecting opinions (which we probably will refine in the coming future). Some are simple. I received by mail, two letters from people who were hesitating, and who after reading and listening to the thoughts of those who have decided to stay or who have come back, have decided to remain at home. At a dinner, I said if I could convince one, I would be happy. I am therefore doubly pleased… But this does not satisfy me.

What was confirmed is that wages are not the main reason for emigration. We were not wrong on that matter. Monica mentioned to me the other day, while looking for a PM for the Bucharest office, she met a lot of people returning from Canada, the U.S., New Zealand and Australia. Those returning probably earned more there than what we propose today at Buc … although I’m not sure this is the case in Canada.

I failed with one person. I accept this defeat before my colleagues in Pentalog, who, like me, appreciate this boy very much. A member of Pentalog; I blame myself for it is partly my being absent that allowed this to happen. Because I think if I had taken more time, I might have been able to convince him to change his mind. But his reasons seemed to be unanswerable. Again, it was not simply a case of money, but rather the fundamental desire to have a strong and recognizable nationality. I know he will make a good use of it and his talents will go in the direction of his dreams. This is what we all wish for him after all these years spent together.

Before he left we had the opportunity to talk. I told him he was playing against time, given the political context in his country. He understood, but still, his quest was for a strong national identity, added to his Moldovan identity. Only now I have found the answer I should have given him. A technical answer based on the power of law.
Canadian nationality serves no other purpose than to live in Canada. It gives some advantages under NAFTA but its extraterritorial power has nothing to do with that of the smaller states of the EU. In Moldova, which inevitably will open one day to Europe, Canadian citizenship will be useless. Thus a Slovenian passport has the same power as a French passport or a German one. A Romanian passport is just behind and will soon have the same value. A Canadian passport will never serve anyone in Europe, while a passport of any European Schengen state will open doors around the world … including Canada. If you follow my train of thought, a Romanian passport has the same power in the world as a Canadian passport, maybe even a little more. A Slovenian passport has many more advantages. In a few years (normally two years only) Romania will be a part of the Schengen area, a Romanian passport having then much more liberating power than any North American passport. It will open doors all over the world, offering freedom of movement and settlement in the worlds first economic space … all next to Moldova and soon it will be accessible to all the Moldovan people.

And again, my personal experience. If in 2000, I would have gone through with my plans to move to California, what would the relationship between my past and my future be? I also ask myself another question: would Pentalog have been as strong as it is today? I think not, but at that time, for a few short months I thought that our growth would have been faster if I had started our company there.

The European economy emerged as the first investment space in the world, far ahead of the U.S., Japan or China. Direct foreign investment on European soil is by far the world leader. In 2006, the EU received 421 billion dollars of direct foreign investment while the U.S. received 136 and Canada was well below 5. France, for example, has received this year over 56 billion (2.5 times) for a population 5 times smaller. The United Kingdom received 131! That is to say that the first two European countries in terms of FDI alone accounted for almost 1.5 times the amount of North American FDI, with a population 2.7 times less! All these investments have led the EU to represent 33% of global GDP with less than 8% of the global population.

The creation of new wealth has nothing to do with it. But it is the possibility of wealth that pushes young ambitious people . In North America in previous years this difference was offset by the role the banking system played in investment. Will it be the same in the world of tomorrow? The declining purchasing power of the 2000s in the USA began to cast doubt long before this crisis and created a real problem in the minds of economists. But sustained growth does not create more purchasing power. I will not go further into this subject. It is very interesting, but it is not my purpose.

My last thought in regards to Moldova. Imagine a Moldovan who goes to North America to work in IT and returns one day, full of dreams. There are many like that. Can you name me one company owned by a Moldovan American that is bigger than Endava (Moldovan-British project) than Pentalog (Franco-Romanian-Moldovan project)? But the reasoning is the same in Romania. There is not one American Consulting and Outsourcing company that exceeds European companies. Talking about R & D, the Americans have shown little interest in developing R & D in Eastern European like we Europeans have already started to develop… It’s very simple and unavoidable: a European country has a European commercial logic and with a European political point of view.
At this precise moment in history, taking an American citizenship is a strategic error for a Moldovan who immigrates, (who is of course European), and who intends to return one day, because it will prevent him from becoming tomorrow’s citizen of a state in the EU. This choice closes the door of the European area as long as Moldova will not enter the EU (which is not for tomorrow). There is a good choice and it is accessible to all who wish to broaden their horizons. Time to obtain legal status within the EU is slightly longer but this choice is extremely accessible and far more promising in terms of international law and an economic project.
In short, for anyone thinking of returning someday, full of ambitions, choosing a U.S. citizenship, instead of a Romanian nationality, which will shortly be part of Schengen, is a choice that does not resist the economic, the political or the historical analysis.

In 2008 PeopleCentric became a spin off of Pentalog and subsequently has validated its way of operating. Raluca’s team works with important clients, such as 3M, a well known BDD software publisher, Romanian start-ups, and a number of customers who will add up to the list in the coming months. Pentalog of course will remain its main customer for the moment. A generic (white label) contract was signed with an interim company providing them with the PeopleCentric procedures and technology. This contract represents a real springboard for this start-up. I believe that other companies will sign similar contracts in the near future, and not only in Romania. The main reason being that it validates a business model, very different from those presently being used by the competition. In one year alone, PeopleCentric has become the No.1 IT Recruitment Center in Romania. This month PeopleCentric is looking to recruit more than thirty people. Not bad.

I’m not surprised that this new player is already amongst the top 5 Romanian recruitment centers, (all client sectors combined), given the number of recruits they are asked to find. In late August, Raluca, Elena, Olga and Andra have recruited over 100 people … in the midst of an economic crisis.

How is this possible? Well PeopleCentric is based on a simple idea that can work anywhere. We simply observed that the Pentalog Branch Managers spent 2 / 3 of their time recruiting. However, a Branch Manager is expensive. It would be better if he would stick to managing his team, meeting the clients, (or visitors if you are talking of Western Europeans), organizing the training … piloting the business, rather than seeing people he would probably never hire. Because here is the problem: as a responsible company we do not usually recruit more than 15% of those interviewed.
It is appalling to think that the Branch Managers spend 2 / 3 of their time for a 15% success rate. Therefore it is a huge waste of time to use the Branch Manager to recruit.

PeopleCentric started from one simple observation: the Branch Manager does not need to do 60 interviews per month; he simply needs to recruit 5 people per month. We set a recruiting target: 70% of those interviewed could be hired. The gamble paid off. For us, as well as for our customers, our venture was a success.
The issue of recruitment is very difficult when a company asks you to find 20 developers. Because of their education and being highly courted in the market place, they are almost as difficult to win over as it would be to hire top level management personnel.

Conclusion, the cost of hiring these specialized individuals is high! PeopleCentric developed a unique method, which has allowed Pentalog to cut its cost in 3, to find the right people and at the same time maximize the quality of technical validation.

Raluca is ready to spend a few months in France and we are already discussing with other French entrepreneurs, all this in order to launch PeopleCentric France. She believes that the French subsidiary could quickly make a million euros in sales given the size of the French Market. She is probably right.

What pleases me is that:
- Past Pentalog employees have great ideas, and at the same time we are giving them the support and help they need to make the ideas happen.
- A concept and a business model which succeeded in the Romanian market will now make its entry into the French market.
- A Romanian enterprise will create its first foreign subsidiary in France, with the support of Pentalog.
Isn’t this great ?

Returning from Chisinau the other day, I was struck to see in this country experiencing such difficult moments, how many of our employees are expecting babies. Later, Serghei, vaguely concerned by the topic of my article, has also talked about our employees whose wives are also expecting. In Brasov, Romania, the situation is almost identical.

What does this birthrate in Eastern Europe mean? I must confess I wasn’t very up-to-date about the current demography of these countries and I imagine that Romania takes advantage of the fantastic growth in the past years. Life in Romanian cities is more and more similar with the western models, although much remains to be done. However, in Moldova, even if we registered a real economic growth, uncertainty about the future has always been noticeable. Therefore, I am more surprised by this enthusiasm for parenting.

However that may be, I am pleased to see this wave of optimism, because one doesn’t bring children into the world so they could be unhappy. Could the Branch Managers tell us how many people in their offices are expecting a child or have recently become parents?

About Pentalog Vietnam, I already explained that we were looking for technical, industrial and commercial partners willing to share with a Pentalog joint-venture and management unit based in Hanoi, more consistent means that would allow to capitalize on a strong social branding in order to faster recruit the best people on the market. The purpose is to assert the position of a set of specialized companies, including all joint-venture subsidiaries of the Group, eveny using Pentalog’s management, recruitment and communication methods and tools. Because anyone who has been involved in the offshore business knows that the most difficult part is to BECOME a credible company.

It is what I propose to any company having a serious technological project in Vietnam. If you need more than 30 employees, if you have a REAL niche business and WANT an offshore subsidiary… then join the “Hanoi Pentalog Techno Park”. You will be supported by our management and recruitment teams, just like we did in Romania with the Ausy Group, and thanks to the generated economies of scale, your project may ensure the return on investment that you expect for your offshore investments.

I want to remind all those who are tempted by this type of offshore operation, that committed costs are often higher than the labour burden, especially during the first years, when the number of employees is still low while the needs for management and recruitment are really high. In fact, this is one of the main reasons why offshore location projects fail. I recently spoke to one of my clients who was surprised to find out that our overheads per employee were higher than EUR 1000/month. But the figure includes our “Talent Incubator” department, all business departments in France, Germany and Romania, the Quality Department, The Financial Department, the Technical Department, the Production Department and the Recruitment Department capable of recruiting over 100 people per year… This amount of EUR 1000 also simply corresponds to an expatriate who costs EUR 10 000/per month labour charges included (it is not the most expensive-one) for 10 collaborators in the first year (excluding accounting, recruitment services and even premises…). QED.

We are therefore launching a communication campaign targetting managing directors of software editing and engineering companies. If you are ready to launch out into one of the most promising areas in the world and your project requires more than 30 collaborators, then let’s do it together! Web 2.0 tools will also be part of this project as our partner research efforts will be developed on Viadeo, Linked-in and Xing… coming soon! However, I admit that the current period is definitely not favourable, but this gives you one more reason to adjust your costs and achieve economies of scale!

A couple of days ago we have launched www.pentalog.vn. It’s now the turn of http://jobs.pentalog.vn, the joblog of Pentalog Vietnam, to join the web. It will have the same role in the country as:

- http://jobs.pentalog.ro in Romania and Moldova (en Romanian)

- http://jobs.pentalog.fr in France (in French)

- http://jobs.pentalog.biz which includes all of our ads worldwide (in English)

These three joblogs receive about 10 000 visits per month. In the next days, we will write a blogpost on the social marcom tools we implement to Vn.

Eric is in Romania where he works for a Moldovan bank, as well as Thierry does. Grégory, from France too, manages the office in Iasi, Romania. Dan, a native Romanian from Cluj, now lives in Paris after having worked in the Pentalog offices in Brasov, Bucharest and Orléans.

Aleth, the Quality Manager of the Group established her HQ in Chisinau, Moldova. Sebastian from Brasov, one of the longest-serving employees of Pentalog Romania (9 years, Seaba!), will join Monica in Hanoi (Monica is also both head of the operational structure of Pentalog Romania and manager of the office in Bucharest). Monica is supervising the development of Pentalog Vietnam for the next 3 to 6 months.

Sophie, the Chief Production Officer and Manager of the office in Orléans will stand in for Monica during this time. What about me? It’s been a long time since I have spent so much time in France (I’m managing the office in Orléans!).

Also, I was told that Florent from Orléans might be leaving soon to Brasov.

Who have I forgotten? Maxime was recruited in Vietnam (in Saigon in fact) and joined us in Hanoi. He is Franco-American. Pierre has returned from Germany after several months and got back to the Iasi office. There’s also Cornel, who has worked in all our offices and who has become one of the youngest Technical Managers in Europe (for a company with 320 people). He has also just become a Moldovan resident.

I am sure I have forgotten many, but I didn’t want to indulge into an inventory. I realize that within our group, as in other international companies, long-term professional journeys often turn out to be the driving force of the best personal developments and I see several reasons for this:

- Cultural openness: if I live for a couple of months in a place abroad, I will have to be open to the others. This is great when you are about to become a manager (project, office, subsidiary, …)

- Different behaviour with respect to work. In these conditions my job becomes the mainspring of the personal experience I am having abroad. I am here to pass on experience from somewhere else too. My work becomes the basis of an exchange that will obviously go beyond the single professional framework.

- Progressing vision of the organization: Its logic becomes more comprehensible with increasing experiences. Natural criticism is then based on an enlarged perception of the group and of its business and therefore becomes more contributory.

- People travelling for professional reasons meet in various environments, which are a bit precarious for everyone. Thus, their interpersonal relationships get strengthened and they become members of the core structure.

Any other ideas?

When we opened Pentalog Romania in January 2000, the local labor cost (total wage bill) was about 9 times lower than in France.

In January 2009, within all Romanian offices of the group, the ratio was 2 for the salary and 3 for the total wage bill (4 weeks of paid leave instead of 5, no RWD, rate differences here and there …). This fantastic catching up might frighten us or our customers, especially when we know that at the same time, the prices charged by companies have increased “only by” 100% in 10 years.

Well maybe not. In 2008 Pentalog recorded the highest profitability in its history, both in sales figure and equity capital. Let’s say that the EBIT of the group is approximately 12.5% and the return on equity is around 60%. The first figure interests me as a CEO, and the second figure interests me as the President of the Board of Directors. I would like to recall that within Pentalog nobody, including me, is paid based on dividends.

Nevertheless, a figure of 12.5% in 2008 is about 60% higher than the average of French companies in the sector. Among the big companies, hardly any, except Alten, reached these types of values in the previous years.

But how is this miracle, worthy of the philosopher’s stone, possible? By productivity. I’m not going to take the year 2000 for a reference because we were software publishers, but the year 2003 which marked the transformation of our Romanian team into a “service” team. Then we invoiced about 30% of the available working days. Our competitors, just ahead of us then, invoiced between 50 and 70%. The remainder was composed of overrun on packages, training of juniors, customer disputes on the performance of dedicated teams… In 2008, the invoicing rate at Pentalog … reached an average of 97% while the company recorded a growth in human resources of 66%, immediately leading to a growth with 67% of the sales figure. If that’s not productivity…

We have given this speech, against all odds, to all our collaborators and interlocutors and each time it has won because it is armed for global competition when the wind blows.

Here’s where I am getting: the wage of Romanian developers has increased with 300% during the last 10 years, while that of their counterparts in Western Europe increased with about 25 to 30%. Of course this fantastic catching up is slower now and is mainly based on the “net” component of the wage. Emerging nations are more and more reluctant to deploy levels of social protection and paid leaves that obviously make Western Europe countries more vulnerable.

I believe that the compensation levels will continue to grow in Eastern Europe and in all new IT nations, simply because the projects will come here … even when prices will overtake those in the West, simply because Romania (20 million inhabitants) trains nowadays as many IT engineers as France does, and because Vietnam trains twice as many for 80M people.

What about India or China? Due to the lack of workforce, the core (dev activity) of the western European IT industry will simply disappear. If France, Germany or the U.S. prefer to send their dear children to the schools of cinema, psycho-sociology or styling, it’s their problem. Each nation chooses its own destiny by this kind of choice.

Meanwhile, my reasoning silences the marshals and the old-fashioned persons who are against globalization because our companies have made 10 times more to fix global inequalities than their benevolent speeches campaigning one day for cooperation, but who do not even want these economies to have access to production. Especially that, according to the Syntec, we have contributed only with 3.5% to the French IT economy.