Ed Freed, Managing Director Web: www.codeworldwide.com          www.technologyformarketing.net Head Office: London, United Kingdom & New York, USA Ciklum Service: Own Team Team size: 20 IT specialists Technologies: .NET, Flex

About Code-Ciklum Partnership

In the summer of 2008 Code started to look for a way to expand our development team, but at the same time we needed to look at the cost involved in doing so. So the decision was made to look in to the possibility of outsourcing.

We researched different variants and found that Ukraine, specifically Ciklum, offered the best solution for us. Initially we were looking into a traditional project-based outsourcing partnership into Russia and India, but that did not offer us the flexibility and control we needed. We develop product sets and we wanted to establish a long-term relationship with the people that would be developing our products. We wanted to keep the knowledge in house and not waste time and money for every new project specification and every time getting used to new people working for us.

Thus Ciklum was a perfect match for our needs, whom we learned about through our network. Specifically we heard of Ciklum from one UK company that has already being using their dedicated team model and was quite satisfied with the results. Obviously we have looked into outsourcing with other Ukrainian providers, but due to Ciklum's good references, their team model being excellent match to our needs, and positive and reassuring impression with the company during our initial visit to Kiev, we thought that this should be our long-term partner.

During our first visit to Kiev we did an extensive research into the various locations we were offered to set-up our team in Ukraine at. In the end, we chose to set-up our nearshore team in Dnepropetrovsk instead of Kiev or other Ciklum's locations for 3 reasons:

1. It always had a strong academic background because of the city's industrial background in space and missile technologies. (Frankly, we are quite proud of our employees being sons and daughters of the Rocket scientists).
2. It is the 3rd largest city in Ukraine; which means a healthy market size for IT resources, where employees typically have long careers with employers, thus they are not as much in to changing jobs.
3. Availability of flights from London via Vienna. We have done direct trips to both Kiev and Dnepropetrovsk, and travelling to Dnepropetrovsk is only about an hour longer. Another key advantage is the airport. The airport in Kiev can be very crowded whereas the airport in Dnepropetrovsk is small and comfortable.

While starting up with 3 software developers and slowly expanding our nearshore team to 20 employees, Dnepropetrovsk has shown to us the following advantages:

• Ciklum offices have uniform high standards with plenty of room for expansion.
• Every time we needed new members on our team Ciklum was able to quickly present us with a good pool of candidates suitable to our expectations.
• Whilst our experience with Ciklum services across the board has been very good, we felt more comfortable to be part of a smaller branch relative to Kiev. We feel we get an excellent level of service from Svetlana Yefimova, the branch's manager and her team. They show a good understanding of our needs and the team. It almost makes me want to keep it a secret!

So with the support of Ciklum's Dnepropetrovsk team we now have a team of 20 developers on board. At the beginning, we started out with a team of 3 people and being quite positive about the experience we quickly grew to 5 within the first 4 months. Then in January 2009 our then PM moved to Australia, but that was not a problem, since Ciklum found us a new one, that have proven himself to be a real gem. Together with a new PM on our team and Ciklum by our side we felt really comfortable in further expansion. Our current size is not the end; we feel pretty strongly that if everything goes according to the plan we will soon have new additions.

We see our team in Dnepropetrovsk alongside our offices in London and New York as our Ukraine office. It is truly "Code Ukraine" and is treated as such; it just happens to be located remotely. This is a big difference from traditional project-based outsourcing where we would be seen just as "the client".

So in a few words; starting up a team with Ciklum doesn't always mean Kiev, I can highly recommend Dnepropetrovsk – they are all about keeping it small, and still providing highly competent IT people and excellent service. Ciklum's office in Dnepropetrovsk offers its clients many hidden gems, including very importantly highly skilled and dedicated team members at a cost that is 50-70% lower than in the UK.

Reference date: January 2010

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