- Web start-ups generate fast return – Collins (03 March 2010, Business and Leadership)
- Open-source hardware takes steps toward gadget mainstream (04 March 2010, CIO)
- Cloud Computing’s Three Revolutions: Part 3 (04 March 2010, CIO)
- Dublin gets ready for European City of Science 2012 (04 March 2010, Business and Leadership)
- Romania rises as outsourcing target (05 March 2010, The Diplomat)
- Improve productivity with Agile Scrum development (03 March 2010, CIOL)
- Swedish Appetite for Outsourcing Doubles (02 March 2010, Waters News)
- CeBIT 2011: Neues Konzept (08 March 2010, Silicon)
- IT-Recht 2010: Worauf sich Unternehmen gefasst machen müssen (03 March 2010, Manager Magazin)
- IT-Industrialisierung bei Banken: An SOA führt kein Weg vorbei (03 March 2010, CIO)
- Software für den Aufschwung (03 March 2010, FTD)

Embedded World 2010 started this morning and we are in full swing. The number of visitors and the number of nationalities represented are still impressive despite the crisis we are in, and far from the sluggishness announced by some people before the show.

Our stand is representative of our company’s internationalization: Thomas answering in German, Romanian and English, and I in French and English.

Below is a picture of our stand, as it was opening.

We are presenting developed solutions to our prospective customers. Energy management, Bluetooth devices and wireless solutions with ultra low electrical consumption are on the program for our visitors. And for dessert, I prepare Popcorn from my iPhone: yes, there is also an application for this!

Feel free to come and meet us at Hall 11, booth 121. We look forward to welcoming you.

- The business value of Information Security (23 February 2010, CIOL)
- Facebook deemed world’s most innovative company (23 February 2010, Business and Leadership)
- 3 tools to improve collaboration in your company (24 February 2010, Infoworld)
- Compliance Under a Cloud (25 February 2010, CIO)
- Cloud computing and its relevance in India (25 February 2010, CIOL)
- Recession shifts IT service management into fast lane (25 February 2010, Computerworld)
- Study: Most multinational companies use IT outsourcing (25 February 2010, IT World Canada)
- Offshoring: Should the government send IT work abroad? (24 February 2010, Silicon)
- Computerwoche-Anwenderstudie Teil 1: So planen IT-Entscheider 2010 (01 March 2010, Computerwoche)
- Deloitte-Studie: Was IT-Dienstleister gegen Umsatzeinbrüche tun (24 February 2010, CIO)
- CeBIT 2010: Was dieses Jahr alles anders werden soll (22 February 2010, ZDNet)

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”.”

Britain’s debt set to be higher than that of Greece (19 February 2010, Telegraph)
- Staples Turns Out an IT Outsourcing Option for Small Businesses (19 February 2010, CIO)
- Europeans Prefer Staff Suppliers to Outsourcers: Forrester (19 February 2010, CIO)
- Europe a growth market for outsourcing (16 February 2010, The Hindu)
- Facebook to launch ‘Zero’ version for mobile phones (17 February 2010, Yahoo News)
- The painful truth about age discrimination in tech (17 February 2010, Infoworld)
- VC investors see potential in Irish software sector (18 February 2010, Business and Leadership)
- IT groups warn Chinese on regulation (21 February 2010, Financial Times)
- IT-Abteilungen geht das Geld aus (22 February 2010, Financial Times)
- “Open Source BI ändert den Markt” (19 February 2010, Silicon)
- CeBIT: Haus der Nationen wird zum CIO-Treffpunkt (18 February 2010, Silicon)
- IT-Fehler verursachen Milliardenkosten (16 February 2010, CIO)

-

A year ago, I posted a note about Pentalog’s efforts towards reducing its CO2 emissions in our travels. We are moving forward with this project, and it is time to make a progress report.

During this past year we have studied many packaged solutions with a “Western” budget. We have also tested extensively different cameras but the quality of the images was not sufficient.

In 2009, we used a support solution for audio conferences and more intensively since we took over the management of our Centrex (internalization). According to our compiled statistics, there was an average of 450 conferences per month for an average duration of 26 minutes (since September 2009 to January 2010). When we need the video (for management meetings, and training) we use Skype or Yahoo but the low quality images is a problem. This video is basically used to confirm the people’s presence.

These studies, tests and low resolution videos helped define our needs. We need a solution with the following characteristics:

• Organization of HD video conferences. I do not automatically think of tele-presence (level 1) but something that comes close to this.
• Organization of video meetings in an isolated environment for certain occasions (chat room – small meeting room).
• Filming of interviews with groups or individuals in order to supply content for Pentalog TV.
• The cameras should be PTZ (pan / tilt / zoom). This means it can be moved on 2 axes and is equipped with a zoom lense. The value of a fixed camera is minimal.
• The consumption of bandwidth should be limited, so as not to overload our infrastructure during these video conferences. In order to resolve this problem we will be using standard protocols such as H.264 video which will allow us also interoperability.

Recently new models have come onto the market at a reasonable price. I am therefore pushing forward with this internal project so that we can finally reduce our carbon footprint by reducing air travel.

Following a market analysis over the past few months, I wonder if there isn’t a place in this market for solutions which lie between Skype and Polycom / Cisco / Tandberg.

- IT spending in western Europe to reach US$68.6bn (09 February 2010, Business and Leadership)
- IT Outsourcing: Why It Pays to Appraise Your Contract (09 February 2010, CIO)
- Global IT industry to return to growth this year (09 February 2010, Computing)
- Japan remains world’s No 2 economy (15 February 2010, Business and Leadership)
- Silicon Valley limps as India dashes ahead (12 February 2010, CIOL)
- What matters for the IT industry in 2010? (12 February 2010, Computer Weekly)
- Indian IT firms turn to Latin America: WSJ (11 February 2010, CIOL)
- Offshoring Research and Development set for growth (10 February 2010, Offshoring Times)
- Der Open-Source-Fahrplan für die CeBIT (12 February 2010, Silicon)
- IT-Branche wieder optimistisch (12 February 2010, CRN)
- Der deutsche IT-Markt erholt sich langsam (10 February 2010, CIO)

- IT industry fights tax changes (02 February 2010, Misaustralia)
- India Telecom outlook for 2010 is stable to negative (02 February 2010, CIOL)
- Asset Protection Offshore! (03 February 2010, PR Inside)
- Cairo ICT to reflect dynamism of the IT sector (08 February 2010, Yahoo News)
- IT recovery on, India ranks high (03 February 2010, Yahoo News)
- How will the Carbon Reduction Committment affect IT outsourcing? (03 February 2010, Computerweekly)
- IT Outsourcing: Why It Pays to Appraise Your Contract (03 February 2010, CIO)
- 10 best IT jobs right now: Source: The Industry Standard (02 February 2010, The Standard)
- Rumänien: Der Lockruf des Karpaten-Goldes (03 February 2010, Die Presse)
- Russland nach der Krise: Wütende Bürger trotz Wirtschaftsaufschwung (02 February 2010, Handelsblatt)
- Europäischer Outsourcing-Markt stark gewachsen (05 February 2010, Inside IT)
- Deutsche Sprache – schwere Sprache: Neulich in …Bangalore (03 February 2010, Computerwoche)

A few weeks ago, Pierre, head of the IS Business Line, published an article on the topic of the metric system. Here is a 2nd post concerning this subject:

As a follow-up of an earlier post on metrics, I would like to come back to the advantages of this system.

While participating in a steering committee this week as part of improving our common practices, the subject of estimates was raised by our client. Without going into details, they asked us to assure them that we had taken into account a margin of risk in our assessments. The client had indeed noted that we had often exceeded our estimates concerning a precise aspect of the project.

We approached the subject by explaining that it would be appropriate, based on the statistics between the estimated workload and actual workload, to establish a breakdown of the project into work units and assign to each one of them a development load based on these statistics.

The concept was discussed. Naturally we then discussed the gradual establishment of a metrics system for the project and reminded the client of the benefits that this would incur. Those advantages that did not fail to catch his attention.

We therefore explained, that by properly defining the work units, the metric system would allow for more reliable estimates and a further increase in the transparency of the method we would use to assign workloads to the functionalities of his product. This added to the fact that he would know in advance the number of days for the realization of a new feature, our client did not hesitate a moment before approving the concept.

Furthermore, we also stressed that after the establishment of the metric system, time spent on a subject would be exclusively devoted to the contents of a batch rather than justifying the expenses. Indeed, this is a significant advantage for the introduction of the metric system: focusing on the contents in order to optimize them.

Of course, the maturity of this system will naturally lead to the optimization of the estimates by better controlling the performance of team members. And from this point of view, everyone wins.

In conclusion, I would like to note an observation I made while attending the steering committee: the subject of the metric system is now part of the Pentalog team vocabulary.

- Deloitte outlines priorities for CIOs in year ahead (26 January 2010, Computing)
- Economic rebound will drive demand for ICT (28 January 2010, Voice and Data)
- No slowdown for IT jobs: Candle ICT (1 February 2010, itnews)
- A Big Year for ‘Socialytic’ Applications? (29 January 2010, CIO)
- Is 2010 the year of location-based services? (29 January 2010, CIO)
- Moldova: A Corner of Potential in Europe (27 January 2010, BusinessWeek)
- Predicting the role of outsourcing in 2010 (26 January 2010, Financial Director)
- Can outsourcing and cloud save stretched IT departments? (25 January 2010, Silicon.com)
- Moving forward in OpenSource (25 January 2010, CIOL)
- Messemacher diskutieren Perspektiven von CeBIT & Co (1 February 2010, Computerwoche)
- Energieverbrauch, Outsourcing: Gartner blickt in die IT-Glaskugel (29 January 2010, CIO)
- Forrester-Ranking: Deutscher IT-Markt legt 2010 um elf Prozent zu (29 January 2010, CIO)
- Die Hälfte der Schweizer Firmen nutzt SaaS (29 January 2010, Swiss IT Magazine)

- IT to go outside IT department, says Gartner (18 January 2010, Computing)
- Europeans say “ditch Internet Explorer” (18 January 2010, Computing)
- Internet video and Apps on TV soon (19 January 2010, CIOL)
- Open source under threat from ‘grey’ IP laws (21 January 2010, CIO)
- IT management shake-ups sweep finance sector (20 January 2010, Computing)
- Global IT industry to return to growth in 2010 (21 January 2010, Computing)
- The Future of IT Application Architectures (22 January 2010, CIO)
- Outsourcing: Crippling Mistakes IT Departments Make (25 January 2010, CIO)
- India’s top outsourcing companies hiring and increasing wages (21 January 2010, Monterey Herald)
- US Universities increase interest in outsourcing (19 January 2010, Sourcing Focus)
- Nielsen-Zahlen: Werbung im Internet nimmt kräftig zu (19 January 2010, Computerwoche)
- Der lange Weg zum Komplettanbieter: Kampf der IT-Titanen (25 January 2010, Computerwoche)
- Was CIOs vor Cloud Computing abschreckt (22 January 2010, CIO)
- Arbeitsmarkt: Krise erwischt auch Informatikabsolventen (22 January 2010, Computerwoche)
- “2010 wird kein einfaches Jahr für uns” (19 January 2010, Silicon)
- CH-Unternehmen nutzen Social Media kaum (19 January 2010, Swiss IT Magazine)

- Cloud Computing: IT Operations Changes Are Mandatory (12 January 2010, CIO)
- IDC Telco Predictions 2010 (13 January 2010, Computerworld)
- Is the tech spending downturn over? (12 January 2010, InfoWorld)
- Outsourcing Advisors: 6 Tips for Selecting Right One (14 January 2010, CIO)
- 20% of Businesses Will Get Rid of All IT Assets As They Move to Cloud, Gartner Predicts (13 January 2010, CIO)
- IT budget cuts expected in 2010 (12 January 2010, Computer Weekly)
- Mitarbeiter deutscher Unternehmen haben europaweit die meisten Geschäftskontakte ins Ausland (15 January 2010, Computer Reseller News)
- Outsourcing-Deals 2009:Outsourcing-Ranking wankt (18 January 2010, CIO)
- IT-Branche überrascht die Börse (15 January 2010, Handelsblatt)
- CeBIT: Was erwartet die ITK-Welt (14 January 2010, Silicon)
- Gartner: Handys überholen Computer bis 2013 beim Internetzugang (14 January 2010, ZDNet)
- Warum Unternehmen twittern müssen (14 January 2010, Handelsblatt)
- Wie Outsourcing von Software-Tests funktioniert (13 January 2010, CIO)
- IT und Telekommunikations- Trends 2010 (13 January 2010, Bitkom)

The moving season of Branch offices has finished with the branch office in Iasi (Romania). Since Friday 08/01 (a bit before), everyone was ready to move into the Tudor Office Center. In one of my last posts I described moving the office in Hanoi; I quantified our relocations to 3 branches over the past 15 months. We have just completed a successful 4th move in 16 months.

Over the past 14 months in the previous premises, the growth of the branch permitted us to occupy space for 40 + people. Now it has been necessary to provide for larger premises to keep up with the branch growth. The Tudor Office Center quickly became our choice in relation to its quality according to our usual selection criteria (power, generator, location, Internet operators…). Besides its remarkable appearance which can be distinguished easily from the plane upon arrival at the airport (first time in the history of Pentalog branches). What we have lost in the view of the city (we probably had the best), we have gained in luminosity.

For the arrangement of these premises, it was the first time we called upon an architect. For 760 m² of overall space, we got an original proposal, different from a traditional division. The specifications consisted of the following: 2 adjoining and communicating meeting rooms, 2 discussion rooms (small meeting room), vast space-friendly open spaces for production, but yet separated. We were not disappointed with the results. After some adjustments, we got what we wanted for the moderate budget that we had provided for:

- The office design allows for the distribution of the workplace for up to 120 people in a friendly and modern arrangement.
- The 2 meeting rooms communicate, allowing for a larger space by simply pushing back the partition-walls.
- The discussion rooms are used for privacy for one to three people for discussions, follow-up meetings or phone calls.
- A designed floor (provided for upon construction) which provides great flexibility in organizing the offices spaces.
- The production areas are not completely segregated. They are segmented into work areas for 15 to 30 people.
- Even if the spaces are open, the temperature control system shows its effectiveness in the management of the work areas.
- User-friendliness was not ruled out with a reception area and a spacious kitchen sitting 15 people.
- In regards to IT there is a server room. The building is equipped with optical fiber by national operators who give each a connection of 50 Mbps.

It is also clear that our landlord is unusual in a country like Romania. He understood that his first priority was not to make us cough up a lot of money but rather to establish a relationship of trust and add value to his property.

The move was completed without difficulty and without damage. It must be said that it was assured by the super motivated employees of the branch and some of them had already participated in the previous move. The objective therefore was known to all: Production must continue Monday morning! The maturity level has increased. In addition, the team preparing the move under the supervision of Gregory [Constantin, Sebastian, Cosmina] did a very good job. This move started with the lowest risk ever in terms of the IT elements. Saturday at 12 am, the former office was empty. At 3 pm, everything was in place in the new-one. I would like to thank all those who participated in this successful move.

I would like to go back to the designed floor. The gain in flexibility is not immaterial. It also reduced the budget for wiring to around 4k euros. We will need to study whether the gain in flexibility and in the wiring and speed of implementation will not make this kind of floor a must-have in our next branches.

Several factors are at the origin of the low level of risk at the beginning of this move:

- We have internalized many services in 2009 which gave us greater autonomy than before: Management of the Level 3 network, Centrex. It had been systematically in changing the IP addresses (level 3) and the migration of the Centrex that deployment has not been realized on time.

- The move was anticipated so that we were able to negotiate costs and manage the unexpected. We realize that this cannot be done systematically.

Here is a quick video presentation of the branch. A further video commentary will be prepared in the coming days which will be given by the Branch director, Gregory.

Currently, there are no plans for further moves or openings in the first quarter of 2010. But things change quickly and we will adapt quickly.

Since November, we have launched into a competition process to find a mobile operator. For the past 4 years we have been with SFR and have reached the end of the contract period, and we have put them back into competition with other operators. This is the rule of our (certified) procurement process.

We have just retained Orange at the conclusion of a selection phase on the basis of propositions followed by a phase of exclusive negotiations. To start this consultation, I worked with Mejdouline to analyze our practices and to determine what the profiles of our users are. We have 3 major categories: great nomads (x2), nomads (x4) and non-operating users (x16). This last category, even if it represents 3/4 of the fleet, is an insignificant part of the budget. We thus concentrated on the analysis and the needs of the other two categories.

The categories of nomad users generally request roaming of voice and data and this is increasing constantly. The nomads are demanding more access to data (3G key). We therefore focused our needs on roaming and on the generalization of dual data access (computer + mobile phone). It is on these expenses that we have concentrated the greater part of our efforts.

Then we had to answer the question “iPhone or no iPhone? It is true that we can wonder about its autonomy, its fragility and its security level. But in comparing the other terminals presently available, the answer is clear. Symbian is late. Windows Phone is too early, as is Android. The only alternative was the BlackBerry but it does not reach the level of user friendliness of the iPhone. For the past 6 months, I have personally used an iPhone that allowed me to validate its integration into a Pentalog environment. I really have not been disappointed with its user friendliness, its speed, and its simplicity. The choice has thus been made, the entire population of nomads will be equipped with a 3GS 16GB iPhone.

Previously, the terminals were managed by the Administrative & Financial Service. We had already agreed that this team would continue the management of the terminals at the time of the change-over in the contract. These terminals are now managed just like computers are (inventory, configuration management, emergency stock). We are presently defining the operational procedures of the iPhone as Romania and the Republic of Moldova are already equipped with iPhones. Users will not be able to do what they want with their iPhones. We will deploy profiles on the iPhone to manage their configurations (list of Branches wifi access points, mail settings…). Even if management tools have not yet reached a very satisfactory level, we found the management of the profiles has reached the minimum of our expectations.

With the same activities, we reduced our budget by approximately 9%. The simulation of roaming voice traffic over the past few months applying Orange tariffs showed a reduction of 10%. As we become better equipped to follow our consumption data, we estimate the budget reduction will be approximately 400%. It is this sector that we will realize the most important part of our savings. In any case, we will organize ourselves to monitor our consumption, to better manage our budget where the options of automatic adaptation of the offer do not exist.

I still would like to make the observation that Orange did not come to us and propose a global offer. Has Globalization not yet arrived here? Indeed, wherever we operate (Romania, Moldova) Orange is already our mobile solution provider. It is in and around these countries that we do the most roaming. Orange is not able to operate networks to offer a global solution. In order to limit the impact of this lack of service, we will set up our own VPN with our Centrex which already covers France and Romania. Other countries will follow. An iPhone application is already under consideration right now.

For their part SFR only updated the offer we had on our fleet without taking into account the actual evolution of our needs. Too bad, because the competition was completely open.

In conclusion, Orange has done what it took to answer our main concerns. Until 2001, we were 100% FT and for the last 4 years we were almost 0% Orange. There are still some analog lines (fax, backup…). But our needs have been understood by Orange and they have provided the products adapted to these needs.

Various Pentalog committee leaders were very busy during the month of December 2009 because 3 of the 4 general committees were held: an Extraordinary General Meeting, a Board of Directors and Presiding Committee, finally only the Steering Committee, exceptionally, did not meet.

Amongst the many subjects discussed, many were focused (but not exclusively) on the potential roles of research and investment in the future. We have endorsed a policy which I previously mentioned… incubation, and its link to R & D and financial resources followed by the necessary human resources.

In 2009 Pentalog’s sales clearly rose above the EUR 10M mark to 13.5 M. But more importantly, we were able to generate profits which would more typically be found in companies 2 or 3 times larger than Pentalog. We must use these profits wisely, without wasting them.

The advantage of being nearly 40 years old (or soon to be), including 16 years as an entrepreneur, is that the mistakes one usually makes generally at 20 to 30 have already been made. If the volume of our profits gives us a means to act, we must ensure the return on investment for the company that generated this profit, that is to say, Pentalog. In order to do this, our efforts in R & D must be related either to the activities of Pentalog or those of its customers. But definitely this leverage must be used directly and MANDATORILY in the core business elements of the group.

For more than 10 years Pentalog has been working on developing its competence in marketing and its development is based on this. It is natural to continue in this manner. The group, along with PeopleCentric and with the help of Pentalog Labs (currently being constituted), and the Technical Management, will therefore make an investment in professional social networks. Pentalog will start developing its own software in this sector. People Centric will progress in evaluating competence and career management. Our strategy is to combine these two elements together.

That’s not all. Pentalog will also move forward and invest in building a development monitoring platform, based on the actual performance of the development teams, which will enable them to be challenged on all levels but will also finally rationalize the dialogue with the client in regards to the evolution of service prices. It will no longer be necessary to tell a client that because of the inflation in wages, we are obliged to request a price increase. I’ll tell him that now, thanks to our efforts in education and project management, in all sectors, we are able to present a substantial gain in productivity. This investment is probably the most crucial for our future.

Finally, the various committees endorsed the launching of a policy of external incubation (PeopleCentric-type ) using, in addition, the leverage of investment in engineering capital and in management. One of these first companies could emerge in the coming weeks…

It remains lastly for me to wish everyone a happier year 2010, more fun, more prosperous, better than 2009!

- 2010 tech forecasts: What the accurate analysts predict (05 January 2010, Infoworld)
- Global outsourcing: IT service providers will reach for the cloud in 2010 (06 January 2010, CIO)
- Russian Recovery! Pausing to Examine Indicators (06 January2010, Pravda)
- IT Outsourcing: Avoid Multi-Sourcing’s Costly Trap (07 January 2010, CIO)
- Firms under pressure from software audits (08 January 2010, IT News)
- Cost Saving for IT Infrastructure Management (11 January 2010, CIO)
- China’s Economy Facing Risks, Warn Officials (05 January 2010, Business Week)
- Wall Street Beat: Year Starts on Optimistic Note for IT (07 January 2010, CIO)
- Outsourcing vendors ‘will use IT to innovate’ (08 January 2010, BCS)
- Wo die Analysten irrten: Die 3 Forrester-Sicherheitstrends 2010 (11 January 2010, CIO)
- Hightech-Industrie 2010 auf Wachstumskurs (05 January 2010, Silicon)
- Frankreich: 60 Millionen Euro für die Online-Presse (05 January 2010, Heise)

- Facebook,Twitter to be platforms of choice for hackers (29 December 2009, CIOL)
- Twitter buys into geolocation (30 December 2009, IT News)
- 10 predictions for video conferencing solutions in 2010 (04 January 2010)
- Emerging markets and recession: Counting their blessings (30 December 2009, The Economist)
- Five technology trends for 2010 (30 December 2009, CIOL)
- Was soziale Netzwerke über uns verraten (28 December 2009, Handelsblatt)
- Die 7 Outsourcing Todsünden (29 December 2009, CIO)
- Die Treiber des IT-Markts: Mehr Übernahmen von IT-Dienstleistern (04 January 2010, CIO)
- Frankreich: Umstrittenes Filesharing-Gesetz in Kraft (04 January 2010, Computerwoche)
- IT-Projekte neu ausrichten: 7 Erwartungen des Managements an die IT (05 January 2010, CIO)

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.

- Google Takes Search Real-Time (07 December 2009, Technology Review)
- The hidden costs of identity theft (07 December 2009, CNN)
- Cloud computing, virtualization, open source poised for big gains (09 December 2009, Infoworld)
- Outsourcing Prices Likely to Drop in 2010, But at What Cost? (10 December 2009, CIO)
- How to Improve Your IT Planning in 2010 (08 December 2009, CIO)
- 10 predictions for 2010 (11 December 2009, CIO)
- IT Is The New Normal: McKinsey Survey Results (09 December 2009, Forbes)
- ICT services show signs of recovery (11 December 2009, CIOL)
- Europa-Studie: Deutsche IT-Dienstleister haben Entwicklung verschlafen (08 December 2009, Computerwoche)
- Business Intelligence: Sechs Thesen zum deutschen BI-Markt (10 December 2009, CIO)
- IT wird wichtiger (14 December 2009, Silicon)

During my trip to Hanoi, to set up with Iulia a development team for the ISD, I took the opportunity to visit a new “open”� Datacenter. As I explained in a previous post, our network strategy is to deploy a regional strategic point in an open Datacenter to have greater flexibility.

Indeed, we have to consider that a growing branch will expand every 12 to 16 months. This expansion implies moving. If we were obliged to move systematically the international links, it would increase significantly the budget of the expansion. The strategy is to “freeze” the international linkages that allow us to control our quality service throughout. Then, the links between the data center and regional branches are more accessible and less expensive to move.

In preparation for a potential opening of a second branch in Vietnam (Da Nang, Hue or Ho Chi Minh City) I went to visit this Datacenter on the outskirts of Hanoi and close to our branch office. I have already had the opportunity to visit several data centers in France and Romania. But I confess that I was impressed by the level of this one:

- External and internal access control 24H/day
- Video surveillance circuit of 70 cameras
- Double power supply but only one national provider
- Double generator set with 72 hours of autonomy
- Double UPS circuit with 20 min of autonomy
- Operator hosting room (currently 6)
- Bay hosting space of 500 m²
- Additional services: data recovery room, rollout room…

I was very impressed by the services made redundant, as well as the environmental quality and technical skills of the interlocutors. There are not many hosting possibilities available at this level in Hanoi, certainly a bit more in Ho Chi Minh City.

The strength of this type of this hosting service is the presence of many operators who will be able to ensure the necessary interconnections. For that provider it is still low. Most rely mostly on the capacity of NTT (the historical Japanese operator) who have invested also in the Datacenter sector.

Our project is progressing. It will be achieved when we have completed our search for international operators and we have sufficient bandwidth for our services. We also need to negotiate the best rates possible and therefore we are playing the game of competition between the different operators.

Prices are changing rapidly. We are presently negotiating with our two current operators to double our bandwidth for the same rate.

- Global IT spending to rise in 2010: Gartner (04 December 2009, CRN)
- IT Outsourcing: Legal Mistakes That Can Cost You Big (03 December 2009, CIO)
- Why Benchmarking Cloud vs. Current IT Costs is So Hard (03 December 2009, CIO)
- Twitter Alternatives That Are All Business (04 December 2009, CIO)
- What to consider before outsourcing functions (01 December 2009, Business Africa)
- IT infrastructure outsourcing on the rise (06 December 2009, Offshoring Times)
- Defizitsünder: Deutschland und Frankreich bekommen Frist bis 2013 (02 December 2009, Handelsblatt)
- Hightech-Branche blickt optimistisch ins nächste Jahr (02 December 2009, ZDNet.de)
- Gartner-Markttrends 2009: Die gefragtesten SaaS-Angebote (04 December 2009, CIO)
- Software-Entwicklung: Agile Industrialisierung (04 December 2009, Silicon.de)

A new client (which I can not mention the name) has chosen Pentalog to develop a new module for its software.

The technology is C # 3.5, the methodology, agile and the location is in Iasi. This dedicated team will be comprised of a project manager and 4 developers who will start in early January.

After months of requests almost exclusively using Java, Dotnet has come forth.

Microsoft developers, you can send your CVs to: jobs.ias@pentalog.fr

- Squeezing Out Savings from Outsourcing (23 November 2009, Business Week)
- Getting Outsourcing Right (25 November 2009, Business Week)
- EU security agency highlights cloud computing risks (22 November 2009, CIO)
- The top 100 IT projects of 2009 (23 November 2009, Info World)
- 7 Ways an Outsourcing Advisor Can Save You Money (26 November 2009, CIO)
- Top storage trends for 2010: Symantec (25 November 2009, CIOL)
- Konjunktur: Deutsche Wirtschaft verbucht stärkstes Wachstum seit eineinhalb Jahren (24 November 2009, Spiegel)
- Wohin mit der IT? (25 November 2009, Coputer Woche)
- Französische und deutsche Unternehmen führend beim Einsatz von Open Source (25 November 2009, Silicon.de)
- Studie: IT schafft bis zu 94.000 neue Jobs in Deutschland (26 November 2009, Computer Woche)

I just returned from a 2 weeks trip to our Hanoi office with Iulia, the head of the software team of our IS department, where we established a new development team for the Pentalog information system. Frederic has already discussed this project in past blogs, I would like to give you a few extra details.

We have reached the third stage in the cycle of our information system. For each of these steps we PRIORITIZE the means & resources as follows:

1. Implementation: Infrastructure, Applications, and Service
2. Development: Applications, Infrastructure, and Service
3. Maturity: Services, Applications, and Infrastructure

This translates in fact into the following:
• The establishment of a more detailed data collection service that the ISD will put at the disposial of its users.
• Better communication services through newsletters.
• Paying more attention to our users by adding new communication channels including satisfaction surveys (4 per year).
• The establishment of skilled professional committees dedicated to monitoring internal projects and a strategic steering committee.
• The deployment of a permanent team for software department.

We arrived at this information system, first with temporary resources (bench time, incubator…). Only maintenance and the software helpdesk were given permanent resources. With our continued growth and the opportunities it has brought, it was time to improve and professionalize the software department. Since this summer and with the confirmation of Iulia to this position we launched this project to establish a development team in our Hanoi branch.

In 2010 the team with will have gone through 3 stages of development. We finished the first stage with the deployment of a team composed of:
- Cuang, the team leader
- Hieu, the .Net developer
- Nhu, the tester
- Quang, the PHP developer
- Yoann, the BPM developer

Eventually the team will need to increase to 10 or more people in order to meet our growing needs for our internal / external communication tools, tools related to management (production, finance) and our production (improvement of the eco-system of the development environment). The help-desk software, business intelligence cell and management will remain in Europe.

The direct consequence of this change is the working language will pass from French to English. So gradually the content of our documents, in the wikis and other tools will gradually switch to English. However, Yoann will represent the French speaking people in this team.

As with all outsourcing projects, we dedicated these past 2 weeks in Hanoi training the team in our practices, needs and their evaluation. After a few days back home, I must confess that I am not disappointed with the way it was conducted nor the level of the people we recruited. Through Cuong, Hieu Nhu Quang and Yoann, we have a solid foundation which will enable us maintain the right balance between the ISD and the company’s objectives.
It is with all the experience that we have gained in past projects for our clients that we can now deploy this project. The pitfalls are well known:

• Communication: it exists through technical discussions, weekly follow-up meetings and a monthly steering committee.
• Proximity Management: Cuong, the team leader is responsible for meeting the demands and the quality deliveries and improving team performance.
• Human relations: we repeat this constantly to our customers, that these relationships are essential in order to maintain the team cohesion in the project despite the distance. Three or four times a year, Iulia and / or I will make on-site visits for an update of ongoing projects and new projects. It will also be necessary to maintain better visibility in the future.
• Mastering start-ups: everything that can be deployed at the beginning of the project will help development further down the road. So we deployed from the beginning, our development processes and maintenance (those applicable to the customers and certified ISO 9001-2008).
• Precise Methodology: our recent successes in the deployment of the agile method encouraged us to implement this methodology for this team. This will allow us to have a faster understanding of their needs.
• Monitoring individual performance: we are building a basic work unit for our technological environment. Producers and managers thus will have a benchmark to measure performance and the progress of everyone.

The recruitment for the second phase has already begun and it will be completed at the end of December. After the integration of these newcomers, we will begin the third phase after the Tet festival (feast & traditional family event, which is much awaited). Obviously, these recruitments have been orchestrated by People-Centric from their Hanoi branch. The process also worked there, and the results are there to prove it.

We could not complete this project without sharing a friendly dinner together. So we went to the “Highway 4 (exotic specialty restaurant) instead of the snake restaurant (Iulia promised to go there next time). We really had a good time around dishes of grasshoppers, shrimp and other delicious exotic dishes.

This team, under the responsibility of Iulia already knows that its production will help support the company in regards to meeting its objectives. The challenge is enormous but accessible!

- First the most incredible, 93% of the Pentalog job offers are accepted! I wasn’t aware of this fact and it really amazed me. People Centric, I would like to thank you for the quality of your targeting. However, we would like it even better in particular in the industrial and embedded sectors.
- 73% of the commercial offers sent by Pentalog in 2009 to new clients were accepted… but this figure is declining. In the past few months, we are below 60%. Is this an effect of the crisis or because of the change in our organization? This issue is being studied.

- 90% of the tenders sent to our existing clients are accepted… Confidence is high!

- The overall satisfaction of our clients (as expressed by the surveys) is: 78% (our target was 70%). It is obvious that the propensity to express one-self is stronger when the opinion is negative, but this is the name of the game. Most of the surveys conducted by IT companies indicate results ranging from 60 to 80%. But it rarely goes beyond this figure. But we will probably soon see an improvement and reach our objective.
- The quality of our customer relationship is very high: 87%! This sub indicator shows the overall satisfaction!
- 8 customer complaints since the 1st of January. Less than one per month. 4 came from 2 customers, and for entirely different reasons. For one, it was the structure and organization of the team and the other one because of the difficulty Pentalog had to follow a much smaller operation than others. Anyway… We need to identify and eliminate them. But 8 claims for more than 100 missions and projects and 400 employees, we are already seeing the first results of our quality plan. We will continue to monitor and make further improvements!
- Pentalog employees spent more than 3500 days in training, more than 10 days per person (I think that our annual average is 320). This figure also surprised me. I knew it was high, but not to this point. We have reached 120% of our objective!

These figures come from the management meeting we held yesterday for 3 sites in the world (Orleans, Brasov and Hanoi). Some indicate a need for improvement. We are extremely behind in our goal to hold annual interviews with our employees. Similarly, in calculating the level of customer satisfaction, the sub-indicators for commercial follow-up definitely need to be improved. It is a fact of our business model. But we’re working on it!

Here is an article written by Pierre Peutin, Head of IS Business Line.

As Sophie mentioned in her post of October 19, Pentalog was nominated for The Innovation Awards 2009 with MONA a virtual assistant solution. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aAbboKgdwE – in French). Here is a summary of the evening that was placed under the sign of the cinema, where the star that evening was innovation!

The ceremony for the Trophies took place in the Cinémathèque Française de Paris. After a lengthy introduction by Barbara Dalibard, Executive Director of Orange Business Services, and Jean Mounet, President of Syntec Informatique, we attended a screening of 6 short films, each illustrating the use of one of the 6 winners of the solutions evening. Each winner was awarded a trophy and had the opportunity to present their solution.

There were 6 categories for the 2009 session of the competition which brought together the final solutions adopted. These categories related to new uses, business solutions, mobility solutions / solutions technology, performance and operational excellence, applications and APIs inside the Grand Jury Prize. Emphasis was placed on rapid mobility solutions, solutions that are eco-responsible and of course, solutions for which an initial feedback was measurable, otherwise, innovation has no interest.

Pentalog competed with MONA in category “Performance and operational excellence.” Our solution was still in testing phase at the time of the nominations last June and was not selected but it was still distinguished amongst the 40 finalists (16 were selected for the award ceremony).

Let’s make a rendezvous for next year, presuming that this time Pentalog will be a winner!

Earlier this year we launched the internal WAN2009 project. It will allow our infrastructure team to provide our agencies in France, Romania and the Republic of Moldova a better quality of service in accessing our internal resources and the Internet.

Our network has its history. It has evolved as our needs have evolved, from our risk management, to the ability to offer new services to our clients. For this new project, we needed to significantly increase the bandwidth and the quality of our services while continuing to provide the access redundancy to our internal resources and the Internet. Indeed, several projects planned for 2009-2010 required better quality services and additional bandwidth. The main projects are:

- Internalization of our IP telephony. Our external solution required a dedicated link without a possible redundancy.

- Deployment of a video conferencing solution internally and externally.

- Virtualization of the work places, including also those of the developers.

This translates into the following:

- The deployment of 2 links of 50Mbps fiber optics per branch in Romania (Brasov, Iasi, Sibiu, Bucharest)

- The deployment of 2 links 20Mbps fiber optics for the Chisinau branch (Republic of Moldova)

- The establishment of a new data center in Bucharest

- The establishment of a 100Mbps link between the data centers in Paris and Bucharest.

- The deployment of a10Mbps fiber optic line for the Orleans branch office.

All fiber optics already deployed are of level 2.

We also took advantage of this operation for amelioration and reliability to rationalize our equipments. All our branch offices are now equipped with Watchguard boxes. Replacing the Linux gateway has allowed us to:

- Better monitoring of the traffic

- Implementing the first level of quality management services (prioritization of voice traffic, critical traffic etc. …)

- To allow finer filtering of traffic (filtering of prohibited sites …)

- Limit the level of expertise for intervention on the infrastructure.

One of our partners asked me a few weeks ago why we had made such an important investment in our infrastructure. As a provider of offshore services, we needed to have a robust infrastructure that is systematically adaptable to the requirements of our clients, as it is one of the first Pentalog services that they will see at the start-up of a project. An industrial, manufacturing his products offshore must have reliable shipping, we as an offshore Provider, must have a reliable telecom system.

In a few months, I will report on the gains made because of this investment. Systematically we will continue to review the infrastructure.

Furthermore, we are not without other improvement projects. At the infrastructure level, the Deming wheel also continues to turn, in order to improve the quality of our services. In 2010 we expect:

- The Bucharest Datacenter will become a back-up center for the critical services of the Parisian Datacenter.

- The strategy of a “regional Datacenter” will also be applied in Vietnam. The study and economic feasibility is already underway.

- An additional level in the quality of our services is also required (compression, prioritization).

Market solutions are also evolving. We will follow this closely!

- Key Capabilities of Next-Generation Project Managers (22 October 2009, CIO)
- Microsoft, Google seal Twitter search deals (22 October 2009, CIOL)
- Outsourcing Industry Mergers Spell Bad News for IT (22 October 2009, CIO)
- Top 10 strategic technologies for 2010 (21 October 2009, CIOL)
- Erschütterungen im BPO-Markt: IT-Dienstleister vor Übernahmewelle (21 October 2009, CIO)
- Five open source IP telephony projects to watch (21 October 2009, CIO)
- India to top Asia salary growth in 2010 (21 October 2009, CIOL)
- Update: Sun to cut 3,000 jobs as Oracle awaits merger approval (20 October 2009, InfoWorld)
- How Wall Street Will Kill the Recovery (20 October 2009, BusinessWeek)
- Chile’s Outsourcing Challenge (20 October 2009, BusinessWeek)
- Wo es in Deutschland IT-Jobs gibt (19 October 2009, CIO)

Selected from amongst more than 40 solutions, MonA is competing for one of the Innovation Trophies 2009, organized by Orange Business Services and Syntec Informatique in partnership with the French newspaper La Tribune.

MonA (My Personal Assistant) is an artificial intelligence solution developed by Pentalog High Tech, allowing a member of the company to interactively communicate with the information system through various media (chat, phone, SMS, email). Through its interactions with the company’s various information sources, MonA informs and assists, reminds each user of all the things he has not yet done. More interactive than a sticky or a task list, MonA is just in front of the users and communicates with them, with the sole purpose of helping them to increase their productivity.

To see a demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aAbboKgdwE

This solution has been developed by our teams, under the direction of Peter Peutin (IS Business Line Director).

I will soon give you the results of the race!

- Deutschland: Konjunktur springt langsam wieder an (15 October 2009, DiePresse.com)
- Outsourcing: Krise nährt die Krise (15 October 2009, Computer Reseller News)
- IT-Service-Unternehmen rechnen mit einstelligem Marktwachstum (15 October 2009, Silicon.de)
- YouTube Monetizing Over A Billion Video Views A Week (15 October 2009, TechCrunch)
- SocGen to Increase IT Offshoring in India (14 October 2009, BusinessWeek)
- America’s 200 Best Small Companies Of 2009 (14 October 2009, Forbes)
- China and India Business Grows as Border Dispute Flares (14 October 2009, BusinessWeek)
- Studie: Weniger Outsourcing in Deutschland (12 October 2009, Computer Reseller News)
- Indian Outsourcing Companies Look for New Markets (12 October 2009, BusinessWeek)
- Agile Softwareentwicklung- Mehr Erfolg durch Flexibilität (12 October 2009, Computerwoche)
- Third party maintenance contracts on the rise (12 October 2009, Offshoring Times)

While introducing the new Pentalog organizational structure, we announced also the establishment of Business Liners (BL).
One of their responsibilities consists of demonstrating in the field the in depth improvement of work methods, conducted under the responsibility of the Technical Director of and Quality Director.

Regularly, each BL will speak on the progress of these implementations in the field.
One of the first articles prepared by Pierre Peutin the IS BL (Information Systems), presents the metric system as applied on one of our projects.

Other topics of interest will follow.
===========================

After several months of in depth work on improving the process of estimating costs, and to respond to Fred’s post on establishing the metric system in Pentalog, I would like to mention now the widespread use of this system in most of the Pentalog projects.

Before giving an example, I would like briefly to explain the philosophy of the metric system. A metric is a progress or quality indicator of the software development. More precisely I would define it as the use of metrics to measure and to compare the development times. For this, the first step is the breakdown of the project requirements into subcategory requirements and then into work units for each subcategory requirement. Each work unit belongs to a certain type (simple, medium complex, for example) and is defined by assigning a certain number of characteristics. By classifying these work units, then it is possible to assign a worload which translates into the number of man days for development (or number of hours, depending on the structure chosen).
Taking for example a data entry form, the characteristics could be the number of input fields, the number of drop-down list, of images, the complexity of the actions related to the different buttons, etc…
This first stage gives a point of reference to the project.

After defining the reference, which is generally used in the first step to accelerate and standardize the estimates, we must confirm the costs attached to each work unit by correlating it with the actual time spent in developing each requirement. I would like to note that the reference allows for complete transparency in regards to the development time and for the customer.

When the reference has reached a certain maturity (equivalence established between the workload and the time spent during development), it is possible to measure the productivity and thus to establish goals for improving the performance of the development team. The idea here is to gradually reduce the worklaod for each work unit in regards to the reference in order to increase the development speed.

It is precisely this process that I would like to present now.

The project given here, as an example, is the development of a management solution for sales outlets for one of our French customers. The development is carried out by 5 teams spread over 3 Pentalog Offshore sites (Romania, Moldova and Vietnam) with 40 members.

For this project with more than 6000 man days in 2009 based on the SCRUM method (AGILE method), using the metrics system is intended primarily to improve the development productivity by increasing the number of detailed requirements contained in each Sprint; the reference points have been provided for at the beginning of the project by the client.

The work of the project manager is to analyze at the end of each Sprint, the work units in order to adjust the development workloads (by increasing them at the beginning in respect to the content of the Sprints and then decreasing them when the team has reached its cruising speed to improve it’s productivity). Having these common references also allows to more accurately measure the performance of each team and adjust the continuity of the management.

In the diagram below, which uses the data from this project, the project leader is able to compare the results obtained in the development of the interfaces for each of the 5 teams to see who are his top performers and those who are less so. The idea here is to first smooth the performance of all the teams using as a point of reference the faster team and then in regards to the reference development times.

By analyzing this graph, there is a visible disparity in development time between the teams. The project manager then got down to the task of making the necessary changes to smooth the time of all the teams.

After bringing all the teams to the same development level, the project leader can tackle the job to improve the productivity by gradually reducing the workloads of each type.

Here I am trying to show the first example of the industrialization of the Pentalog metric system, notably by explaining how it is possible to increase the productivity of a project. In a future post I will explain, by using another example, the establishment of a reference repository.

Some news…

- Internet: The forty glorious years (25 September 2009, CIOL)
- China zückt politisches Scheckbuch (22 September 2009, Handelsblatt)
- Offshoring geht nur mit Methode (22 September 2009, Computer Zeitung)
- Indian IT firms step up security with paramilitary (21 September 2009, CIOL)
- CFOs unzufrieden mit CIOs: Keiner weiß, was Outsourcing bringt (18 September 2009, CIO)

A few months ago, I “teased” everyone with the beginnings of a new chart. After several months of internal warfare, we have been able finally to complete all the different levels of the organizational chart.

Click on image to enlarge chart
It is a lot less original than its predecessor, which was a structure completely oriented towards performance where two department heads who were not always obliged to agree.

This time, I am once again the boss of everyone in the house. When I stopped being, we were around 50 employees … Now we have approx. 400 and we needed to unify all the decisions.

Hopefully this new structure (which actually has been in service for the past 4 months) will provide us as much satisfaction as did the old one.

Regarding the dynamics, we did not change anything in the ingredients, we simply modified the recipe. People have been redeployed and some have been promoted; now everyone will be responsible for their own results in terms of their ambitions by providing the necessary energy for the growth of the structure. E = mc2 as someone once said.

And given the level of offshorers in France and other countries (the Indian cataclysm is causing severe damages in Paris – I dare not even give a name), yes, I think that it makes sense and that the Pentalog business lines will keep moving forward at the speed of light… in this void of strong competition.

Let’s continue to do a little more physics. The relative weight of the structures is not absolutely identical. This is deliberate. We now have a very large operational management structure, entrusted to Monica, which will bring together nearly 350 collaborators on two continents.

In this large molecule revolves the Business Line and its Management (Sophie). Her responsibility will be to find customers and put the projects into production and then transfer them to the branch managers.

The other three molecules are directors for planning and support. Aymeric will manage the infrastructure, research and information systems departments. He will be accompanied by Cornel (the youngest technical director in the World, for a company of this size). He is 26 years old. We are extremely proud of his progress. His responsibilities will include R & D and the Pentalog incubator.

Aymeric is also accompanied by Aleth, our Quality Manager. Alex remains alongside Aymeric and will conduct the Infrastructure cluster. Finally, Avram Iulia will head the information software system department.

Virginie will be in the war room, as usual! She is the CFO. This molecule is composed of 3 atoms of unequal mass: management control, the administrative and financial team, and travel arrangements (not exactly a small thing, Pentalog negotiating with Air France, Tarom, Routair Orleans, Vietnam Airlines or Air Moldova). We should write an article someday on in this highly professional service, based in Chisinau, Moldova.

The marketing department is in level 4; Helen Hemery will continue to manage this department with the same talent as always. It will be connected directly to me.

I have not forgotten my favorite molecule (composed of free electrons without a nucleus, without a leader). I call it the Planning and Business Intelligence Department. I am talking about Eric, Director of the 14-2010 Plan, and Virginie who is in charge of the 30-2013 Plan. Finally, Alex Mondanel is there too and all others who daily travel the wide open web space in search of tactical or strategic information. This is our own Level!!

Let me make a quick comment concerning the levels. The 1, 2 and 3a are members of the Executive Committee. Everyone in Level 3 has the rank of Director. Like every organization, it will never be static and may undergo further changes.

Greg had a small birthday celebration recently, and he asked me post this little article. Congratulations! I leave you with his words:

To give full dimension to this title and to those who do not know the song, we must sing to the tune of “New York avec toi “from the cult group Téléphone.

I would like to introduce myself rapidly: I’m Gregory Rondin, Manager of the Iasi Branch. I would like to talk to you about this Branch which has known and will continue to know an even greater and interesting development in a city which has a strong economic and industrial potential.

Why am I writing an article now you ask? (all together now!) the good and simple reason that this month the Iasi Branch celebrated its second anniversary. (La multi ani!)

First, let’s talk about figures which are indicative of the high level of progress made by our Branch. In terms of personal, at the present time we have 50 employees. The objective for 2009 is to have a staff of 60 people which we should easily exceed. Besides 2 people (one being my assistant and the other part of the infrastructure team), all persons present on the site are producers. Since early 2009 we have recruited over 20 new staff members because of the establishment of a major project with Germany (the team should be increased by a dozen or more people by the end of this year) and we are starting no fewer than 3 new projects (in France and Germany).

Locally this puts Pentalog as the 5th largest IT company in the city; I would like to note in particular that Continental is located here with an R & D department of more than 400 people; Amazon and BitDefender also have branches in Iasi.

After the results of 2008, which I would call as the “establishment year” we started the year 2009 with a net margin of 2 digits. This trend seems to be stable for the coming months.

But as I said in the title, why come to Iasi to start a project?

First, you can join a team that keeps on growing and find everything that you need to complete your outsourcing projects. After Bucharest, Iasi is the Romanian city which has the best universities. The 50 000 students in attendance each year bring a freshness and vitality to this ancient Moldovan capital. In the area that interests us, about 450 engineers are trained each year at 2 leading universities in computer science. Whether you want to implement projects for the development of information systems using technologies such as Java/J2EE, DotNet, PHP, … or projects based on embedded systems and High Tech development in telecommunications, this powerful resource pool offers you all levels: junior profile to senior profile.

Don’t hesitate to take a virtual tour of the office. See you soon!!

My activities as of late have been a little hectic and this has perturbed my usual rhythm in keeping everyone posted. I would like to take this opportunity to bring everyone up to speed concerning the final decision of our client ST-Ericsson to entrust to us, for a reasonable period of time, several of its product platforms. This also gives me the opportunity to thank everyone and to talk about the worthy celebrations that we had because of this success in Sibiu… which closed this chapter of a long story, which started a year ago.

In May 2008, I received a phone call from Ausy inviting me to attend a meeting in Paris with one of their clients to discuss the porting offshore of a platform already outsourced in France. The subject, described in volumes and the technologies in question seemed highly motivating. Possible I had convinced them at this first meeting that Pentalog Technology was well prepared, and was ready to go even further…

From this time on started a cycle of successive validations, ultra short, where we had to explain how we were going to face a challenge of such magnitude: 33 hardware engineers, hardware layer, protocol, audio… platforms that would deliver complete low layers software to… the n ° 2 worldwide in mobile telephony. The customer dropped into Pentalog, twice in a very short time. We immediately understood that each visit was not just a social call: they wanted to know if we had the available human resources on the Romanian market first of all, then Pentalogs’ ability to establish, in a few months, what had been already established in France since several years. We understood that for each one of these concerns, we could not make a false step!!

When we were given the go ahead, at the beginning of July 2008, we were aware that this was only for a long period of evaluation (which would last one year), during which the process could
be reversed at any time since the French operation remained only partially in place (admittedly decreasing gradually). This spring was characterized by a massive effort to show our high technical level and finally confirm the job was finally ours as of the end of June.

I want to thank once again all the members of the team and their managers who have worked so hard to get us here, I know it was demanding, but this is a real project which demands excellence! Management was sometimes obliged to work with you as if you were professional athletes. Now it is over and the results are there. So thank you once again, and I am not forgetting our client who gave us the honor to compete in this unique challenge. And thank you Marc. But we must not forget that this victory is only going to last for a short time and we will continue to face many new challenges ahead.

I am posting a few photos of our weekend in Sibiu, in this huge and magnificent house that Ralu (Sibiu), found for us…

Monica and Virgil enjoying themselves

Marc and a few of the boys!!

Alex, Mircea and I currently are in Frankfurt, Germany, until June 19th and we will be in München between 22nd and 23rd of June and we will be available to meet local IT companies in order to talk about offshore opportunities, about Romania, Moldova and Vietnam.

If you are a businessman, an entrepreneur, an innovator, an IT diretor, a software editor and you want to develop your own offshore capacities in Vietnam or a nearshore office in Romania or Moldova, come and meet us!

Give us a call at +49 6196 7762 662 or e-mail us at flasnier@pentalog.fr

The month of May was particularly rewarding for Pentalog Vietnam because the team made its first delivery to its first customer. We must say that the office in Hanoi had a very strong production start with 15 people initially, on a large development project using the latest Java technologies. A real treat for the developers who were more accustomed to maintenance projects or coding phases.

Whether in Europe or Asia, Pentalog is loyal to its quality mark. The working methodologies as well as the quality assurance system are implemented identically, thanks to the presence of Monica during the first 3 months and to spending 2 weeks at the office of Cornel, our technical manager. The client has expressed his satisfaction but we will not stop there, we will continually deliver better quality to our customers.

So many stories and you may be wondering how we are at Pentalog Vietnam? Oh well for you, for your pleasure, we have filmed the videos below with the help of the Marketing Team in Hanoi and Chisinau. Pay attention to the special effects provided by the team of Michael Bay in their free time during the execution of Transformer 2.

Wednesday May28, I went with Michael to the M2M day organized by Wavenis Open Standard Alliance (OSA Wavenis). Coronis & Orange, the two principal members of the alliance, (along with 20 other members), are in charge of promoting the standardization with the IEEE using 802.15.4g.

Coronis has been one of our clients for the past 5 years. Their job is to design systems used for taking measurements (fluid, pressure, temperature etc.) with low energy consumption and which can also communicate. In short, the sensor takes measurements regularly (10/hour, 1/day) and refers such information once per day to a hub via HF. The latter is more than a communication system (GSM); it returns the information to a centralized platform. Pentalog has seen this solution evolve since beginning our relationship with Coronis. This solution is based on a protocol Wavenis HF radio on layers 1 & 2 of the ISO.

To the astonishment of all, this day was attended by nearly 120 people from France, England, Australia, … The profiles of those attending were very diverse customers, solution providers, infrastructure providers, energy suppliers, … All this small world were present to express their wishes to see increased the use of Wavenis and or used as a common protocol for all.

I have seen at various levels in the chain there is a common motivation for a consensus of communication. We know that the choice of some will not satisfy everyone. And it is true that the approach of this leader to open its technology to everyone is a risky gamble in an area where competition is strong, with new players coming on line every day. But the short of the story is that, in the computer and network industry, that those who are the most transparent, and who are the most OPEN are often those who win.

At Pentalog, we are not accustomed to seeing these sensors used in everyday life (http://tf1.lci.fr/infos/jt/0,,4089637,00-comment-se-chauffer-plus-intelligemment- .html). The solutions are geared usually towards the water and gas industry. But in these days of green innovation we will see this spread quickly. There is talk of markets of hundreds of millions of sensors.

The concept of Smart Home (ex domotics, but with less science fiction) also extends to Smart City. We thus arrive in this world of “smart” sensors of all kinds which will be used. And that’s where the debate amongst expert begins. Will we have to make use of a phenomenal amount of equipment that will need a level 3 layer? The IP seems to be in agreement to push these devices towards networks to link telecom operators. The IPv4 with the 4.2 billion addresses is already forgotten, it is completely out of breath! Everyone has talked about IPv6 having more than 667 billion 132 000 IP addresses per square meter of land surface. Saturation with this number of addresses seems to be postponed for a few years. In addition there is the solution that already exists in the wireless environment (6LoWPAN – IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Network). Meanwhile, operators have every interest to be involved in these areas because it is their networks that will carry such information. It is better for them that it converges with their present choices.

It was not just a debate of experts. The scope of this protocol opens new thinking on managing multi-energy, micro-power generation, transmission of information to the right people, care for the environment…

This day devoted to communication Machine-to-Machine (M2M) corresponded to the idea that people have of tomorrow’s world: a great deal of communications, very, very “watched over” and where the convergence of communications is essential. Again, the challenge of our client to open its protocol to be the set standard is risky. But this seems to be a good way to continue to exist when dealing with the explosion of this market.

One year after the opening of this first office, the local team now has about 50 employees and it had become urgent to give this Branch Office more space in order to be more functional.

This is now done! Pentalog has just moved into one of the newest office buildings in this city of Central Romania. Eventually it may accommodate more than 80 employees.

The Branch Office in Sibiu receives some of Pentalog Group’s most prestigious clients and their operations. It was necessary to have the resources of a larger office in order to be in line with our ambitions.

Thanks to the infrastructure team and to all those who helped them moving into the new building!

On 22 and 23 May in Chisinau, 11 participants in the training cycle (project manager) finished the second part of their course. They were accompanied by Aleth, Pierre de Thelin (our quality consultant) and I. Aleth will soon post an article about this course.

For my part, I wanted to tell about the resources we had implemented to organize this remote training. Yes because it was remote! For the first part (in April) we had 7 people from Chisinau, 2 people from Brasov and 4 people from Orléans, Pierre was at this time in Orleans.

For the second part of this course we brought everyone together in Chisinau and Orleans and Pierre this time was in Chisinau. It is true that we have not been easy on Pierre since we started working together. We started with our meeting (remotely) of process definition, during our preparation for the certification ISO 9001-2008. Now that our enterprise has digital communications this allows Pierre to give his training classes “long distance” using a presentation (powerpoint), video and voice.

As Instructor, he had at his disposal:

There is also an encoder on the machine to record the session (voice, projection, whiteboard).
A machine is then set aside for the moderator who manages the various resources (switches laptop / tablet). The remote offices at their end have an octopus (conferencing system) to express themselves.

Back in our office, we used:

For these 2 sessions, all worked well, no major technical problems. This technical performance did not mask the concentration of the participants. This is very important because in a regular situation, the trainer is present and can communicate with a participant who needs further instruction.

The financial resources necessary for the implementation of this training room is relatively limited. NetViewer only requires a license (purchased or monthly rental). The means will be increased by the introduction of Level 2 links to manage the quality of services through the purchase of cameras for a motorized steering in order to have high quality images. Other resources are relatively easy to deploy. Before that, it is necessary to simplify the platform by the use of virtual machines in order to facilitate its organization. It is true that packaged solutions are available for an initial cost exceeding 15,000 euros. We have been able to do it cheaper.

I anticipate other uses of the aggregation of these resources:

The platform will evolve, as will the user requirements evolve and I will have the opportunity to talk to you once again on this new broadcasting system.

A month ago (I’m a bit late with the blog post), Cornel (corporate technical manager) and me have co-hosted our first “PM Camp” in Iasi. The event aims at bringing together project managers (PM-Project Manger) and team leaders in order to offer them a dedicated space for expression. Our project managers are systematically caught in the alert rhythm of their project. This meeting should enable them to raise awareness of technical issues but most importantly to share experience on project management, technical solutions applied, feedback on experiments … This is a friendly moment for them and me and Cornel were there for them.

Project managers meet regularly when we organize training sessions related to quality, but the “PM Camp” should be complementary to our quality approach. We are at the crossroad between the organization of a project integrating quality processes and implemented solutions. I have estimated that we will have between 2 and 3 “PM Camp” per year.

We began our “Camp” on Friday evening with defining the scope of what would be treated, and then we went to a restaurant to continue our initial discussions. From 9 a.m on Saturday, everybody was present which is normal for project managers.

Here’s the agenda of this session:

After a full day dedicated to addressing these issues, we had an active participation of the entire group. During the synthesis, we had a very positive first reaction to the “PM Camp”. I give you some loose remarks:

As it is difficult and expensive to gather all project leaders of Pentalog in one place, we will organize the next session in two stages. The first session will group together the offices in Sibiu, Brasov and Bucharest and the other the offices in Chisinau and Iasi.

Given this success, we have scheduled the next session for the end of July. The topics are not yet defined. They will be defined in the coming weeks.

Pentalog has just launched a major web communication plan, first based on the achievements of the different versions of Pentalog.com. The current version 3.5, derived from the 3.0-one, was designed in 2004 and has generated sales amounting approximately € 15M. Moreover, as I was saying when we launched it, Pentalog.com is not a website but a marketing policy.

When we launched it, we used to have 10 years of experience in selling services and then sought to increase interaction between prospect buyers and the CVs of our employees (the key sale document within software engineering companies). Therefore, we had to increase the number of prospect buyers. Our commercial databases now exceed 20,000 email addresses of professionals in our industry. We later proceeded the same way with our recruitment ads and a database with CVs of developers (20,000 today). We were successful and we employed 90 people in 2007 and 130 in 2008. But we believe that our total capacity is of 700 recruitments, only for Romania!

Still, the web has changed and version 2.0 has gone through there. Older approaches were not obsolete, but they were no longer sufficient. It became necessary to find new things to attract and seduce. Thus, blogs have joined Pentalog.com, upgrading it to version 3.5 that we are currently using. The web policy of Pentalog was enriched with a galaxy of new tools: chat rooms, pentablog.fr, blog.biz, joblog.ro, joblog.vn, joblog.fr, jolog.biz, Peoplecentric.ro, tools.people-centric.ro. We should also add a much greater appeal to videos. The number of monthly visits has reached the honorable figure of 50,000, which still represents more than 1,600 visits per day, while we are not exactly talking about services for the general public!
The investment multiplier has worked perfectly, since we’ve gone from an annual sales figure of € 2 million to € 10 million, without an increase in sales force, or 400% in 5 years. The concept was worthwhile. The total investment for all versions, including People Centric, probably did not exceed € 150,000 for a 100-times higher sales figure. To this we must add the operating budget for version 3, which is € 150 000 / year, or 750 000 for the entire period. Investment + operation are 16 times lower than sales.

And I am not talking about performance in recruitment which, through a well-oiled process, allowing very precise targeting, allows the recruitment of 70% of the employees identified by our branch managers. Totaling all costs of the Pentalog structures (including myself), we reach a budget per employee that is 33 times lower than the average 60% in our industry, despite the cost of a powerful Datacenter, continuous training, trainees, branch openings and… a growth of 60% per year. Pentalog.com is the key of our global BM.

In August 2008, we announced our expansion plans. We have considered growth models, schedules… but now we need tools! Let’s go forward towards the Pentalog 2010 web concept!
This week one of our esteemed colleagues visited us and we have opened our heart to him to work together on this new concept. We want heavy stuff and multipliers again, although we are aware that this is getting more difficult than in 2004. He will help us leading this version change, to ensure consistency of design, to assess and prioritize ideas.

We want the 2010 version to take advantage of the following:

We will also launch two sites in addition to the existing Pentalog portal. The first-one will establish the shortest route to a decision to purchase IT services / consulting. The second will be completely dedicated to the JV creation strategy of our expansion plan “30-2013″.
The investment should be roughly compared to what has been done in 2004. However, the large appeal to videos could significantly increase the operating budget.

Stay tuned. We will tell you more by the end of June.

After more than 3.5 years of good and loyal services (220% growth), the current organization chart of the company will change.

We will get closer to traditional organizations, with a unique CEO (Level 1) and central departments. We will have three departments:

- Finance and Management Control, entrusted to Virginie Picault (CFO) – Level 2
- Infrastructure, Information Systems and Technical Department, entrusted to Libeau Aymeric (CIO – Vice President Infrastructures & R&D) – Level 2
- Operations Management, entrusted to Monica Jiman (COO – Vice President Business Development) – Level 2

click on the image to zoom

It is in these last two departments that the greatest changes will occur. Some divisions may relocate in the next months (production, management control and quality in particular).

The Operations Management Department will include all the production offices throughout the world. Monica will be responsible for operations in Vietnam, Germany and France in addition to her current area (Eastern Europe). This department will comprise more than 250 employees. It will integrate sales, branch openings, recruitment, and operational management of human resources and will take responsibility for contractual operations. The Management the three Business Lines will also be linked to Operations Management.

The Steering Committee will be composed of these three departments but will also include, as it already does today, the Production department (level 3, which from now on, will be part of the Operations Management Department), the Quality department (linked to IS-TD-R&D) and the management of individual expansion plans (14-2010 in the hands of Eric Gouin and 30-2013 in those of Virginie Picault).

Raluca Otelea, currently in charge of Management Control and member of the Steering committee, leaves Pentalog, but will be responsible for the management of our subsidiary People Centric, a major IT recruitment company in Romania. She will still remain a member of the steering committee, as a strategic supplier of Pentalog and as a member of the group.

Corporate governance will be based on 3 levels instead of the current 2:
- The Board of Directors (quarterly planning) is in charge for long-term strategy and monitoring compliance of operations with the strategy. It also prepares general meetings.

- The Council of Presidents (new, monthly) with the Chairman of the Board and the two vice-presidents. Its role is mainly to resolve tactical issues unresolved by the management. It also prepares the Board of Directors and implements the operational declination of the strategy.

- The Executive Committee, monthly, is responsible for the review of indicators for each department and proposes actions for any deviations from the roadmap of the company. It is also the driving belt of the decisions taken by the Board of Directors and The Council of Presidents.

We need to recruit several people in the next weeks. In fact, we need to have one or two branch managers in Romania. Just as we need to find a manager for our software information system.

The Marketing department remains attached directly to the CEO at level 3. The organization of divisions will be finalized by the end of June.

The operation scheme will be subject to assessment in late September.

They have been watched 9.000 times, averaging about 400 views per video. The first went online a year ago.

I don’t know if this is much or not. In comparison to the number of visits on our sites and blogs, this is irrelevant, considering that these are slowly approaching the 50 000 visits per month. However, this is not bad, considering that in this case, they are only unique documents that lead to other videos, not necessarily from Pentalog; it is the law of its kind.

We have approximately twenty more on our streamers, which have never been put online. We should add the number of broadcasts to this figure; although I haven’t looked for it probably it refers to a few thousand more. Most likely, we would significantly exceed 10.000.

These videos are not advertising images, based on a complex scenario. No, this is all about presenting the career and the strong points of our collaborators. Particularly, we want to show that they can express themselves very well in French, English and German.

So, go and watch them!

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=52BF1E06FAC81C2E

It was a nice Christmas present offered by the French Standardization Office: Pentalog passed ISO-9001: 2008 certification on December 24, 2008!

This achievement stands for international recognition of Pentalog’s commitment in terms of quality and of the improvement process Pentalog has been involved in since September 2007. This process was meant to improve internal efficiency and customer satisfaction, by fulfilling two obvious and unquestionable needs:

-increasing the final quality of software and solutions offered to Pentalog’s clients.

-improving Pentalog’s capacity to support its clients’ growth, while meeting quality standards.

The ISO 9001 quality standard provided the right framework for this approach. As a general standard, ISO 9001 defines a list of organizational requirements necessary for the existence of a quality management system (QMS) with four directions: commitment and responsibility of the Management board , identification and management of processes contributing to customer/employee satisfaction, protection of skills, continuous improvement. A QMS based on ISO 9001 helps improving customer care, so as to offer products or services that meet the customer’s needs. Internally, it also emphasizes skills management, optimization of the use of resources through greater involvement of the staff and improvement of the entity’s processes. Pentalog has chosen the ISO 9001 standard because it will provide large and transverse company foundations allowing to turn towards more specific systems such as CMMI (Capability Maturity Model Integration) or the EFQM excellence model in the future.

Pentalog’s pragmatic QMS offers a more formal working environment, based on common tools and methods, implemented in a systematic manner by all the collaborators, within projects as well as in the scope of purchase management, HR management, infrastructure management, marketing, sales or communication. The implementation of Pentalog’s QMS was achieved along with a close collaboration with its clients, who could already measure the progress made.

The certification perimeter of Pentalog includes all activities offered to its clients: Software design and development, application maintenance, technical support, infrastructure management and Business Process Outsourcing.

It applies to all currently existing Pentalog offices, that means Orléans (headquarters), the Romanian offices (Brasov, Bucarest, Iasi and Sibiu) and the Moldovan-one (Chisinau), as well as the common Pentalog-Ausy branch, Pentalog Technology, in Brasov. The Pentalog Technology office in Sibiu was being created at the time of the audit, so it should enter the certification perimeter in 2009; the Pentalog office in Hanoï (Vietnam) should get certified in the next two years.

Being involved in a continuous improvement process through the ISO standards, in 2009 Pentalog will begin to integrate different elements from other systems such as CMMI or EFQM (work units, Balanced Scorecard…) within its methods and processes.

We got the news some time ago but we haven’t said anything until now. Well, Pentalog is now an official registered trademark. The process took quite a lot of time (over 6 months) and was a little tedious at first but well worth it.

We have a strong branding image, which is getting internationally reknown and therefore it became obvious that this asset should be protected. At first, we considered the countries where we’ve been operating for a long time or where we recently started operating: France, Germany, Romania. Then we considered the possibility of registering a community trademark, that is to say in the European Union as a whole. This process was more interesting and simpler, as Frédéric (since the brand is his personal property) only had to apply once to the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, for all European countries. And this was much less expensive than if the process had been undertaken for each country individually.

The risk was that a single notification of opposition filed by an owner of realier rights based in one EU country would have been enough to derail the entire process in all other countries as well. We should then have applied for registration of distinct trademarks for each country. But everything went just fine.

The registration certificate of the Pentalog trademark was published in the Community Trademark Bulletin nr. 2008/046 of October 17, 2008.

With the ISO 9001 certification announced by Fred a few days ago, and the R&D tax credit agreement that should be renewed for 2009, Pentalog has now three additional assets that will help maintain its position and attract new customers.

We’ve been working flat out on this for a year. But there we are now. Pentalog’s quality management system has achieved certification to the internationally recognized ISO-9001:2008 quality standard for its services. I would like to thank the entire Pentalog team for this, but especially Aleth who has been a tireless, reckless and courageous moderator of this policy. Two tasks were to be accomplished. First, to raise all our systems to high requirement levels and standardize them. But Pentalog is a very solid business which had already been working on building a strong organization for a long time before certification.

- mixed centralised/decentralized system for production management (European offices / production department)

- low cost production system, which belongs to the top-30 nearshore companies in Europe

– sales and recruiting system operating in a “process” mode.

We had to be particularly convincing on this last aspect during the audit. We had high-level auditors in front of us, who knew our field of activities very well and who could be rightfully surprised by a system that claimed to sell consulting services electronically and through blogs, using a transparent means of communication on prices and competences. This was a big surprise for the auditors as well as for Pierre de Thélin, who supported us. What about the recruiting process based on joblogs, chatrooms, emailings, social networks and online testing… roughly the same reaction.

Pentalog and the French Standardization Office (AFNOR) have just proved that the ISO standard could be applied to a WEB 2.0 company, with hundreds of contributors. The other way round, this proves that the WEB 2.0 can comply to 100% with usual requirements of the standard, in terms of best practices and continuous improvement of our efficiency in order to enhance customer satisfaction. We will see it in a couple of months, but I believe Pentalog has made a great progress where no one would have imagined: in flexibility! We’ve just received the final decision, but our certificate is dated December 24, 2008!

I congratulate you all for your efforts. A big thank you from the bottom of our hearts to Aleth, Aymeric and Pierre. Happy New Year to all of you!

One of our top 5 clients, Parrot, relying on almost 30 of our contributors full-time, has renewed its confidence in our services for 2009. This information is not insignificant and this did not seem obvious, considering the current difficulties affecting the automotive market. Certainly, Parrot is a multi-market specialist in Bluetooth technology, with products used within both your home and your car, but this company is at the heart of the great industrial challenge in the automobile sector.

The entire Pentalog team thanks this innovative company for the great relations we have as we start the third year of collaboration. We are very proud of the Pentalog team working with Parrot. Many of them can now develop their careers within some of our prestigious teams. The mutual challenge of Parrot and Pentalog Technology has been met!

This question comes to my mind from time to time. Why do we put online the CVs of ALL our members? Moreover, why do we identify them by publishing their CVs? I see a couple of answers. First, it is a marketing choice because IT consulting companies (offshore or not) only exist thanks to their team. We prove that Pentalog is a human, social and personal reality. I personally hate smooth corporate images that can be seen on our competitors’ websites, showing “united-colors-type” faces that only exist in Hollywood. It is irritating, how alike their websites look! However, no software activity is possible without the gathering of individuals.

But it is even worse in the offshore business. I know dozens of companies that employ less than 10 persons, using the same photo galleries as big-sized companies’ websites and thus end up resembling them. They are kind of cheating. I love the Minsk or Bengalore-type company websites showing a tall, dark-skinned, female consultant, next to an Asian IT manager and two Wall Street bankers… Eventually this emphasizes that we are different and shows the reality of our forces, either to potential clients or to our employees. Especially in the offshore business, companies have to prove their human and social reality. Also, it is a means to give all our potential clients the possibility of building a real offshore team. The videos, when available, may also help. Finally, I am considering the idea to organize some sort of Pentalog social network, made of all the personal CVs of our team members, linked with each others by practical case studies, and to find this network among the most accurate public social networks, as a group of skills. We are not far from this now.

With this economic crisis which get’s day by day more serious, I believe that it is crucial to foresee, after a first period potentially favourable to the low cost production modes, that these countries will also be affected by the economic slowdown. The Indians already know it since many giants have already reduced their workforce by 10% or more.

A number of our colleagues, Romania and Moldova, working for the U.S. or the UK (countries with an already major offshore maturity), know it. What should do the IT specialists in order to prepare themselves for the crisis? I see two key strategies: choosing an employer who knows how to manage his risk portfolio and to upgrade his versatility.

1. Choosing an employer with a strong commercial dynamic: many projects, many clients, frequent opening of new projects, multiple geographic origins, avoid companies too specialized or sector niche. Prefer outsourcers to software editors. Choose multi-specialized companies. Prefer a developing start-up on non-mature offshore markets (France, Germany, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux..). Does this remind you of such a company? However, I truly believe in it. It’s an old technique spreading the risk. Although probably no sector will be spared by this crisis, some are more concerned than others.
2. Be more versatile: the IT specialists from low cost countries are often specialized to idiocracy. They are frequently trained by Microsoft during University (through partnership programs). They are often convinced that we can not be Java when we are dotnet or otherwise. Often they confuse language and technology. We recently had to let go two people REFUSING Java training. Can you believe it? An IT specialist saying “no” to training. As if their whole career will use only one language! Or that being trained to Java will exclude them from other Microsoft projects! I am on my third economic crisis since the beginning of my career. The one of 92-95 (after a burst of real-estate bubble), the one of 2002-2004 (the Internet burst bubble). We innovate today with a banking crisis. All I can say to everybody is that those who have crossed the most difficult years were those who knew best to move from one folder to another, no matter the language they used. It’s pure arithmetic, since there are fewer projects, we must be more agile to be part of it. We don’t choose a language as we were choosing our religion. Personally, I am very proud that I can speak French, English, German and Romanian and this allowed me to multiply by 3 the geographical origins of our client projects and likely to increase by 3 the commercial signatures. It’s the same thing with Java, PHP or Dotnet. Knowing several languages is certainly a way forward to the positions of manager and management techniques. Add that what I say about the languages may also be extended to different specialties: DBA, Business Intelligence …

The question now is at what point would the economics of IT offshore be affected by this storm, but its violence has surprised many countries in only a few days. Its spread is staggering. Therefore, it seems more appropriate to prepare before being affected! We belong to a profession that eludes most of the time more unemployed than others, but you must know that this rate has exceeded 10% for several months in the early 2000s! Offshorers, nearshorers, developers, analysts, administrators, let’s prepare for the storm! Maybe this will scare it off!