How to Buzz about IT Outsourcing in the U.S.

Discussing IT Outsourcing in the heart of Silicon Valley: Prudence or Audacity?

This February at Digiteum was filled to the brim with preparations, appointments assigning and warming up. In particular, we were packing for the U.S. trip to Chicago and San Francisco to visit and contribute to a couple of business events. Here’s how it was, from my personal notes.

Shortcuts:

1. Trip to the U.S.: What was going on in Chicago
2. VentureShot event wrap-up: Funding Feeding Frenzy Awards named the best
3. San Francisco: Meetings, connections, cocktails
4. MeetUp on IT Outsourcing: Where to get the basics on SmartSourcing

February 25. A couple of days before the trip

This Guardian post about Mem Fox who was interrogated by the U.S. border control made me a bit nervous. The trip to the U.S. is just a few days away, and I’m about to confront U.S. guards myself. I keep my fingers crossed.

February 28. Hey there, Chicago, haven’t seen you for a while!

Mark Twain said that Chicago is a Lady and “She is Novelty.” I say, Chicago today is a mature business mistress.

The quantity of events, meetings, streams, connections, small talks, business related and not so much per one single day make you sweat. Apart from numerous business meetings, it was FFF that caused great deal of “the move” this time.

March 2. Funding Feeding Frenzy Awards

At the event held by VentureShot Digiteum was represented by
your humble narrator and Alex Golod.

Quick intro: FFF is the place where startups meet their potential investors, explain their breaking ideas trying to sell them, and get rated after hot panel discussions.

Alex Golod attended the discussion as an active speaker, investor, panellist, and business advisor, while I was holding on to the position of a curious observer and listener with my own backgrownd and points of view.

Startups and established companies, in their turn, performed at their best, since that was the true place to show off. Givenly, FireZone, FoodJunky, GrassPass, IntoxiCakes Chicago, NovoMoto, See Jake and Jane Train, Social Scene to name a few shared their unique ideas as if putting their cards on the table.

For example, Firezone — an interactive team-building project that has already passed proof of concept point and moved to its scale up stage — illustrated it’s ideas visually.

Others have put stakes on our appetite. Here’re delicious ideas by IntoxiCakes Chicago, presented by Kamilah White.

In the end, the awards and eventually investments went to the strongest ones, while we moved on with eager discussions and more business talks.

March 6. Welcome to San Francisco!

“Live in California once, but leave before it makes you soft” (Chicago Tribune columnist, Mary Schmich)

Indeed, San Francisco is a true city to make you soft, as in soft vs. impervious. This is possibly the reason why it was worth to hold the event on IT Outsourcing here.

No, seriously…

Also, Silicon Valley is here, of course.

March 8. MeetUp on SmartSourcing to Central Eastern Europe in the middle of Silicon Valley

To hold a meetup on such a tricky topic we’ve chosen the heart of Silicon Valley. It’s not that we expected the whole tech community to show up. Still, it appeared a bit symbolic, and extremely convenient, of course.

First things first, we had 4 speakers assigned for this event:

• Alex Golod, the member of Digiteum advisory board and confirmed outsourcing expert (think of the development teams for Navteq/Nokia, Frontrange, Addus, and Popcorn Palace) was supposed to hold the panel discussion on the topic and take up all the tricky questions.
• Roman Kaplun — Director of Engineering Services at Expedia — was in charge of the buyer’s point of view on outsourcing to CEE.
• Brian Venneman was introducing outsourcing to CEE in such industries as music, social media and e-commerce.

Educate your target market that CEE exists and is being successfully utilized as a global sourcing destination (Brian Venneman)

• And finally, I was in charge of providing the basics on the IT outsourcing and sharing exclusive experience of building remote dedicated teams for such companies as AdoramaPix, Oxford University Press, IKEA, Efinancialcareers, Ladbrokes from the providers’ side.

In a nutshell, the panellists— CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, tech professionals — have found the answers to the basic questions regarding the fears and insecurities that businesses have while choosing a remote partner.

• What to outsource and what not to outsource?
• How to prepare one’s business to working with the teams remotely?
• How not to get lost among various partnership models and locations?
• Why to choose this particular partner, what legal procedures to go through?
• What platforms and technologies to rely on and how to manage projects?
• Where to search for realistic prices and deadlines?
• How to predict quality, results, outcomes and perspectives?

Soon after we went through the basics, we sit down to panel discussion, and this is when Alex took the speaking part into his expert hands. For the records, it took an additional hour to go through all the pointing issues.

Not only did the attendees study the development technologies in CEE with scrutiny, but also expressed great interest to the places where one can find reliable tech partners.

Here’s the full presentation to learn more…

Choosing among CEE destinations, we have made a profound analysis on Belarus as an outstanding outsourcing destination ourselves earlier this month. Here are the post that explains this point in details and infographics on Belarus as a tech hub.

Reviewing the Outcomes of the Event

-Was SmartSourcing MeetUp a success?

-Considering the set of opinions and multilevel discussion — investors, providers, advisors, buyers — we managed to perform out this time. So it definitely was a success.

-Was SmartSourcing MeetUp on time?

-I make this conclusion relying on the opinion of Megan Smith, former Google executive, who mentioned that “there’s going to be 1.4 million tech and I.T. jobs coming within the next decade [in the U.S.] and only 400,000 trained people to fill them.”

In other words, the demand for IT talents in the U.S. only is going to grow exponentially, so as the interest to outsourcing to the IT locations that provide outstanding quality. Basically, this is the answer. I suppose we were right on time.

If you have missed the event for some reasons or haven’t had a chance to learn about IT Outsourcing basics, GO TO THIS CHECK-LIST to find out if your business is ready to rely on IT outsourcing. Contact us directly and talk with Digiteum experts about your tech talent shortage and needs.