Outsourcing of complex programming jobs requires utmost care while selecting an outsourcing partner. A partner should be able to help you assemble a team of skilled and result-oriented developers. Skills, technology expertise, and approaches generally vary from one outsourcing destination to another. So, before selecting an outsourcing company, you first need to decide on the country. If your project implies resolving serious problems, complex coding and building sophisticated algorithms, you have come to the right place. Russian programmers are widely recognized as leading specialists in these fields. While other countries are good at writing code and they get the job done, “when it comes to writing complex computer programs, the Russians are absolutely tops," says Steve Chase, president of Intel Russia.

The simple reason for this is the free higher education available in Russia. It seriously increases the number of qualified graduates. The Russian education system is remarkable for its strong focus on developing mathematical and engineering skills. That is why Russian computer programmers are well known for their sophisticated mathematical skills, as well as for their strong computer science and engineering backgrounds. According to World Bank statistics, Russia ranks third in the world for per capita number of scientists and engineers, but ranks #1 in the world in the number of scientists and engineers involved with complex Research and Development projects.

Russian students have won the top four places in 2008 International Inter-Collegiate Programming Contests. In total wins, two Russian Universities rank right after Stanford University and California Institute of Technology. Overall, Russia ranks second only to the U.S. in the number of contests won.

This technology expertise of Russian developers makes them very attractive to companies planning to outsource. Large technology firms, such as Dell Computer, Intel, Siemens and Motorola have already established development centers in Russia. Boeing, General Electric, IBM and Citigroup are among the companies that outsource complex software projects to Russia.

Obviously, companies often start out by outsourcing simple projects, such as Web-based application development, finance and accounting, supply chain management, e-commerce, e-mail and messaging systems. Once a successful relationship is established, then these same companies will outsource more complex projects such as database systems, wide-area networks, or large-scale Web sites.

Large scale and complex projects are characterized by evolving project specifications as the implementation progresses. This requires developers to be more than just coders; they must also be problem-solvers. They need the ability to give a clear estimation of the amount and complexity of work that needs to be done. “Indians always report the best possible scenario and the Russian firms always the worst possible scenario. The customer felt the Russian approach was more appropriate for high-risk projects,” says AMR Research analyst Lance Travis.

Russian and Indian software development companies are often compared in terms of their ability to develop innovative and complex software projects. The objective of any software project is to find a solution to a business problem. Therefore, the service provider needs to have creativity, business acumen, flexibility, and the ability to work when not all project details are specified. Some analysts say that Indians are more skilled in the field, while others have experienced quite the opposite. According to Daniel Marovitz, the Deutsche Bank's COO of technology for global banking, "Most Indian firms are very process-focused and, if something can be 'template-ised', then that's very good. Things like Six Sigma and ISO are part of their DNA, but that doesn't lend itself to innovation. For innovation, testing new ground with new software, Russia is a pretty good place."

This great talent pool of Russian developers, with their strong mathematical background and technology expertise, makes Russia the number one choice for outsourcing your complex projects. Find out for yourself. Give us a small project, and soon you will be asking us to help develop innovative and non-standard software solutions.

In the IT sphere, high quality of a product heavily depends on the abilities of its creators. According to many analysts, the number of companies that decide to outsource their search for high quality developers is increasing. That is why we will start our blog post series by looking into the quality of the technology resources that can be found in Russia.

As the Business Line columnist Vipin V. Nair notices, “Russia draws its software strength from its enormously talented pool of people.” In Russia, the abilities of IT developers are significantly enhanced by an extremely strong educational system, which is recognized all over the world. While, for example, “In India, students learn generic software skills, Russian students are taught advanced mathematical and computing techniques, which allows them to perform hard-core technical work,” says Vipin V. Nair. More than 40% of university degrees in Russia are in technology and science.

Russian software companies do not miss the opportunity to leverage that great manpower. According to a research paper by Market-Vision / EDC, 77.4% of Russian software companies employ PhDs, and in 45.8% of those companies, PhDs make up 10% or more of their staff. So by dealing with Russian outsourcing vendors, you get the opportunity to benefit from employing these highly educated engineers.  

Russian developers’ strengths are recognized by local market tech circles and global ones as well. A 2006 study by the FCREUE, the Haas School of Business and the UniversityCalifornia concluded, “In terms of education and experience with complex software development tasks, Russian programmers are likely to outrank all others.” of

Most analysts stress that very capability of Russian developers to manage tasks of high complexity and to find fresh and groundbreaking solutions to knotty problems. “Exceptionally well-educated developers who can perform extremely complex jobs, and a great understanding of engineering and financial services domains, are core strengths of Russia's outsourcing industry,” remarks William Martorelli, principal analyst at Forrester.

According to another study run by by Ernst & Young, Russia beats several other outsourcing locations in terms of skills and training of its IT workforce. You can see Russia’s top position from this table.

One of the ways for specialists to prove their knowledge and skills is to partake in high-profile contests. Russian technology students regularly win international programming contests. Russia has won the world's most prestigious competition, the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) International Collegiate Programming Contest, 5 times over the last 10 years. For comparison, the USA has taken the first place only once over the same period, while India has not appeared on the top of this contest at all.

When reading this article, you may think, “Well, the Russian resources are talented, but their number is probably more limited to choose from, than, for example, in India.” Then here is some data for you. As it is written in the paper on BRIC layers by Economic Research from the GS Institutional Portal, Russia, being almost 80% smaller by population than India, its main competitor, produces even more tertiary graduates (16,765 graduates in Russia to 16,095 in India). In per capita terms, Russia has by far more graduates when compared to India (115 graduates per capita in Russia to 16 graduates per capita in India). As for technical PhDs, Russia has almost as many of them as Germany does and even in absolute terms leaves India far behind (about 12,000 technical PhDs in Russia to about 5,000 of them in India). Russia also outranks India in the number of workers with tertiary qualifications in science and engineering. Thus, you are sure to find in Russia enough specialists for all your projects to be realized.

“McKinsey Quarterly” asserts that despite that the Chinese and Indian economies develop rapidly, their economy systems have strong barriers to growth.
At first sight India and China are very different: China’s main traits are a powerful banking sector and larger population while India’s strength is its equity market. Their financial systems also have different histories and evolutions. India’s financial and economic systems formed when they were still a  part of the British Empire. Their strong banking system is mostly due to Britain. China’s financial system formed in the second part of the twentieth  century when its government proclaimed a liberal course of economic development.
 

These two different countries with their differing economic systems have one common trait: a strong government sector that allows authorities to intervene in market evolution and influence the allocation of capital. As a result economy growth slows down. Chinese state-owned enterprises receive the lion’s share of investments in order to fulfill the plan of employment. The Indian government expends large sums for development of agriculture and the defrayal of the fiscal deficit.  In return private companies of both countries receive less investment and hold in the development. McKinsey suggests that China and India should create innovative financial systems that will increase efficiency and widen investment opportunities.
 

Different sources prove that Russia has a strong private sector and rich opportunities for investment; so many analysts suppose that this country is safe from crisis. Further development of the Russian economy may be reached by professional management, the growth of productivity and nonintervention of government. Russia has major potential of growth, especially in the IT sector that grew by nearly 20% in 2006. In absolute indexes Russian IT market yields to China and India in this industry. On the other hand, the IT sector, especially offshore outsourcing, grows rapidly. So in the nearest future Russia intends to occupy the deserved place in this sphere.

Let’s see what we leave behind from the past year.

So, the landscape for outsourcing marketplaces is rapidly changing; with many new job web-sites appearing to change on daily basis. Software Development Outsourcing marketplaces provide people with a convenient opportunity to find new outsourcing business partners.

As Russian service providers have enjoyed long-term relationships with their clients and acquired adequate knowledge about their business, from a long-term perspective, the Russian IT stands to gain. From a demand viewpoint, the size of the offshoring pie is increasing--larger deals are flowing offshore, and more global organizations are coming to Russia to evaluate and finalize their outsourcing strategies. However, as offshoring has evolved, customers and vendors have discovered the benefits of improved processes and service quality as equally important factors in the choice of an offshore location.

"They come for the price, but stay for the quality" is the mantra which many offshore providers currently subscribing to. Today besides cost and quality, some of the other driving factors for offshoring are aspects like easy access to technical talent, flexible work practices and the ability to use different time zones. Creating 24-hour processes, which were previously limited to certain parts of the day, access to highly qualified and motivated staff diversifies an organization’s work culture and additionally assists in the improvement of service quality.

Today, there are multiple options for structuring an offshore arrangement for achieving financial and IT transformation objectives. The four preferred outsourcing models are: captive unit, build-operate-transfer (BOT), joint venture and dedicated offshore development center.

Joint venture is a model wherein a client and an offshore supplier set up a joint venture vehicle, which will predominantly service the client's business. Both the client and the JV partner share the risk and the revenues resulting from the operations.

Though each model has its pros and cons, businesses must choose a stand-alone model or a hybrid structure to maximize the benefits of offshoring and aligning the offshore initiative to their business model.

Clearly, there is no one fit for strategy. It is the consulting skills of the vendor and the client's desired end result that will result in the evolution of the offshoring model to meet business requirements.

In addition, economic and regulatory frameworks over the last few years have resulted in several emerging challenges for organizations. Such dynamic considerations have made it imperative for them to assess the financial viability of their IT portfolio, so that they can address the changes in a business scenario in an effective manner and optimize returns on investments in existing applications as well.

Who we are

Murano Software is a rapidly growing software outsourcing company. Since 2001, we have specialized in assembling and managing dedicated offshore teams of talented Russian engineers. With corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, CA, and software development centers in Russia, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, Murano Software is firmly established on two continents. Murano offers services including software development (.NET, Java), web-design, testing and QA.

Why we are starting a blog

We have worked in the sphere of IT-outsourcing since 2001. We spend lots of time analyzing the global and Russian outsourcing development markets. Unfortunately, today there is not much information available on Russia’s market, which is a huge disappointment as Russia is the country with great potential. Russia has good technical schools that have a strong focus on math and physics. There is also an abundance of software programmers with expertise in research and development, so we can develop innovative IT solutions. Large cities have good infrastructure, and the country also has very active software associations that provide information to potential customers and make their knowledge gathering process easier. The education sector has undertaken several IT initiatives that will churn out thousands of software programmers in the future

What will this blog cover?

Therefore, we have decided to start our own blog to provide useful and interesting information about IT outsourcing in Russia.

Who’s it for?

We hope that our blog will be useful to people who want to work with Russian developers and for those who want to know more about IT outsourcing in Russia.