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Offshore and nearshore IT services company: Online estimate generator no longer available on the Pentalog site
It was indeed one of the key functions of the Pentalog Group’s website galaxy and one of our main differentiating aspects in the context of the transparency policy introduced in 2008 with our first free download services catalog. Nothing is ever perfect, but we have thus unified our pricing practices, and pricing on a case-by-case basis, as all consultancy and outsourcing businesses usually do, has never been practiced by Pentalog.
We are equally aware of the fact that, thanks to this practice, we have brought our contribution to structuring offshore prices in Europe, North Africa and the Far East. Many of our competitors used this system to check their prices and adapt them according to the Pentalog scale. In this respect, we have played a special commercial role, even ethical. Downloading the catalog and using the estimate generator have amounted to 1,500 visits per month only for these functionalities!
But, our work has been accomplished by now, the offer is mature, and we now wish to provide such transparency to our “real” customers, partners and prospects only. In fact, our sites have been continuously copied in particular, but not only  by British, Romanian and Tunisian companies for some time. They have systematically copied our services: offer design, recruitment, commercialization and pricing processes, etc.
Therefore, we have created a very user-friendly Web2.0 space which will enable us to control the distribution of our higher value contents and to deliver our quotations, to manage project and client-teams, contracts, etc. Based on electronic document management, it will also be equipped with conversational features close to those existing on professional social networks.
Thus, in the coming days, our good old price catalog will be available again in PDF format and it may be downloaded by real customers, partners and prospects, with real identities checked via our services portal. There are also contract models, ISO-compliant quality assurance plans , our future white papers, as well as the updates of all our project documents.
So, please pay attention, this space has already been open for all the aspects related to project management for existing customers and a few prospects. But, starting with next week, we are going to launch our updated price catalog which contains no fewer than 25 new services and competence types. In the following weeks, there will be summaries of Project Quality Plans, the services catalog and the training sessions provided by Pentalog Institute, the offshore white paper, then those related to e-commerce and embedded systems, etc. All these launches will be announced beforehand on our blogs, social networks and newsletters, and they will be available to all those who do not simply call themselves website looters. 
€300,000 profit sharing between 36 Pentalog employees!
In 2011, Pentalog has taken the extraordinary initiative to invite all the employees who started working for the company in 2005 and a few outstanding employees who joined the company after this date to take part in an unprecedented event. Together, these employees have acquired 92% of the capital belonging to one of the most flourishing IT companies in Europe! All the participants invested in the company’s share capital by buying shares at their 1993 price! This unprecedented operation has enabled about 20 more people to attend the General Assembly. The dividend paid several months later granted them a 50% “refund” of their investment! Obviously, shareholding situations are eventually different from one another, as several employees hold less than 0.5% of the capital (however, this amounts to a theoretical value between €100,000 and €200,000) and I have reached 28%. But that’s the spirit! Certain people have cashed several thousand euro since their first participation. I am very proud of this operation which makes Pentalog stand out from other companies, in developing countries and elsewhere. In my view, there is no concrete way to better reward company loyalty. The company founders felt great joy on this occasion!
IT offshore press review week 45/2011
E-financing, geolocation marketing, mobility, M2M.. just a few of the subjects of this week’s IT offshore press review. Enjoy!
- E-financing : a new market on the shoulders of e-invoicing (November 7, 2011, CFO News)
- The Benefits Of Geolocation Marketing (November 7, 2011, Forbes)
- Apple To Make Billions On Google’s Android (November 4, 2011, Forbes)
- Wi-Fi tethering 101: Use a smartphone as a mobile hotspot (November 4, 2011, Computer World)
- Is the offshore contact centre honeymoon over? (October 31, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Does Oracle’s Larry Ellison care about open source and Java? (November 6, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- IT operations in Malaysia could offer the near China experience (November 4, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Mobile Goes Data Mad (November 7, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Android handsets top hardware failures list (November 5, 2011, ZDNet)
- Asia-Pacific to become largest M2M market in 2013 (November 3, 2011, M2M Now)
- Are wireless sensor networks and energy harvesting coming together? (November 3, 2011, M2M Now)
- Enterprise Social Software: What Businesses Need to Do Next (November 3, 2011, CIO)
- Can You Trust One Outsourcing Provider to Manage the Rest? (November 4, 2011, CIO)
- Gartners Top 10 Technologien für 2012 (November 7, 2011, CIO)
- Informatik-Studium wieder gefragter (November 4, 2011, Inside IT)
- Wie man mehr aus BI herausholt (November 3, 2011, Computer Woche)
- Starke Tools für die Private Cloud (November 2, 2011, Computer Woche)
- 38.000 freie Stellen für IT-Fachkräfte (October 31, 2011, CIO)
IT offshore press review week 43/2011
Enjoy the best articles of the IT offshore press review!
- What Google+ Brand Pages Could Look Like (October 23, 2011, Mashable)
- Forrester: Tech Changes to Expect in Next 3 Years (October 21, 2011, Computer World)
- Study reveals sectors boosting investment in IT outsourcing (October 19, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- ICT sustainability maturing in APAC (October 21, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Pyramid predicts growth for cellular M2M (October 24, 2011, M2M)
- Private Social Networks Playing Facebook Role in More Workplaces (October 20, 2011, CIO)
- Gartner: the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2012 (October 18, 2011, CIO)
- Salesforce.Com to ‘unlock’ SAP’s Core Software for ’social Enterprises’ (October 21, 2011, CIO)
- A Strategy for Gaining Maximum Value from Cloud and Mobile in Your Business (October 22, 2011, Silicon Angle)
- Gefragte IT-Experten für 2012 (October 24, 2011, CIO)
- Agilität als Schlüssel zu Business Intelligence (October 24, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Weniger High-Tech-Gründungen in Deutschland (October 20, 2011, Silicon)
- Weltweite IT-Budgets steigen (October 19, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Trotz Konjunktursorgen: Firmen investieren weiter in IT (October 18, 2011, Silicon)
- Punktlandung Outsourcing – der Vertrag macht das Projekt (October 17, 2011, Silicon)
IT offshore press review week 42/2011
The best articles of the IT offshore press review. Enjoy!
- The $20 Billion Upset (October 13, 2011, Forbes)
- Transfer your MobileMe account to Apple’s iCloud service (Octobre 13, 2011, IT World)
- The limits of Agile: Emergn CEO on Universal Credit (Octobre 14, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Businesses told to work better with education to plug critical IT skills gap (Octobre 14, 2011, Computerweekly)
- PC vendors tie innovation, strategies to consumerization (Octobre 12, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- IT Outsourcing Survey: Provider Profits Shrink, Growth Slows in India (Octobre 11, 2011, CIO)
- Best Buy Rebuilding IT Capability it Outsourced, Starts Hiring (Octobre 11, 2011, CIO)
- What is a ‘Connected Device,’ and Why Does it Matter? (Octobre 14, 2011, TMCNet)
- NFC telecom’s next big thing? (Octobre 3, 2011, Business Review)
- Semiconductor inventories are rising (October 10, 2011, Electronics Weekly)
- 10 Schritte zur Outsourcing-Strategie (October 17, 2011, CIO)
- Die 15 häufigsten IT-Fehler (October 17, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Deutschlands Hightech-Exporte legen zu (October 12, 2011, CRN)
- Deutschland exportiert mehr ITK-Technik (October 11, 2011, Automotive IT)
IT offshore press review week 41/2011
Fresh news! Everything about the offshore IT here on Pentablog, but also on our Pentalog Fanpage!
- Technology industry figures pay tribute to Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs (October 6, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Are Western IT services providers letting the Indians in for a second time? Or is it just IBM and Accenture? (October 6, 2011, Computerweekly)
- 5 tips to manage risk in mega IT projects (October, 5, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- User-generated reviews tricky but rewarding (October 7, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Oracle reveals social network for business (October 10, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Cloud Computing: 3 Tips for Overcoming Implementation Anxiety (October 5, 2011, CIO)
- IT Outsourcing: Study Ranks Best Nearshore Locations for U.S. Customers (October 6, 2011, CIO)
- Two-Thirds of Firms Send Jobs Offshore, Survey Shows (October 4, 2011, CIO)
- Die Outsourcing-Pläne der CIOs (October 5, 2011, CIO)
- Was freie IT-Projektleiter auszeichnet (October 4, 2011, CIO)
- Weltwirtschaft stottert, Rezessionsgefahr steigt (October 4, 2011, e-Fund Research)
IT offshore press review week 40/2011
The fresh IT offshore press review. More articles on our Facebook fanpage. Stay in touch!
- Cloud Computing’s Hidden ‘Green’ Benefits (October 3, 2011, Forbes)
- Government moves to ease security restrictions stifling cloud and open source (September 30, 2011, Computerweekly)
- What identity management strategies should enterprises deploy for cloud environments? (October 3, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Buyer’s Guide: Social networking adds another layer to CRM practices (October 3, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Ten developments that will transform IT outsourcing (September 29, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Facebook’s New Timeline: Important Privacy Settings to Adjust Now (September 29, 2011, CIO)
- 9 Hot IT Skills for 2012 (September 29, 2011, CIO)
- How to Craft a Mobile-Application Strategy (September 28, 2011, CIO)
- 6 IT-Jobs mit Zukunft (October 2, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Die Besser-Verdiener (October 1, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Cloud Computing wird verschwinden, die Idee nicht (September 30, 2011, Silicon)
- 10 Massnahmen zur Reduktion der IT-Kosten (September 29, 2011, Inside IT)
- Deutschland wird attraktiver für IT-Firmen (September 27, 2011, Automotive IT)
IT offshore press review week 39/2011
Best articles of the week put together in the IT offshore press review. Don’t forget you can also meet us on Facebook!
- Google+ Gains on Facebook (September 23, 2011, Forbes)
- Software testing should be in partnership with third parties (September 22, 20111, Computer Weekly)
- Facebook tracks you online even after you log out (September 25, 2011, ZDNet)
- Six Crucial Tech Companies You’ve Never Heard Of (September 23, 2011, CIO)
- H-1B, B-1 Visa Scrutiny Threatens IT Outsourcing Providers (September 22, 2011, CIO)
- Deutsche Wirtschaft auf der Kippe (September 22, 2011, Financial Times Deutschland)
- 8 Beziehungstipps fürs Outsourcing (September 26, 2011, CIO)
- IT-Berater wollen zweistellig wachsen (September 23, 2011, Automotive IT)
- IT-Standort München: Wie sich Softwarehersteller behaupten (September 23, 2011, ZDNet)
- 25 gefährliche Programmierfehler (September 22, 2011, CIO)
- IT-Outsourcing gewinnt an Bedeutung (September 22, 2011, Silicon)
- Die IT-Wirtschaft plagt sich mit Nachwuchs-Sorgen (September 22, 2011, WinFuture)
- IT-Firmen haben keine Angst vor einer Flaute (September 20, 2011, Automotive IT)
IT offshore press review week 37/2011
- University challenge: using IT to improve services and reduce costs (September 08, 2011, ComputerWeekly)
- How to write a contract to protect you against out of control IT projects? (September 09, 2011, ComputerWeekly)
- 9/11 Continues to Influence IT Strategy (September 08, 2011, CIO)
- How To Mitigate Risk in an Overheated Outsourcing Market (September 09, 2011, CIO)
- Cloud Computing: What You Need to Know About PaaS (September 08, 2011, CIO)
- Amazon/Kindle Part 7: The End Of The Road For Outsourcing? (September 09, 2011, Forbes)
- Deutscher Wirtschaft droht Einbruch Ende 2011 (September 08,2011, FTD)
- Kampf um Neukunden beginnt (September 12, 2011, CIO)
- Womit verdienen Firmen in zehn Jahren ihr Geld? (September 09, 2011, Computer Woche)
- Green IT: So viel Strom genehmigt sich Google in einem Jahr (September 09, 2011, NetzWelt)
- Fukushima-Schock schiebt Cloud Computing an (September 06, 2011, CIO)
IT offshore press review week 35/2011
Here’s the IT press review for this week!
- Air-cover: Innovation’s secret ingredient (August 29, 2011, Forbes)
- Google to shut down Slide social apps (August 26, 2011, Computerworld)
- Lack of soft skills training is curbing IT career progression (August 26, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Organisations failing to implement hypervisor security, says cloud supplier (August 26, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Gartner figures show BPO contracts on the rise with Asia Pacific suppliers in the lead (August 22, 2011, Computer Weekly)
- Chinese Android startup offers low-cost, high-spec handsets (August 29, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Should You Sue Your Offshore Outsourcing Provider? (August 26, 201, CIO)
- The 1st Annual Telematics Brazil & LATAM will Discuss the Way Forward for Telematics Market (August 26, 2011, M2M)
- Cloud-based infrastructure provides connections for M2M (August 29, 2011, M2M Now)
- Cloud wird die vorherrschende Disziplin (August 29, 2011, CIO)
- Die Hürden zum Enterprise 2.0 (August 26, 2011, CIO)
- Social-Media-Knigge für Arbeitgeber (August 29, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Der Mittelstand bleibt bei Unified Communications skeptisch (August 24, 2011, ZDNet)
- 10 junge IT-Firmen, die jeder Surfer kennen sollte (August 23, 2011, Netzwelt)
IT offshore press review week 33/2011
It’s a new week, it’s a new selection. Here’s the new IT press review! I hope you will enjoy it!
-Indian Outsourcers See Opportunity in U.S. Credit Downgrade (August 8, 2011, CIO)
-10 Cloud Management Companies to Watch (August 8, 2011, CIO)
-Are government IT leaders prepared for fight with System Integrators over SME contracts? (August 15, 2011, Computer Weekly)
-Hundreds of outsourced IT staff in government could soon walk out on strike (August 15, 2011, Computer Weekly)
-If banks can put down their weapons and share their toys any industry can (August 15, 2011, Computer Weekly)
-Consumerization of IT: Lessons for enterprise applications (August 12, 2011, Computer World)
-Preparing for the real costs of cloud computing (August 15, 2011, Computer World)
-Deutschland auf drittem Platz in Europa (August 11, 2011, Manager Magazin)
-Softwareplattformen aus der Cloud (August 13, 2011, Computer Woche)
-Energiewende: Ohne Informationstechnologie kein Strom www.silicon.de (August 12, 2011, Silicon DE)
-Krise trifft auch IT-Investments www.silicon.de (August 10, 2011, Silicon DE)
-Welche IT-Skills gefragt werden (August 8, 2011, CIO)
-IT schafft noch mehr Arbeitsplätze www.automotiveit.eu – (August 8, 2011, Automotiveit)
IT offshore press review week 31/2011
Here’s our selection of the best IT press articles. Enjoy!
-Dell: Cloud won’t damage IT jobs (July 29, 2011, IT Pro)
-Cloud CRM: The Politics of Data Ownership and Control (July 28, 2011, CIO)
-Outsourcing shakes off recession (July 28, 2011, IT Pro)
-SSDs are fast, but do they last? (July 29, 2011, ZDNet)
-How Cloud Computing Will Change IT: 6 New Predictions (July 29, 2011, CIO)
-Why IT Outsourcing Deals Are Getting Smaller (July 27, 2011, CIO)
-Tech Talk 40 – BT, Government IT and EMC (July 29, 2011, Computing UK)
-Java skills now most in demand (July 27, 2011, Computing UK)
-Mozilla to launch mobile OS (July 27, 2011, Computing UK)
-Ostdeutsche Wirtschaft legt nur langsam zu (July 26, 2011, Focus DE)
-Wie IT-Verträge besser werden (August 1, 2011, Computer Woche)
-Fachkräftemangel bremst IT-Wachstum (July 27, 2011, CRN)
-6 wichtige Skills für IT-Führungskräfte (July 26, 2011, CIO)
-Gute Konjunktur zieht ITK-Ausgaben nach oben www.silicon.de (July 26, 2011, Silicon DE)
-ERP im Mittelstand: Die Konsolidierung bleibt aus www.zdnet.de (July 25, 2011, ZDNet)
The Hanoi office has a new director
Pentalog began its Vietnamese adventure in 2009. For 2 and a half years, the office was managed by Tuan Nguyen Quoc. A great team of 60 people is in charge of several customer projects (Altadis Imperial Tobacco, Sierra Wireless, Active System, Lexware, People Centric, Anevia etc.) or internal projects. Moreover, a team of 8-10 people will start a project for another important client in September.
This growing trend is only just starting. Our Asian strategy requires that we take steps forward, as part of a company development process which will have a special focus on the Asian market.
All multinational companies made this choice a long while ago, as the economic dynamism of the region cannot be ignored.
In the scope of this new organization, Marc Charbit has taken over the management of the Hanoi office. He joined the company at the beginning of June and spent his first weeks at Pentalog in the Romanian and Moldovan offices and at the Orléans headquarters. He is a young French manager with international experience in one of the top 5 French IT companies. He moved to Vietnam 5 years ago and has developed a strong relationship with this country, considering that he even learned the language. Like all valuable Pentalog employees, he is multilingual. He speaks Vietnamese, English, German, Slovak and, of course, French. He will play a major role in implementing the quality policy and preparing the Hanoi office for the ISO certification.
Welcome Marc! A great challenge lies ahead of you!
IT offshore press review week 28/2011
I choose to start this week’s IT press review with an article dedicated to offshore/nearshore. ComputerWeekly’s conclusion is that most companies choose to take their business to Eastern Europe. If you are interested in this subject don’t hesitate to take a closer look to our own analysis of the most common offshore/nearshore destinations.
-Why more businesses are nearshoring in Eastern Europe (July 6, 2011, Computer Weekly)
-Government cloud project is ‘re-energised G-Cloud’ (July 7, 2011, IT Pro)
- When IT Meets Politics (July 9, 2011, Computer Weekly)
-What do Google execs know about Google+ privacy that you don’t? (July 8, 2011, ZDNet)
-Is M2M the Answer for Job Stimulus? (July 6, 2011, M2M)
-Summer Camp for Enterprise IT: Bolster Your Team’s Skills (July 7, 2011, CIO)
-Indian Programmers vs. American Programmers: Whose Code Is Best? (July 6, 2011, CIO)
-The Captive Model for Offshoring Is Thriving, Says Research Firm (July 8, 2011, CIO)
-Ausverkauf der deutschen Industrie www.wiwo.de – (07 July, WIWO)
-Die besten Systemhäuser – (July 10, Computer Woche)
-E-Commerce auf dem Weg – (July 7, Computer Woche)
-Deutsche Firmen lagern geschäftskritische Prozesse aus – (July 6, CRN)
-In den Software-Fabriken Vietnams www.inside-it.ch – (July 6, Inside IT)
IT offshore press review week 24/2011
It’s a new week, it’s a new selection. Here’s the new IT press review! I hope you will enjoy it!
- Must-have data center utilities: Picks by IT pros (June 13, 2011, Computerworld)
- Java standards process to get an upgrade (June 13, 2011, Computerworld)
- Open Data Center Alliance publishes IT user requirements for cloud services (June 8, 2011, Computerweekly)
- IT services market back to healthy growth by 2013 (June 14, 2011, Computing)
- IT Value Is Dead. Long Live Business Value (June 12, 2011, CIO)
- How to Manage IT Spend (June 10, 2011, CIO)
- CEOs put block on cloud migration plans (June 13, 2011, IT Pro)
- Der deutsche Markt für Software und Services wächst wieder (June 9, 2011, CRN)
- Zehn Fragen zu Cloud Computing (June 10, 2011, Computerwoche)
- CIO-Jury: Passen Lizenzen zu Cloud und Virtualisierung? (June 9, 2011, Silicon)
- Die 25 größten Software-Anbieter (June 6, 2011, CIO)
IT offshore press review week 23/2011
Here’s our selection of the best IT press articles.
- Does technology have to look good? (June 3, 2011, CNN)
- IT Manager Numbers (June 6, 2011, Computerweekly)
- local government offshoring head of steam building and I think Serco knows it? (June 3, 2011, Computerweekly)
- IT workers in local government braced for offshoring avalanche (June 2, 2011, Computerweekly)
- France bans Facebook and Twitter from radio and TV (June 4, 2011, ZDNet)
- Asian startups need connections, clear vision (June 3, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- Silicon Valley still top location for IT professionals? (May 25, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- ERP-Strategie auf dem Prüfstand (June 6, 2011, CIO)
- Weniger Outsourcing in der Schweiz (May 31, 2011, Inside IT)
- Die Top-Prioritäten der CIOs 2011 (June 1, 2011, CIO)
- Cloud: Wie weit sind Anbieter und was planen Anwender? (May 30, 2011, ZDNet)
- So zahlungskräftig sind die Staaten (June 3, 2011, FTD)
Offshore technological resources: Pentalog has the necessary capabilities in terms of acoustics, video processing, electronics and Datacenters
Connected microscopes, network crash test devices, oscilloscopes, an acoustic chamber, a TV studio, an editing system and video mixing consoles, 10 local and central datacenters, an ergonomics and design laboratory, satellite antennas, online stores, a steering room etc.
Pentalog, an IT services company, is equipped with incredible technological assets which allow it to continually improve its production. Of course, not all of this equipment is ours, but it enables us to gradually master it and, eventually, extend the field of our knowledge.
What other European IT services company oriented towards engineering or consulting can boast an acoustic chamber destined for the needs of mobile phone companies, a TV studio and multimedia laboratories and mobile features designed for our e-commerce customers? Except on our clients’ premises, I have seen this type of technological configuration only in major Indian companies which are ages ahead of Western European engineering companies. The latter continue to offer only man-hour-based services, whereas clients expect a genuine engineering solution which is fully integrated and industrialized.
Pentalog is now a technologically-rich multi-specialist firm, which collaborates with major companies and uses Open Source solutions, and is capable of providing a lot more than just code and third-party software maintenance services, without of course underestimating these activities  . Thus, we can make product or service demonstration films, edit video sequences, produce augmented reality, but also test consumer electronic products, simulate M2M environments, test satellite connections, measure the quality of video servers, generate network crash tests, develop all the software layers of a mobile phone.
In all cases, we use the best specialists in the countries where we operate, who feel that Pentalog offers a rich environment for personal fulfillment. At a time when the focus is on convergence, Pentalog represents a great tool for its employees and helps its customers understand and deploy the most daring multi-channel strategies.
From corporate videos to webTV
Pentalog started becoming a 2.0 company as early as the year 2000 and perhaps even before that. Open capital, figures made public, transparent strategy, openness for all employees, all of this was implemented more than 10 years ago. The web has played a vital role in this strategy and, without this technological revolution, I don’t think it would have been possible to build such a company. Everything from sales to recruitment goes through the web channel which is continually expanding and supports more and more sophisticated productions.
In this respect, our fourth web policy, materialized through the launch of www.pentalog.com V4 in September 2010, was to offer more animations, as well as video images. Our videos have been viewed more than 66,000 times and we have had our own Youtube channel for several months. We have already produced over one hundred videos.
Nevertheless, neither the quantity, nor the quality are sufficient. We are therefore launching an internal webTV equipped with a set and professional technical resources. It will produce two types of content: on the one hand, corporate videos for meeting the company’s immediate objectives (related to sales and HR) and, on the other hand, talk shows on complex subjects discussed with professional guests. The shows will be produced by Pentalog TV and perhaps by other specialized web channels, as well.
The Iasi center has been chosen to host the set, for several reasons. First of all, it is a dynamic site which regularly receives Pentalog clients. Secondly, it hasn’t hosted any of the company’s cross-department functions before. We have now accomplished this. Finally, the center can be reached by plane from Bucharest and Vienna and is greatly used by our German customers.
The pilot productions have been filmed this week. They feature developers, Project Managers, an Office Director and technical experts of the company. A complete list of shows has been drawn up. We now need to create an editorial department, credits etc.
As for the meeting of our corporate objectives, the use of the video channel had become vital. Try, for instance, to search for “SSII offshore” (offshore IT service company) on Google and you will find a Pentalog video that offers a visit to the Brasov office at the beginning of the second page (www.pentalog.fr is on the first page). Videos are part and parcel of our SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. In fact, videos “give life” to content and highlight project carriers and all participants. After having produced thousands of content items for the semantic web, and even though we will continue to do so, we need to increase the number of our video productions and consider Youtube as a document platform and a search engine in itself. But what I find particularly appealing is the ability to prove the existence and performance of the services and teams of our IT outsourcing company, whereas all our competitors continue to rely on 1.0 technologies and often speak of things that they don’t do or of human and technical resources that they oversize to considerable extents. It is a lot more difficult to cheat using animated images. Images will therefore become vital in creating any type of communication products, including online business cards, success stories or direct recruitment by project teams.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank my friend Lucie Brasseur who is helping us with this project. She offered us both her services and her production equipment. The vivacious host, who is a producer and owner of Twideco TV in Orléans, will allow us to save considerable time. I am extremely grateful to her. We have posted online a first non-edited production of a strategic discussion between Catalin (Iasi Office Director) and I, in Romanian. Even if you don’t speak Romanian, wait until the middle of the video and you will be amused . The collection of bloopers already looks promising 
IT offshore press review week 20/2011
Outsourcing, offshoring. Two tags of this week’s IT press review. I hope you will enjoy it.
- CIOs increase investment in outsourcing and select multiple suppliers (May 13, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Offshoring: 7 Tips To Prepare for India’s Proposed Privacy Rules (May 13, 2011, CIO)
- Limelight Buys Web And Application Acceleration Technology Startup AcceloWeb (May 9, 2011, Techcrunch)
- Can the UK ever match Silicon Valley? (May 16, 2011, IT Pro)
- Should government rely less on outsourcing and have more web developers in-house? (May 13, 2011, Computerweekly)
- Android 3.1: Crowd-pleaser or heart-breaker? (May 13, 2011, ZDNet)
- China top in green tech money (May 9, 2011, ZDNet Asia)
- IT Leaders Forum: Practical next steps in migrating to the cloud (May 13, 2011, Computing)
- Die Trends beim IT-Outsourcing (May 16, 2011, CIO)
- Deutsche Unternehmen sehen bei Offshoring noch Potenzial (May 13, 2011, Silicon)
- Unternehmen suchen Weg in die Cloud (May 10, 2011, Computerwoche)
- Studie: CIOs setzen auf schlanke IT (May 11, 2011, Automotive IT)
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PM Camp in Hanoi
Here is an article that I wrote after the PM Camp that was organized in the Hanoi office last Saturday:
Cornel (Pentalog technical director) and I took advantage of our simultaneous presence in our Hanoi office to organize a new PM Camp (Project Manager Camp) session for 15 project managers / team leaders / future project managers. As a reminder, these sessions which last an entire day (on Saturday) bring together the project managers of a branch office in order to discuss on subjects that concern them directly. We usually talk about organization, quality, customer relations and technical matters. The idea is to provide project managers with the opportunity to present and discuss their problems.
For this new season, we have tried to improve the interactivity of these discussions. Last year, we used to offer a local PM the opportunity to tackle a subject of his choice in addition to other topics that Cornel and I covered.
This PM Camp had the following agenda:
- Agile vs V Cycle
- Case study
- Lean management
- Reminder of the services provided by the technical department and the Incubator
For the first subject, the presentation focused on customer expectations (their desire to start their project quickly, to make changes etc.). For every customer expectation, regarding software development methodologies, I presented the V cycle solution, while Cornel described the Agile method approach. Before going to the next expectation, we asked the participants to vote on the method that they found to be the most suitable to the expectation. All project managers were very active. In the end, the Agile method won (by far), despite the fact that we didn’t favour any method in our presentations.
We will resume this subject in our future PM Camps by changing it a little. We will add a few expectations (we had 11 in our last session) and we are going to use an approach that I saw in an Agile seminar called “Innovation game: Buy a feature”. Every participant receives an amount of money in a fictitious currency, “Penta-Euro” for instance. Instead of the seminar leader choosing a random subject, the participants are the ones who form groups in order to buy the topics they are interested in. This collaboration is specific to the Agile method.
“Case studies” are dealt with by using a collaborative assistance approach. We enumerated a few cases (for example: my client doesn’t want to sign the PQP) and for each of them, project managers could ask questions in order to better define the (possible) problem and then make propositions. Obviously, the purpose of this exercise isn’t to find the right answer, as it doesn’t really exist, but to work on the approach. The discussions on some of these cases were quite intense.
After a Vietnamese meal in a “Bia Hoi”, consisting of deer courses (salad, grilled meat, blood tart etc.), Cornel tackled the subject of Lean Management, thus orienting the discussion towards waste. For each of the types of waste mentioned, project managers could step in and present the cases that they were dealing with. This was another element on which we collaborated well.
In the end, Cornel reminded the participants that the technical department and the Incubator could generate value for them through technical expertise, training and the capitalization of knowledge.
Another novelty of this new PM Camp season consists in ending the sessions with a formal questionnaire on the Project Managers’ satisfaction with regard to this PM Camp: General impression, quality of subjects, applicable values, recommendation and a ROTI (Return on Time Investment). The last point is aimed at determining whether the time spent is worth the investment.
ROTI FOR THIS MEETING!
Value Feedback Lean Thinking! Transparency Courage
“Excellent. This has been a great meeting that I will benefit from. It would have been worth spending a lot more time.”
“Good. This has been a meeting above average. I have gained more than the time that I spent on it.”
“Average. It hasn’t been a waste of time, nothing more than that.”
“ Useful, but it wasn’t entirely worth the time I spent on it. Therefore, I wasted time.”
“Useless. I haven’t gained and learned anything. I really wasted 1 hour!”
We achieved a positive result, with an average of 15.6 / 20.
After a brief analysis, we are satisfied with the interactivity that we had this session. For the following sessions in Europe, we have identified a few small improvements.
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