Fort-Ross celebrates its third anniversary
Sep 26, 2002
Fort Ross Information Technology Services (www.fort-ross.ru), a consortium of 20 largest information technology companies in Saint Petersburg, Russia, has presented results of its past 3 years activities.
Three years ago, the founders believed that the main goal of creating a consortium was "to unifying resources of relatively small Petersburg-based providers in order to be able to serve large accounts", as said A.Terekhov, the CEO of LANIT-Tercom (www.tercom.ru) and one of the inventors of the idea, at the press conference held at the Fort-Ross office on September, 12. Today, with more than 1,500 highly qualified and professional software engineers, Fort Ross has achieved his goal, but the scope of Fort-Ross activities is much broader. As Nick Puntikov, the CEO of STAR SPB (www.star.spb.ru), has commented: "The experiment was a success. I always believed that Fort-Ross (or any other industry association) should not lobby any privileges, but should work on building Russian brand in software outsourcing. The main problem which we've been facing for ten years, which we are in this business, is that Russia had close to zero recognition in the field. I guess Fort-Ross has managed to increase Russia's brand awareness as a country where we can find high qualified software development resources."
Fort-Ross, which was the first outsourcing industry association in Russia, undoubtedly, has done a lot. The association has conducted an active marketing and promotional campaign in Baltic region, Scandinavia and Finland, including ten marketing tours of Fort-Ross delegation, and published ten articles in leading specialized editions. Fort-Ross actively participated in various exhibitions such as Comdex Nordic, CeBIT and OutsourceWorld London, representing interests of Russian companies by organizing joint Russian stands under the umbrella of the association.
Software Outsourcing Summit, held by Fort-Ross in 2001 and 2002, became the largest IT event of this kind both in Russia and Eastern Europe. The first Summit gathered over 300 participants from Europe, Asia, America and Africa, the second - over 450. Fort-Ross supported and promoted such joint international projects as TACIS Cross Border Cooperation, the Danish-Russian project Mind-Match, the EU project Adonis.
Fort-Ross members gained real benefits from their membership, like more than 20 new clients or training courses on SEI CMM. As Mr. Puntikov added: "There were several benefits that we've got from our membership in Fort-Ross. Particularly, with their assistance we've passed a CMM pre-assessment by Quality Assurance Institute and now we are heading for the CMM Level 3 status."
Fort-Ross has actively cooperated with RUSSOFT National Software Development Association (www.russoft.org). The joint projects included the Russian Pavilion at OutsourceWorld London 2002 and Software Outsourcing Summit 2002. In May 2002, Fort-Ross took part in the work of the Russian-American round-table discussion about IT, which RUSSOFT was the co-organizer.
In the nearer future, Fort-Ross plans to increase his relationship with US-market. Few events are already scheduled, like the second session of Russian-American round-table about IT in November 2002, the first IT road show of Russian companies in early November 2002 in New-York, and series of events on US East coast in April 2003, where RUSSOFT and Russian Digital Alliance will attend together. By the way, Fort-Ross is also hoping that the new portal of Virtual Alliance of Russian IT Associations (www.russia-software.com) will become a huge interaction tool between foreign customers and Russian companies.
Vera Semenova, the Fort-Ross CEO and Valentin Makarov, the ex-President of Fort-Ross (recently nominated as the President of RUSSOFT) have kindly agreed to answer our questions:
O-R.com: What did Fort-Ross achieved according to their original goals? As I always guessed, Fort-Ross positioned itself as a showcase for Petersburg-based providers, or even more, as an integral company able to undertake projects, which are not feasible for any single Fort-Ross member? Was the idea productive? Do you feel that this approach has a potential? For example, certain market players, as well as scientific circles, actively promote the idea to create a special coordination center under the supervision of the Russian Academy of Sciences that will attract and distribute projects for the whole market.
VM: The vector of Fort Ross activity was slightly different. What you mean was a long-term goal. For the very beginning we were playing more a role of PR and marketing agency for St-Petersburg software developers community. The major problem for Russia was the total unawareness of foreign customers about outsourcing opportunities in Russia and there were big prejudices against Russia. In these conditions, the first thing was to break all these barriers and then to reach few small projects for our members. After several successful results, we could proceed to bigger projects, which needed to be distributed among our members. Together, we have had 4 major directions:
VS: Trough these three years, the main goal of Fort-Ross has been the same - to represent the leading Petersburg-based providers, which capable to unite their efforts in order to undertake large projects. Along the time, Fort-Ross has acquired much more experiences on unifying resources to work on big projects. We are sure that without being members of the same consortium, without regular meetings in both formal and informal situations, our members wouldn't know each other and work together on developing large and complicated projects.
So, such approach has a big potential. From one hand, we do have to cooperate as any Russian company is able to work by them self on a large project due to lack of human resources. From another hand, Petersburg-based providers are able to offer a unique combination of skills and competencies which is hardly possible within one, even large, company, but which can be demanded by a single client or within a single project.
Thus, instead of cooperating with several providers, with additional overheads, the client works with one, like Fort-Ross.
Meantime, such approach, as we believe, is possible only when providers are located in one geographical region. Otherwise a consortium becomes a kind of middleman between distributed, non-connected vendors.
O-R.com: The foundation of Fort-Ross as well as other industry associations is an evidence of the market consolidation. Some people think that these kind of associations are a sign of maturity, but others think that it's a consequence of several weaknesses. What do you think about it?
VS: Definitely, it's a sign of maturity. I guess that consolidation is not a demonstration of weakness, but a result of perception of the weaknesses. When market players start to understand, in which direction should they move all together, and what positive experience should they share with each other, then it is the beginning of maturity.
VM: I used to hear about existence of such views but never met the arguments themselves. It sounds very strange. Let's look at the situation in all big IT nations. There are companies who are the biggest in the World and SMEs, all of them are united in associations. Business needs to be united in order to defend positions of the industry in the country, to lobby Parliament and Government for its interests. To add that Associations execute a number of functions which separate companies are unable or less effective to do (such as informational support, organization of participation in the international events, meetings with leaders of the industry, etc). There are no doubts that creation of RUSSOFT, SIRIUS, APKIT or similar is a very important sign of maturity.
O-R.com: The idea of exhibition within the Software Outsourcing Summit appears to be very productive. Today, three months later, how do you value the results?
VS: The exhibition and match-making are always the most interesting parts of the program, as they result in real contacts and contracts. We are always glad when a contact becomes a contract. I can definitely say, that at least two long-term contacts have been already signed. I guess there will be more, as summer vacations make negotiations longer. Anyway, we are going to publish Summit success stories on our website as well as at Outsourcing-Russia.com.
O-R.com: Vera, I understand that you've got very good working relations with RUSSOFT. What is your attitude towards foundation of several same type associations? I guess that your experience is very useful for the followers. Are you ready to share this experience?
VS: Competition is the key driver in business; it makes all old and new Associations to be creative and useful for their members. Now we are entering in one of the most interesting periods in Russian IT-Associations life, so I would like to emphasize that we do not consider Fort-Ross as a competitor to any of the Associations, but a partner.
We are a member of RUSSOFT, so our good working relations are officially confirmed. We have started to cooperate with Inforus in certain projects. We plan to participate in joint events with APKIT and we hope to contribute our experiences in organization of such events. We are always ready to share our experiences with existing, as well as with future associations, no matter which region of Russia they represent.
O-R.com: - I know that Fort-Ross has a big expectation about his new project VARITA. Could you please tell us about the plans and the development of this project? Is this project intended to make a profit?
VS: VARITA consists of both commercial and non-commercial parts. This is a joint project of RUSSOFT and Fort-Ross, where the main goal is to unify all the companies who are involved in software development in one information field. Today, VARITA is the largest Russian online community of software companies, regrouping more than 210 members. Not all of them will become RUSSOFT members, but each company has the opportunity to know the latest news, to participate in the on-going projects, and through this, understand the benefits of being a member of RUSSOFT.
The second goal is to show to the potential clients the real size of the Russian outsourcing industry. The commercial part of the project is B2B marketplace focusing on small and urgent IT-projects, hence, it is mostly for small and midsize providers. This is very important for small teams of developers. From the other hand, we do not exclude that the marketplace at VARITA will attract larger projects in the future. As I understand, this is the first marketplace where providers are Russian companies only, what distinguish it from others.
O-R.com: Mr. Makarov, the next Software Outsourcing Summit will be held under the umbrella of RUSSOFT. How do you view the further development of this main Russian outsourcing event?
VM: I don't have a definite answer to this question. We have just begun. Two years are still too short time to make conclusions. We continue to make experiments. But I may mention several estimations:
VM: The experience gained by Fort Ross was vital for the creation of NSDA (later RUSSOFT). That was the very first successful example of cooperation among competing software developing companies, which united their resources for solving common problems.
Fort Ross has also created a mechanism for joint presentation of Russian companies inside and outside Russia. "Software Outsourcing Summit", "Russian Pavilions" arranged by Fort Ross at CeBIT, Comdex-Nordic, OutsourceWorld London - have created acknowledged reliable labels for presenting Russia worldwide. But Fort Ross could never become all-Russian Association. We have even never formulated such a goal. Still, Fort Ross has also created an example of regional organization ready to cooperate with National Association as its representative office in the Region. Conception of Regional Policy adopted by the Board of RUSSOFT - is just development of Fort Ross experience. We, at RUSSOFT will spread Fort Ross case study for creating RUSSOFT representative bodies in all major Russian IT regions. And not only in Russia! For example, InfoPark Association from Belarus is becoming RUSSOFT member in September 2002 - the Regional conception became international. About your question on Moscow alleged domination in RUSSOFT - all depends on regional members and on effectiveness of RUSSOFT. Due to the Conception of Regional Policy, Regional representatives will have additional power within the Association enhanced by the right of veto attributed to the Council of Regional representatives. By the way, Moscow companies are really aware and interested in the growing power of RUSSOFT, which will be unable to become stronger without involvement of new regional businesses. Moscow companies in the Board voted for the Conception of Regional Policy unanimously, that is a very good sign of maturity. Now, everything will depend on our effectiveness.
By the way, now, the disadvantages of being far from Moscow are strongly decreasing by the use of modern technologies such as teleconferences. IT is growing now and we are the first generation who uses it in different ways in our life. So, all distances disappear.
O-R.com: Thank you!
Three years ago, the founders believed that the main goal of creating a consortium was "to unifying resources of relatively small Petersburg-based providers in order to be able to serve large accounts", as said A.Terekhov, the CEO of LANIT-Tercom (www.tercom.ru) and one of the inventors of the idea, at the press conference held at the Fort-Ross office on September, 12. Today, with more than 1,500 highly qualified and professional software engineers, Fort Ross has achieved his goal, but the scope of Fort-Ross activities is much broader. As Nick Puntikov, the CEO of STAR SPB (www.star.spb.ru), has commented: "The experiment was a success. I always believed that Fort-Ross (or any other industry association) should not lobby any privileges, but should work on building Russian brand in software outsourcing. The main problem which we've been facing for ten years, which we are in this business, is that Russia had close to zero recognition in the field. I guess Fort-Ross has managed to increase Russia's brand awareness as a country where we can find high qualified software development resources."
Fort-Ross, which was the first outsourcing industry association in Russia, undoubtedly, has done a lot. The association has conducted an active marketing and promotional campaign in Baltic region, Scandinavia and Finland, including ten marketing tours of Fort-Ross delegation, and published ten articles in leading specialized editions. Fort-Ross actively participated in various exhibitions such as Comdex Nordic, CeBIT and OutsourceWorld London, representing interests of Russian companies by organizing joint Russian stands under the umbrella of the association.
Software Outsourcing Summit, held by Fort-Ross in 2001 and 2002, became the largest IT event of this kind both in Russia and Eastern Europe. The first Summit gathered over 300 participants from Europe, Asia, America and Africa, the second - over 450. Fort-Ross supported and promoted such joint international projects as TACIS Cross Border Cooperation, the Danish-Russian project Mind-Match, the EU project Adonis.
Fort-Ross members gained real benefits from their membership, like more than 20 new clients or training courses on SEI CMM. As Mr. Puntikov added: "There were several benefits that we've got from our membership in Fort-Ross. Particularly, with their assistance we've passed a CMM pre-assessment by Quality Assurance Institute and now we are heading for the CMM Level 3 status."
Fort-Ross has actively cooperated with RUSSOFT National Software Development Association (www.russoft.org). The joint projects included the Russian Pavilion at OutsourceWorld London 2002 and Software Outsourcing Summit 2002. In May 2002, Fort-Ross took part in the work of the Russian-American round-table discussion about IT, which RUSSOFT was the co-organizer.
In the nearer future, Fort-Ross plans to increase his relationship with US-market. Few events are already scheduled, like the second session of Russian-American round-table about IT in November 2002, the first IT road show of Russian companies in early November 2002 in New-York, and series of events on US East coast in April 2003, where RUSSOFT and Russian Digital Alliance will attend together. By the way, Fort-Ross is also hoping that the new portal of Virtual Alliance of Russian IT Associations (www.russia-software.com) will become a huge interaction tool between foreign customers and Russian companies.
Vera Semenova, the Fort-Ross CEO and Valentin Makarov, the ex-President of Fort-Ross (recently nominated as the President of RUSSOFT) have kindly agreed to answer our questions:
O-R.com: What did Fort-Ross achieved according to their original goals? As I always guessed, Fort-Ross positioned itself as a showcase for Petersburg-based providers, or even more, as an integral company able to undertake projects, which are not feasible for any single Fort-Ross member? Was the idea productive? Do you feel that this approach has a potential? For example, certain market players, as well as scientific circles, actively promote the idea to create a special coordination center under the supervision of the Russian Academy of Sciences that will attract and distribute projects for the whole market.
VM: The vector of Fort Ross activity was slightly different. What you mean was a long-term goal. For the very beginning we were playing more a role of PR and marketing agency for St-Petersburg software developers community. The major problem for Russia was the total unawareness of foreign customers about outsourcing opportunities in Russia and there were big prejudices against Russia. In these conditions, the first thing was to break all these barriers and then to reach few small projects for our members. After several successful results, we could proceed to bigger projects, which needed to be distributed among our members. Together, we have had 4 major directions:
- marketing and PR of Fort Ross and St Petersburg as a major center of highly qualified outsourcing companies. Providing marketing services to our members;
- lobbying Government in the interest of the IT cluster;
- introduction of modern QA and PM standards within Fort Ross members;
- reaching investments for our members and for their projects.
VS: Trough these three years, the main goal of Fort-Ross has been the same - to represent the leading Petersburg-based providers, which capable to unite their efforts in order to undertake large projects. Along the time, Fort-Ross has acquired much more experiences on unifying resources to work on big projects. We are sure that without being members of the same consortium, without regular meetings in both formal and informal situations, our members wouldn't know each other and work together on developing large and complicated projects.
So, such approach has a big potential. From one hand, we do have to cooperate as any Russian company is able to work by them self on a large project due to lack of human resources. From another hand, Petersburg-based providers are able to offer a unique combination of skills and competencies which is hardly possible within one, even large, company, but which can be demanded by a single client or within a single project.
Thus, instead of cooperating with several providers, with additional overheads, the client works with one, like Fort-Ross.
Meantime, such approach, as we believe, is possible only when providers are located in one geographical region. Otherwise a consortium becomes a kind of middleman between distributed, non-connected vendors.
O-R.com: The foundation of Fort-Ross as well as other industry associations is an evidence of the market consolidation. Some people think that these kind of associations are a sign of maturity, but others think that it's a consequence of several weaknesses. What do you think about it?
VS: Definitely, it's a sign of maturity. I guess that consolidation is not a demonstration of weakness, but a result of perception of the weaknesses. When market players start to understand, in which direction should they move all together, and what positive experience should they share with each other, then it is the beginning of maturity.
VM: I used to hear about existence of such views but never met the arguments themselves. It sounds very strange. Let's look at the situation in all big IT nations. There are companies who are the biggest in the World and SMEs, all of them are united in associations. Business needs to be united in order to defend positions of the industry in the country, to lobby Parliament and Government for its interests. To add that Associations execute a number of functions which separate companies are unable or less effective to do (such as informational support, organization of participation in the international events, meetings with leaders of the industry, etc). There are no doubts that creation of RUSSOFT, SIRIUS, APKIT or similar is a very important sign of maturity.
O-R.com: The idea of exhibition within the Software Outsourcing Summit appears to be very productive. Today, three months later, how do you value the results?
VS: The exhibition and match-making are always the most interesting parts of the program, as they result in real contacts and contracts. We are always glad when a contact becomes a contract. I can definitely say, that at least two long-term contacts have been already signed. I guess there will be more, as summer vacations make negotiations longer. Anyway, we are going to publish Summit success stories on our website as well as at Outsourcing-Russia.com.
O-R.com: Vera, I understand that you've got very good working relations with RUSSOFT. What is your attitude towards foundation of several same type associations? I guess that your experience is very useful for the followers. Are you ready to share this experience?
VS: Competition is the key driver in business; it makes all old and new Associations to be creative and useful for their members. Now we are entering in one of the most interesting periods in Russian IT-Associations life, so I would like to emphasize that we do not consider Fort-Ross as a competitor to any of the Associations, but a partner.
We are a member of RUSSOFT, so our good working relations are officially confirmed. We have started to cooperate with Inforus in certain projects. We plan to participate in joint events with APKIT and we hope to contribute our experiences in organization of such events. We are always ready to share our experiences with existing, as well as with future associations, no matter which region of Russia they represent.
O-R.com: - I know that Fort-Ross has a big expectation about his new project VARITA. Could you please tell us about the plans and the development of this project? Is this project intended to make a profit?
VS: VARITA consists of both commercial and non-commercial parts. This is a joint project of RUSSOFT and Fort-Ross, where the main goal is to unify all the companies who are involved in software development in one information field. Today, VARITA is the largest Russian online community of software companies, regrouping more than 210 members. Not all of them will become RUSSOFT members, but each company has the opportunity to know the latest news, to participate in the on-going projects, and through this, understand the benefits of being a member of RUSSOFT.
The second goal is to show to the potential clients the real size of the Russian outsourcing industry. The commercial part of the project is B2B marketplace focusing on small and urgent IT-projects, hence, it is mostly for small and midsize providers. This is very important for small teams of developers. From the other hand, we do not exclude that the marketplace at VARITA will attract larger projects in the future. As I understand, this is the first marketplace where providers are Russian companies only, what distinguish it from others.
O-R.com: Mr. Makarov, the next Software Outsourcing Summit will be held under the umbrella of RUSSOFT. How do you view the further development of this main Russian outsourcing event?
VM: I don't have a definite answer to this question. We have just begun. Two years are still too short time to make conclusions. We continue to make experiments. But I may mention several estimations:
- it is sure that we would decrease the number of sections, concentrating them more on business related activities;
- it is sure that the exhibition and the match-making areas will take more place in the Summit. The combination of exchanging point of views and providing opportunities for direct contacts with customers seems to be the major achievement of the Summit;
- probably we will need to work more effectively with analytical agencies in order to be ready on providing the audience with the most recent and specialized reports about the tendencies of the World and Russian market;
- we would continue to work on outsourcing, but probably, we will develop more IT products;
- as for the year 2003, we would commit ourselves to provide better opportunities for our participants to see the City at its 300 Anniversary.
VM: The experience gained by Fort Ross was vital for the creation of NSDA (later RUSSOFT). That was the very first successful example of cooperation among competing software developing companies, which united their resources for solving common problems.
Fort Ross has also created a mechanism for joint presentation of Russian companies inside and outside Russia. "Software Outsourcing Summit", "Russian Pavilions" arranged by Fort Ross at CeBIT, Comdex-Nordic, OutsourceWorld London - have created acknowledged reliable labels for presenting Russia worldwide. But Fort Ross could never become all-Russian Association. We have even never formulated such a goal. Still, Fort Ross has also created an example of regional organization ready to cooperate with National Association as its representative office in the Region. Conception of Regional Policy adopted by the Board of RUSSOFT - is just development of Fort Ross experience. We, at RUSSOFT will spread Fort Ross case study for creating RUSSOFT representative bodies in all major Russian IT regions. And not only in Russia! For example, InfoPark Association from Belarus is becoming RUSSOFT member in September 2002 - the Regional conception became international. About your question on Moscow alleged domination in RUSSOFT - all depends on regional members and on effectiveness of RUSSOFT. Due to the Conception of Regional Policy, Regional representatives will have additional power within the Association enhanced by the right of veto attributed to the Council of Regional representatives. By the way, Moscow companies are really aware and interested in the growing power of RUSSOFT, which will be unable to become stronger without involvement of new regional businesses. Moscow companies in the Board voted for the Conception of Regional Policy unanimously, that is a very good sign of maturity. Now, everything will depend on our effectiveness.
By the way, now, the disadvantages of being far from Moscow are strongly decreasing by the use of modern technologies such as teleconferences. IT is growing now and we are the first generation who uses it in different ways in our life. So, all distances disappear.
O-R.com: Thank you!