Frequently Asked Question About Evozon

General Company Information

The Operational Model

Marketing and Sales Issues

The Pricing Model

Technology – General

Personnel

Intellectual property and data protection

Quality assurance practices at Evozon

Project and risk management

Customers

General Company Information

• What are Evozon’s registered name, registered address, fiscal code and registration code?
• What type of company is Evozon?
• Define the ownership of the company
• What is the size of Evozon?
• How long has Evozon been in existence?
• What is the working language at Evozon?
• How accessible is Evozon’s location for travel?
• Describe the IT environment/infrastructure that Evozon would use to fulfill the customer’s requirements
  

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What are Evozon’s registered name, registered address, fiscal code and registration code?

Registered Name: SC Evozon Systems SRL
Registered Address: Pta Marasti Nr. 44 B1, Bloc 13, Etaj 1, Spatiul comercial 44 B1/B, Cluj, 400609, Judetul Cluj, Romania
Fiscal Code / VAT: RO 18024002
Registry Number at the Chamber of Commerce: J12/3582/07.10.2005
 

What type of company is Evozon?

Limited liability with two equal shareholders
 

Define the ownership of the company

The company is fully owned by Robert Masic and Gabi Cretu, each of them holding 50% of the shares.
 

What is the size of Evozon?

Evozon is the low cost development center of Sesca group, which employs over 750 professionals. Here in Cluj we are 50 people, of which 45 are developers.
 

How long has Evozon been in existence?

Technically speaking, Evozon has been in existence for 3 years. In reality, the company was established in Australia 10 years ago, under a different name.

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What is the working language at Evozon?

English is used for all our communication, which allows us to assign people to projects based on their technical skills alone.
 

How accessible is Evozon’s location for travel?

The international airport in Cluj is 10 minutes by car from our office and offers easy access to many European cities as well as the major Romanian cities. The airport in Cluj is the largest regional airport in Romania after the international airports in Bucharest. There are direct flights from Cluj to a constantly expanding list of European cities that includes London, Barcelona, Valencia, Budapest, Viena, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Munchen, Stuttgart, Bologna, Ancona, Bergamo, Milan, Florence, Rome, Treviso, Verona.

Check All International Destinations from the Cluj Airport

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Describe the IT environment/infrastructure that Evozon would use to fulfill the customer’s requirements.

In Silicon Valley we host our clients development, staging and production systems. We own the hardware and lease space at Market Tower. Below is a table with our hardware from Market Tower.

Function    Specifications
App Server HP DL360; 2 x Xeon 2.8ghz, 6g 140g SCSI 10k, RedHat ES3u5
Dev Server HP DL360; 2 x Xeon 3.4ghz, 6g 300g SATA 7.5k, RedHat ES3u5
App Server HP DL380; 2 x Xeon 3.6ghz, 8g 300g SCSI 10k, VMware ESX Serv
App Server HP DL360; 2 x Xeon 3.8ghz, 8g 160g SCSI 15k, RedHat AS4u4
App Server HP DL360, 2 x Xeon 3.6ghz, 8g 160g SCSI 15k, RedHat AS4u4
App Server HP DL380; 2 x Xeon 3.8ghz, 8g 300g SCSI 15k, RedHat AS4u4
Backup Intel OEM; Intel P4, 500m RAM, 500g ATA, Fedora 4

In Romania we have several servers and dedicated firewalls with redundant network connections and high capacity backup power supplies. The systems here are used for development, then the production ready system images are redeployed to California for testing in a real world environment. We have two optical fiber connections with different network providers to ensure redundancy and BGP routing with 512 IP addresses.

Function    Specifications
Dev Server Tyan 2327; 2 x Xeon 2.8ghz, 5g 1000g 3WARA 10k, RedHat AS4u4
Dev Server Intel OEM; 2 x Xeon 3.4ghz, 4g RAM, 140g SCSI 10k, VMware Server
Dev Server Intel OEM; 2 x Xeon 3.4ghz, 4g RAM, 140g SCSI 10k, VMware Server
Camera Srv Intel OEM; 1 x P6 2.8ghz, 1g RAM, 400g, 4 Camera inputs
Backup Intel OEM; 1 x P6 2.8ghz, 4g RAM, 1000g, DVD

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Evozon’s operations

• What is Evozon’s operational model?
• Are you using any subcontracted personnel?
• How big is a typical project Evozon undertakes?
• Can the nearshore staff travel to the customer’s offices? If so what extra costs are incurred?
• Can Evozon have a core team of dedicated engineers assigned to work as virtual team members under customer supervision?
• Does Evozon have experience in multi-site projects?
• Can Evozon temporarily increase the size of the assigned team in case of emergency?
  
  

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What is Evozon’s operational model?

Evozon has been involved in software development as an offshore development center, a partner in joint ventures (the build, operate and transfer model) or on a project engagement basis.
The former approach prevails and it consists in supplying outsourcing services to other companies either on a project basis or using the time and material pricing model.
Regardless of the approach, Evozon is committed to providing its customers with reliable and repeatable operational services. SLA are carefully established with the customer to create a common understanding about services, priorities and responsibilities. Based on the SLA, service adequacy is periodically assessed and adjustments negotiated.
The process flow in the offshore development center is dictated by the customer, since we do these kind of deals with software houses that prefer to manage the work themselves.
 

Are you using any subcontracted personnel?

We rarely use subcontracted personnel. This happens when do not have all the resources required by a customer within the company and applies mostly to graphic design tasks.

How big is a typical project Evozon undertakes?

We focus on resource intensive, long term projects. Occasionally, when we have spare resources, we also take smaller projects.

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Can the nearshore staff travel to the customer’s offices? If so what extra costs are incurred?

Yes, this is something we are normally doing. The extra costs include travel and lodging expenses, as well as a daily allowance.
 

Can Evozon have a core team of dedicated engineers assigned to work as virtual team members under customer supervision?

This is the model that we prefer and apply as often as possible.

Does Evozon have experience in multi-site projects?

Evozon usually works with software houses (not with the final client).
In these partnerships software houses interact with the final client and gather the rough project specification. We then refine these specifications into detailed specifications and implement the code accordingly. We also do the application design based on the rough specifications. In these arrangements one team is on the software house’s side and one team on our side.
We have also worked on projects where the application was done by the software house, which was selling it to end customers (or just selling the rights to use the application to end customers). In these cases, the specifications were created by the software house, the main team belonged to the software house, while Evozon's team was acting like an extension of that team. We got tasks directly from the project manager and implemented the code.

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Can Evozon temporarily increase the size of the assigned team in case of emergency?

Yes, this is possible. Our policy is to have about 10% of the developers work on internal projects. These people are always available for emergencies. The only delicate situation we can imagine would be when you needed more people than we have unassigned. Our developers accept to work overtime on a temporary basis, so there are ways to meet your most critical and unexpected needs with a notice period of approximately one month.

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Marketing and Sales Issues

• What are your target markets?
• What is your marketing strategy?
• What services is Evozon offering?
• In which industries does your company have professional experience?
• What types of software products has Evozon developed for its customers?
• Does Evozon has its own software products?
• How are you selling and marketing your services and products?

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What are your target markets?

We are targeting mainly software houses from Western Europe (Finland, Sweden, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands, etc), Australia and the USA. IT integrators and software resellers from Romania and Western Europe represent our secondary customer segment.
To software houses we are offering software development services for mobile, web and client-server applications.
 

What is your marketing strategy?

Besides the traditional software outsourcing services we are providing to foreign customers, we will soon start penetrating the Romanian market with software outsourcing services targeting end customers and with products. This method will allow us to get accustomed to new verticals and to build valuable business relationships. It will also help us keep at least 85% of our developers involved in external projects and thus maximize our cash flow.
The employees not involved in external projects will develop products for the Romanian market. Besides distributing the internally developed products, we also wish to act as value added resellers for applications with good potential in Romania.
 

What services is Evozon offering?

• Custom software development
• Application design, development, prototyping
• Web application development
• Mobile application development
• Testing of software applications and mobile phones
• Quality Assurance
• Maintenance and Support
• Consultancy
   

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In which industries does your company have professional experience?

• Electronic commerce
• Telecommunications (mobile devices)
• Advertising
• Travel
• Education
• Health care

What types of software products has Evozon developed for its customers?

Evozon’s product mix includes:

• Mobile phone applications based on Symbian and J2ME
• Document management systems
• Travel reservation systems
• CRM solutions
• CMS (RedDot, Hybris, open source)
• Web Portals, eShops, billing systems, pricing engines
• SMS Messaging, Email Delivery, Email Tracking
• Solution for intellectual property leak detection.

Does Evozon have its own software products?

Yes, we own and sell the following three products:

• EvoTrack - the leading technology in attachment tracking
• EvoMail - email marketing application
• EvoDMS - a professional document management system, ideal for document conversion and storage.
  

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How are you selling and marketing your services and products?

We do direct selling, email marketing, we attend international IT events and trade shows (e.g. CeBIT, Systems, OrbIT, Gartner Outsourcing Summit) and we take part in economic missions organized by the Romanian Ministry in countries such as Finland and Germany. We also rely on our Web site, which has brought important customers that found us by doing Google searches.
We also have an Estonian intermediary who is promoting our services.
Our sales force is currently small, consisting of only 2 persons: the development manager and the sales and marketing manager. We want to employ another person in the near future to help us achieve our goals for the Romanian market.

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Pricing model

• What kind of pricing models you are using?
• How long are the prices valid?
• What are the main drivers of pricing at Evozon?
• Payment terms

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What kind of pricing models are you using?

We prefer the time and material approach, since specifications are rarely precise enough to justify using the fixed pricing model. Furthermore, we have almost never dealt with specifications that suffered no change throughout the project lifetime.
For small projects with very nice specifications we accept the fixed price model.

How long are the prices valid?

We only make rate adjustments at the beginning of the calendar year. For any project that is completed in a single calendar year the rates initially agreed upon remain unchanged.

What are the main drivers of pricing at Evozon?

Contract length, team size, project continuity (the fewer the dead times between projects the better the rates), the level of expertise required, the team structure

The terms and conditions of payment:

The invoice for the last completed stage of the project will be issued within 7 days of the stage completion and mailed with confirmation of receipt.
The payment is made within 15 days of the invoice date, which is mailed on the day it is issued and reaches the partner within 15 days. Overdue payments are charged at a daily rate of 0.12% of the invoice value.
The services performed during the previous month will be invoiced until the 15th of the current month.

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Technology – General

• What is Evozon’s key technology area?
• Evozon’s experience with Java technologies
• What kind of experience do you have in .NET technology?
• Do you have experience with search technologies?
• What type of experience do you have in your company concerning Business Intelligence?
• Do you have experience in Datawarehouse projects? If so, what were the used technologies?
• What type of experience do you have concerning Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)?
• Which portal products you are working with?
• What kind of portal solutions you have provided?
• Do you have ‘Collaboration’, ’Portlets’, ‘Content Management’ or ‘Document Management’ experience with Portals?

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What is Evozon’s key technology area?

Evozon was established as a Java only development center, so Java is our key technology area.
In 2007 we started together with Sesca technologies a department for mobile application development and testing that uses Symbian technology.
We have significant experience using Java technologies to develop Industrial Applications, Enterprise Content Management Systems, Web Portals, eCommerce Sites, Document Management Systems, Email Marketing/Tracking Solutions, CRM Solutions, eLearning Solutions and Travel Reservation Systems.

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Evozon’s experience with Java technologies

• Java
• J2SE
• J2ME
• J2EE – our main development language

Frameworks and Tools?

• Spring – extensively used in most of our projects. So far, we have used almost all of this framework’s modules.
• Hibernate – the most used ORM tool at Evozon. All our developers have extensive knowledge of Hibernate. We use specific features of Hibernate and also JPA.
• Maven – Maven and ANT are the build management tools that we are using. We use Maven every time we have to customize releases for multiple clients.
• Eclipse – the IDE's that we use in the company are Eclipse and Idea from ItelliJ (mainly Eclipse)
• JUnit – when test driven development is used, along with other testing tools that help us writing unit and integration automated testing (TestNG, EJB3Unit, MockObjects, HTTPUnit and others)
• Web UI
• SiteMesh – as decorator we use this with Struts 1 and 2. Besides SiteMesh, we have extensive experience with Tiles.
• JSP 2.0 – all the java web based projects we developed are based on this specification
• AJAX – libraries used : DWR, DOJO Toolkit, Prototype, Scriptaculous and others

J2EE Servers

• Tomcat - the web container that we use most often
• JBoss - the most used application server, together with Weblogic
• Weblogic - the most used application server

Other, what?
Most of the times we had Apache server for static content in front of Tomcat. For smaller projects we use also Jetty.

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What kind of experience do you have in .NET technology?

Started late last year, our .Net group relies on excellent specialists, who have extensive experience with client-server and web applications in various fields. In the .Net area we have used so far ASP.Net 2.0 to create and integrate a custom control for PDF exporting in the Kentico CMS environment, to solve some problems for an existing eMail tracking system and to develop an internal document management system for a prestigious American company.
Languages: VB, .Net, C#
Technologies: .NET 2.0 Setup creation, Greasemonkey API, GMail API
Windows technologies and frameworks: .Net, ASP, Ajax, Windows Forms
 

Do you have experience with search technologies?

Lucene is the java search framework most used in our projects.
Google mini was also integrated in a complex PIM + CMS solution.
 

What type of experience do you have in your company concerning Business Intelligence?

We have developed BI solutions for applications that needed to replicate real life operational processes along with the flow they represent in the whole picture and the decisions that need to be taken at certain stages. The validity, consistency and user specific formats that required data/information for decision making were mandatory requirements that we needed to implement in some of our applications like Public Procurement software (required government approval), LMS software, Ecommerce software.

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Do you have experience in Data warehouse projects? If so, what were the used technologies?

Data warehouse solutions were developed to integrate solutions with third party applications (especially when integrating with other systems). The data warehouse was our concern when the Public Procurement software needed to be integrated with an ERP solution. The data was stored in the two databases corresponding to the two applications, while cron jobs were used to extract the data from the database (OLTP systems) at the ETL layer. At this layer we had the data inconsistencies resolved using specific algorithms that were scheduled using cron jobs. Once the data was valid and consistent for business and logic processing, it was processed and stored in another database repository. At this point, the data in the latter repository was used to create and view complex and customized reports of the required information, sometimes stage or flow based. The reports had different types/scopes: informational, classification, prediction, historical, analytical. The size of the databases were up to 3 millions rows per table and we used the following tools/frameworks:
Databases: MySQL and PostGreSQL
Reporting: JasperReports + IReport
 

What type of experience do you have concerning Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)?

WebPortal + CRM + Ecommerce integration (clustered environment for WebPortal and Ecommerce)
 

Which portal products you are working with?

Liferay Web Portal

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What kind of portal solutions you have provided?

Integration: WebPortal + CRM + Ecommerce (clustered environment for Ecommerce, balancer for WebPortal), based on Liferay
Common web portal solutions based on Liferay

Do you have ‘Collaboration’, ’Portlets’, ‘Content Management’ or ‘Document Management’ experience with Portals?

We have worked with and extended the Liferay Portal, starting with its 3.X version, using its collaboration and content management capabilities. We use the JSR 168 portlet’s specification.
As DMS, we use Alfresco. Though it can be integrated with Liferay, we have not used this integration yet.

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Personnel

• What kind of education do your personnel usually have?
• Are Evozon’s staff fluent in English?
• How do you categorize your personnel’s experience? (E.g. junior, developer, senior).
• What certificates do your employees have?
• What was Evozon’s employee turnover over the last three years?

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What kind of education do your personnel usually have?

Our software developers are all graduates from computer science and electrical engineering departments of Romanian universities/colleges.
 

Are Evozon’s staff fluent in English?

Since Evozon is a "half" Australian company, English is its official working language. All employees are thoroughly tested by Robert Masic prior to being offered a position in the company and accepted only if they meet our high standards of English proficiency. The test consists in a long oral interview followed by a written task which requires each candidate to make changes to his/her resume according to Evozon’s template.
Robert is an Australian native, which means his evaluation is as objective as it can get. This makes Evozon an excellent partner for English speaking customers.

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How do you categorize your personnel’s experience? (E.g. junior, developer, senior).

We have four main categories of personnel, based on experience:

• Trainees: employees with good theoretical and programming skills but without any hands-on experience. The trainee status lasts 3 months at Evozon, period during which the employee is only allowed to do QA tasks for customers;
• Experienced juniors: employees who have completed the Evozon training program and are ready to do programming tasks for real projects;
• Mid-level developers: specialists with comprehensive work experience and skills. We do not regard the number of years as the key factor in promoting a developer from junior to mid level, but rather the depth of expertise, the results achieved and the professionalism shown while working on Evozon projects;
• Senior developers: specialists that have both a broad expertise and leadership skills. It is from this group that we select team leaders, project managers and architects. There is no limit as to the minimum number of years a developer has to spend at the mid level before becoming a senior. A star developer can reach this status in 2 years, while the average one might need 7 years.

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What certificates do your employees have?

The certificates our employees currently have are listed below. We encourage all our employees to get certified in their main areas of expertise.

• Sun Certified Programmer for the Java 2 Platform 1.4 - CX-310-035
• Sun Certified Java Programmer for Java 5.0
• MCSD/MCAD Exam 70-315 (October 2007) - Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
   

What was Evozon’s employee turnover over the last three years?

Employee turnover, a major concern for both us and our customers, has been zero throughout the 3 years of operation. This somewhat paradoxical situation for the IT field is a natural consequence of the environment we created at Evozon, which fosters creativity, personal and professional development.

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Intellectual property and data protection

• What policies does Evozon have to protect Intellectual Property?
• What policies does Evozon have to protect customer data?

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What policies does Evozon have to protect Intellectual Property?

Evozon takes comprehensive measures to protect intellectual property and trade secrets.
These measures include defining intellectual property/trade secrets with the customers/partners and documenting them, establishing policies, roles and responsibilities, setting up process-level controls and procedural, physical and technical controls to minimize risk to a level acceptable by management, educating employees, customers and partners about intellectual property/trade secrets and the measures taken to protect them.
Intellectual property and trade secrets are all subject to strict security guidelines within the company, in both electronic and printed format. An email attachment tracking solution can be employed for intellectual property leak detection. Sensitive documents in printed format are stored in secure places and accessed only by authorized personnel.
Evozon complies with the Romanian legislation when handling sensitive information. We will never disclose any confidential information to third parties unless required by the Romanian governing law.
All of our staff sign non disclosure agreements and we take the risk of intellectual property leakage very seriously.

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What policies does Evozon have to protect customer data?

It is Evozon’s policy that the information it manages shall be appropriately secured to protect against the consequences of breaches of confidentiality, failures of integrity or interruptions to the availability of that information. This information security policy defines the overall principles to be followed across the organization. The scope of the security policy includes

• Information, data, in any medium or form such as printed paper, digital, video, and audio representations;
• The computing hardware and software systems which access and manipulate information;
• The network systems;
• Physical work environment;
• Mobile devices and teleworking;
• Personnel awareness, education, and training.

This policy shall be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that it remains appropriate from the point of view of any relevant changes to the law, organisational policies or contractual obligations. Evozon will establish and maintain appropriate contacts with other organisations, law enforcement authorities, regulatory bodies, and network and telecommunications operators in respect of its information security policy. A process of risk assessment shall be carried out for each system to identify the probability and impact of security failures to determine the appropriate levels of security measures applied.
Our offsite backups are frequent and data is stored in a secure location in a fire proof safe. Only key personnel have root access to any system. Using VMware, developers can deploy staging systems without compromising the security of the data.
The video camera surveillance mounted at our main entrance and card based access to the offices help us minimize the risk of data theft.

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Quality assurance practices at Evozon

• What processes does Evozon have to monitor the quality of the work being provided?
• Where the customer has concerns over the quality of work delivered, what processes are available to resolve these concerns?
• Is your company experienced with Service Level Agreements? If yes, are SLA’s used in client environment?

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What processes does Evozon use to monitor the quality of the work being provided?

The most important processes we use to monitor the quality of work are listed below:

• Regular customer feedback, done on a weekly basis for long term projects and more often for small projects. The feedback allows us to identify any potential quality flaws in their infancy and to swiftly correct the problems
• Code reviews, done by senior members of the team as often as necessary.
• Daily scrum meetings of the project team to take incremental corrective actions to ensure quality remains on track.
• Rigorous application testing with both hands on and automated testing tools.
   

Where the customer has concerns over the quality of work delivered, what processes are available to resolve these concerns?

We can predict potential concerns from the surveys we conduct periodically and take preventative actions based on customer inputs. These actions include:

• ensuring the effective communication protocols have been used correctly
• identifying potential errors in requirement interpretation
• identifying any potential gaps in skills
• solving confirmed gaps in skills by cross training and consulting by other members of our team not directly involved in the project.

If concerns escalate into real problems we take corrective actions, which include addressing the resource allocation issue and adjusting communication protocols.

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Is your company experienced with SLA’s? If yes, are SLA’s used in client environment?

We have learned a great deal about service level agreements (SLAs) from the software houses we have worked with, which have significant experience in this area.
When dealing directly with end customers we sometimes manage their expectations with SLAs, which we draft in time, together with the customers. Such a negotiated agreement creates a common understanding about services, priorities and responsibilities.
The service elements defines customer expectations by communicating such things as:

• the services provided
• service standards, such as the timeframes within which services will be provided
• conditions of service availability
• the responsibilities of both parties
• cost versus service tradeoffs
• escalation procedures

The management elements focus on such things as:

• how service effectiveness will be measured (the metrics used)
• how information about service effectiveness will be reported and addressed
• how service-related disagreements will be resolved
• how the parties will review and revise the agreement

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Project and risk management

• Please describe Evozon’s project management.
• Does your company have any formal request, issue, maintenance or similar procedures?
• Does Evozon have a change management process? If so, please describe it.
• Risk management strategies and policies.
• Methods and tools used during the transfer process.
• Policy objectives
• Risk Review and Reporting
• Communication of risks
• Nature of the Risk Management Strategy
• Strategic Risk Management Process
• Key Processes
• Risk Management Assessment Framework
• Training and awareness raising

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Please describe Evozon’s project management.

Agile project management is the preferred approach at Evozon. We focus on features rather than project tasks and do the planning incrementally, while exploring the vision of what the project is meant to do. The customer constantly influences the project management process with inputs on all the issues of importance, such as the feature under development, evolving visions of the end product, the requirements for the next stage of development, risk management, milestones, budget control, etc.
The project environment, the interfacing between the project and its environment, roles and responsibilities, the core facilities for the project, assumptions, dependencies and constraints, contingency planning and the technical process are carefully addressed by project architects and managers.
Issue trackers like JIRA, Bugzilla and GForge are used throughout the project for planning, monitoring and control.
Conference calls and meetings between the project owner(s) and the customer are planned frequently to address the most pressing project management issues.

Evozon’s Agile Approach
You might have already used the Scrum methodology and failed a few projects with it. The most notable drawback of this methodology is that it only allows you to detect failures at the end of the unique development cycle, which means that all the money allocated for development is lost. This disadvantage, among others, makes Agile project management the preferred approach at Evozon.
We focus on features rather than project tasks and do the planning incrementally, while exploring the vision of what the project is meant to do. The customer constantly influences the project management process with inputs on all the issues of importance, such as the feature under development, evolving visions of the end product, the requirements for the next stage of development, risk management, milestones, budget control, etc.

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Does your company have any formal request, issue, maintenance or similar procedures?

Depending on their com project related requests/issues are handled by the project manager, the team leader or the developer directly involved in solving them. Requests and issues are stored in issue trackers like JIRA, Bugzilla and GForge for all the parties involved to share. To date, this method provided all we needed to record important aspects of the development/maintenance process.
Evozon's response time is from a few minutes to one business day for any project related issue/request, depending on the time the request was made, the complexity of the request and resource availability.
For maintenance we apply either the Quick-Fix Model or the Iterative-Enhancement Model, depending on customer preference.
The Quick-Fix approach involves analyzing the program's code and establishing what must be changed or added to implement the specified functionality called for by the maintenance request.
The Iterative-Enhancement model is constructed around the idea of reusing parts of the existing system when they are appropriate, and replacing other parts when they are not.
The approach starts with an analysis of the existing system's requirements, design, code, test and analysis documents. The highest level artifact which is affected by the proposed change (often the requirements) is then modified to reflect the increased functionality, and the changes are then propagated downward throughout the full set of artifacts. At each step, the system is redesigned reusing whatever existing parts are applicable and building other parts from scratch.

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Does Evozon have a change management process? If so, please describe it.

Yes, we have a change management process, which was already shaped when the company was established.
The purpose of Change Management Process is to ensure that changes are carried out in a controlled way. In a project, the project manager is responsible for the change management.
Change Management is based on a generic process irrespective of the nature and scope of the change. The very same principles are used if there is a need to change a Management System process or an approved project plan or approved requirements. The phases of the change management process are:
 

• Receiving and recording the change request. Request may be submitted by a customer or it may be submitted internally. Depending on the situation, there may be a dedicated form for requests.
• Analysing and recording the consequences of accepting and/or rejecting the change.
• Decision making and recording the decision and justification. Check who has the authority to make the decision.
• Implementing the change and recording the actions taken.
• Tracking the status of change requests to closure.
• The details of the process may vary depending on the scope, but the phases and the requirement of keeping records during the process and of keeping stakeholders informed are always there.

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Risk management strategies and policies

Evozon deals with risks proactively as this issue is one of great concerns among companies seeking software outsourcing services.
Human resource risks top our list since software development is labor intensive and relies on highly skilled professionals.
Evozon's proactive attitude starts with risk recognition. Applied to the workforce, this means knowing as much as is legally permitted about an individual before hiring him. Prior to joining Evozon's team, all new "recruits" undergo a thorough testing of both programming and linguistic abilities, education and employment history verifications, as well as a standard psychological evaluation. Permanent employment is offered only after a three month trial period to those recruits who meet our expectation for dedication, talent and professionalism. Entry-level positions don't require the same degree of screening that skilled positions warrant.
Employee turnover, a major concern for both us and our customers, has been almost nonexistant throughout the 3 years of operation. This somewhat paradoxical situation for the IT field is a natural consequence of the environment we created at Evozon, which fosters creativity, personal and professional development.
Despite this excellent record, we do not underestimate the risk of losing people over time, which means we rely on a smooth and continuous knowledge transfer. We motivate our employees to share all the project related knowledge and rely on a sharing mechanism. Upon transfer completion we ask the customer to assess the effectiveness of the transfer process.
Since most of our customers belong to cultures similar to ours we do not experience cultural barriers in the knowledge transfer process.

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Methods and tools used during the transfer process:

• Paired work, in which the customer or specialist(s) working for the customer pair with key people in the development team and thus have constant access to the most recent developments
• PowerPoint presentations of the solutions
• Step by step demo versions of the applications
• Comprehensive documentations
• Collaboration tools (issue trackers), that record important aspects of the development process for all the participants to share
• Databases

Other common human resource risks include employee injury and lost productivity due to organizational inefficiencies. To control these risks, we rely on fair, legally sound human resource policies and management practices.

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Policy objectives

Evozon's policy regarding risks is to pursue a structured approach to the effective management of risk in pursuit of business objectives.
This policy, and the strategy which supports it, is designed to ensure that the following ten objectives are met:
Financial, operational and management systems directly support the management of risks that threaten the achievement of the Company’s objectives.
The Management Board has an active, structured, and commonly shared knowledge of the whole range, and the relative priority, of risks that they have to manage.
All managers share that understanding of risks and priorities.
Staff objectives are set in terms that reflect the Company’s strategic and operational risk priorities.
Responsibility for the management of risks is assigned to staff who have the authority to ensure that they are managed.
Resources are assigned to the management of risks in such a way to optimise value for money.
The Management Board priorities in respect of risk are fully communicated down the Agency.
The Management Board’s view is informed by upward reporting of risks through the Company.
The risk management system is functioning efficiently and effectively integrates with the Corporate and Business Planning processes.

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Risk Review and Reporting

The management of risk has to be reviewed and reported on for two reasons:

• to monitor whether the risk profile is changing
• to gain assurance that risk management is effective and to identify when further action is necessary

Risks should flow upwards through the Company, from project manager to technical manager and business development manager.

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Communication of risks

Communication within Evozon about risk issues is important to ensure that:

• everyone understands what Evozon’s risk strategy is, what the risk priorities are and how their particular responsibilities fit into that framework
• transferable lessons are learned and communicated to those who can benefit from them
• each level of management receives regular assurance about the management of risk within their area of control.

Copies of this policy and strategy should be issued to all new starters at Evozon.
Communication is also required with stakeholders and partner organisations especially those responsible for direct delivery of a project to remove any potential
misunderstandings about risk priorities. This is important in relation to risks which affect the public and where the public depend on government to respond to those risks.

Directors:

• Identify key risks to business plan objectives as an integral part of the business planning process
• Ensure that management plans are in place and reviewed to mitigate the key risks identified during the business planning risk assessment process
• Ensure regular receipt and review of risk reports on key business plan objectives within their area of responsibility
• Ensure that an escalation process is in place for key risks in their area of responsibility to facilitate upwards reporting to Director level for further
• Consideration and review of action plan
• Ensure that risk to business plan objectives is a standing item on the agenda for senior management team meetings

Principal Engineer:
In this context, to ensure that business planning integrates performance management and risk management

Quality Manager:

• Receives and approves periodic reports on operational risk management issues.
• Reports any strategic issues and risks identified through the operational risk management process to Management Board.
• Reviews the adequacy and effectiveness of the overall arrangements put in place by management to manage risk.
• Reviews the annual Statement on Internal Control.
• Reviews the operation and resourcing of Corporate Assurance.
• Reports to CEO and his opinion on the overall arrangements put in place for effective risk management.
• Builds its own strategy and work plans around management’s assessment of risk
• Constructs individual reviews around the risks and opportunities of each area being reviewed.
• In addition this responsibility involves maintaining appropriate methodologies
   

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Nature of the Risk Management Strategy

The main risk management challenge lies in the ongoing review and improvement of the risk management process.
Therefore this strategy is dynamic in as much as any lessons learned in the course of its operation will be used to adapt and improve the process. Any material changes to the process may be proposed by the Quality Manager but will be approved by the Management Board.
The challenge for risk management is to provide the framework to help management deal with uncertainty, and the associated risk and opportunity to agreed levels of acceptability, with risk management embedded as part of the organisation's strategic and operational management processes.
 

Strategic Risk Management Process

The Strategic Risk Management Process focuses on the views of the Chief Executive Officer and the other Directors, both as a team and individually. It will also include the views of key managers, and any issues of a strategic nature identified through the Operational Risk Management process.

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Key Processes

Monitoring and Reporting
The management of risk has to be reviewed and reported for two reasons:

• To monitor whether or not the risk profile is changing
• To gain assurance that risk management is effective and to identify when further action is necessary

Operational Risk Management Process
The Operational Risk Management Process will focus on the views of Project Managers and other relevant staff within the Company.

Project Risk Management Process
The Project Risk Management Process will focus on the views of Project and Program Managers.

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Risk Management Assessment Framework

Benchmarking - A Risk Maturity Matrix - Seven questions can be asked:

• Leadership: do senior management and Members support and promote risk management?
• Risk Strategy and Policies: Is there a clear risk strategy, and risk policies?
• People: Are people equipped and supported to manage risk well?
• Partnerships & Resources: Are there effective arrangements for managing risks with partners and are there appropriate supporting resources?
• Processes: Do the organisation's processes incorporate effective risk management
• Risk Handling: Are risks handled well?
• Outcomes: Does risk management contribute to achieving outcomes?

Performance Indicators can be identified as follows:

• Formal system of identification
• Mapping risks to internal controls/budgets and resource allocation
• Review/updated risk register
• Effectiveness of internal controls through key indicators
• Changing behavior and resource due to risk

The Risk Management Assessment Framework provides a means of assessing the maturity of risk management at Evozon.

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Training and awareness raising

It is important that key individuals in the process and Risk Representatives are all well trained in Risk Management issues and approaches. A program of training in this area will be developed where required to ensure that these individuals are kept up to date and are able to effectively implement the Risk Management Strategy.

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Customers

• Evozon's biggest customers.
• References that reflect Evozon’s experience in outsourcing software development projects

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Please tell us a few words about your biggest customers.

Our biggest customer and also partner is Sesca Technologies, a prestigious Finnish IT company providing industrial, embedded and mobile software planning and development solutions. The Sesca Group employs about 750 professionals in the fields of ICT and automation and operates at 13 locations in Finland and in Estonia, Sweden, Germany, the UK, the Czech Republic, Romania and China.

Another important customer is Hybris, a company the distributes its proprietary CMS solution.
 

References that reflect Evozon’s experience in outsourcing software development projects.

Johan Sjöblom, CEO, SESCA ISW Ltd, P.O.Box 77, FI-68601 PIETARSAARI, FINLAND, Phone: +358 40 835 87 01, Email: johan.sjoblom@sesca.com
For Sesca ISW, our Finnish partner, we have done J2EE development for industrial applications.

Chris Drake, 1id.com, CEO, 21010 Southbank St., PMB 500, Potomac Falls, VA 20165, USA, Phone: 1-866-273-7161, Email: cnd@1id.com, Web: http://www.1id.com/
For 1id.com we are doing Perl project on an ongoing basis.

Chris Goodall, GCConsultancy, Phone: +44 1962 843 740; Email: chris@cgconsultancy.com
For Lawton Communications Group (http://www.lawtoncommsgroup.com/), a London based company, we have developed various applications. Chris Goodall is a technology consultant for their projects and our interface with Lawton.

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