Outsourcing to Russia Commences in Miami

RUSSOFT Association and Fort-Ross Marketing and Event Agency held the Seventh U.S.-Russian IT Seasons which had New Exclusive concept this year and took place at one of the most beautiful resorts of Miami, on April 23-25th.

The objective of the IT Seasons in Miami was to provide potential US customers with factual up-to-date information that can serve as reliable input towards forging of fruitful relationships with Russian software outsourcing industry. The event gathered 11 leading IT Service Providers from Russia and Eastern Europe and over 25 US Sourcing Decision Makers from various industries including Active Health Management, National Oilwell Varco, TechTeam Global. Inc., United States Government, Zultys Technologies, Riverdeep, Statera, Southwest Water Company.

The seminar was opened by Mr. Alexis Sukharev, RUSSOFT Association board member who overviewed the emerging opportunities for IT cooperation with Russia.

The conference "Russian Development: Strengths and Weaknesses versus India" was hosted by Ron Lewin, Co-Chairman American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, Committee for IT & Telecommunications, who gave of comparative analysis of Russian market with other outsourcing destinations.

Arthur L. George, Principal at Baker & McKenzie, started the conference on Legal Aspects of Software Development in Russia.

IDC leading outsourcing expert Barry Rubenstein also pointed out several strengths of outsourcing to Russia and CEE:

• Access to talented, low-cost workforce;
  
• strong engineering and scientific workforce;
  
• Greater economic and political stability with EU accession;
  
• Continued telecoms and infrastructure investment;
  
• Multilingual skills;
  
• Gateway to Eastern and Western Europe;
  
• More stable labor market than India (less jumping around);
  
• Access to emerging markets with new cost basis;
  
• High quality (CMMi certified) development organizations;
  
• Diverse technology skillsets etc.

This year the common for Russian participants matchmaking format drew attention of US participants. Every participant got the individual b2b pre-scheduled meeting calendar and had the opportunity to view requests, discuss agenda with possible partners before the event that made discussions on spot much more effective.

"It was really fruitful and productive summit, interesting venue. As a vendor I must say that organizers were able to bring exactly those buyers who were interested namely in highly qualified, multi-talented IT specialists which Russia is known for on the outsourcing market. We brought several promising opportunities back and I consider this summit to be a real success," Ivan Ilnitsky, Fortess said.

"The event in Miami clearly demonstrated that the Russian software outsourcing industry has shown significant growth and is now seriously viewed as a major outsourcing destination by potential clients - large U.S. corporations." Alexis Sukharev, Auriga President said. "Such matchmaking events organized by RUSSOFT create an effective and efficient basis for dialogues between prospective clients and service providers, which will lay the groundwork for future cooperation. I would like to emphasize the professionalism and quality of the efforts of RUSSOFT, who arranged the participation in this event of a number of big U.S. corporations seeking partners in the Russian software development market."

About U.S.-Russian IT Seasons

Russian IT Seasons (www.it-seasons.ru) is a matchmaking event where leading Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian software development companies arrange business meetings with top U.S. companies. They share their experience of co-operation and outsourcing. The goal of IT Seasons is to provide a basis for long-term reliable relationships between market players.