Project Title: Co-developing applications with a leading global provider of telecommunications software and services

The Challenge

The strategic challenge in the long haul was to become an offshore extension of the large U.S. based software development company and to assume the role of a capable software development powerhouse committed to quality and to guaranteed delivery of services. With stringent rules defining the software development process, unique corporate management style and tradition, a diverse heritage of several generations of telecommunication support systems (ranging from mainframe based to modern systems utilizing the J2EE technology), the customer was expecting Artezio to live up to these standards. Among important issues that must have been considered was the fact that products to be modernized had been interwoven into complex production systems deployed by dozens of wireline, wireless, and broadband operators. Their transition to new technology must have been made as smooth and possible for them and their subscribers. Artezio had to make a commitment to deliver results in a consistently prompt manner in order to minimize the overhead of splitting projects and tasks and outsourcing them to the external provider.

On a more specific level, there were quite a host of challenges which Artezio had to tackle to make the large scale outsourcing operation a success. They spanned many aspects of the software development cycle and included improvements in communication, support of required high degree of data backup and security, and knowledge of emerging, modern and legacy industry standards and protocols. Last, but not the least, knowledge of telecommunications network hardware by various equipment manufacturers was essential.

On the technical side, the challenge was to modernize several existing operations support systems, network management and productivity applications, migrate away from stovepipe and loosely integrated system architecture, and come up with scalable and interoperable applications with a common data model and GUI. These building block applications were to be able to be seamlessly integrated into arbitrary open standard and policy enabled solutions ready to use by telecom operators. As Keith Willetts, TeleManagement Forum Chairman, put it, while addressing the operators who wish to succeed in today"s competitive markets, "Stop building software in-house, or modifying COTS products – you will end up with a creepingly expensive "market of one". Make your processes fit the system, not the other way around." Creating systems that the operators can use to build their processes around is a challenge for independent software vendors and their global sourcing partners such as Artezio.

The Solution

To address the challenge from the organizational standpoint Artezio and its partner decided to setup a software development center in Moscow, Russia, which would be solely dedicated to the described tasks with its own permanent staff, a comfortable facility, modern equipment and other resources. As it was provisioned in a service level agreement, there were periods when Artezio was expected to quickly ramp up or ramp down the size of the dedicated team to satisfy additional workforce demand or to accommodate temporary downsizing as requested by the partner. Dealing with legal, tax, logistical and payroll issues on the Russian side was Artezio responsibility. Artezio started the ODC with a team of 5 developers, and in two years ramped it up to over 35 people.

Artezio as a company also had to undergo a significant organizational change to better meet the demand of its high profile partner and also in order to sustain overall corporate growth and be able to balance workload among other large scale projects from other customers. Several departments and groups focusing on various aspects of software development and business administration have been organized out of a loosely structured team of developers, testers, project managers, administrators, and sales personnel. Based on technology, Artezio software development arm was split into a Java shop focusing on J2EE projects and a group f

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