Sibers

Sibers Group Ltd.

Type	Privately held company
Industry	IT services IT consulting IT Outsourcing
Founded	31 July 1998 (1998-07-31)
Founder	Yuriy Bannov
Headquarters	Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk, Russia
Services	Information technology consulting services, solutions and outsourcing.
Number of employees	125 (2010)[1]
Website	www.sibers.com www.sibers.de www.sibers.ru

Sibers is an Information Technology Outsourcing company that is headquartered in Akademgorodok, Silicon Taiga, Russia. Currently, Sibers is one of the largest IT outsourcing companies in Russia with development offices located in Akademgorodok, Novosibirsk, Barnaul and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan) and a total of 120 employees as of 2010. Sibers’ also has representatives located in Australia, Germany, and the United States.

The company operates under its registered trademark name HireRussians^[2] as well.

History

Sibers was established in 1998 by a few math graduates of Novosibirsk State University who decided they wanted to run their own IT business. They joined forces to create one team of software developers and become employed by the American company, IWC (Interactive Web Concepts), thus forming the IWC Russian Division. The developers – 5 of them working in one office in Akademgorodok, Russia – completed projects provided to them by their single client, IWC. This was the team's first step to creating what soon became known as Key-Soft Ltd., and would later become Sibers. The founders started the company with nothing more than an initial investment from their own personal savings.

In the late 1990s, during the Dot-com Boom, 3COM Corporation bought IWC including its Russian Division.^[3] It was at this time that all employees became official contract workers of the 3COM Corporation.

It was during the spring of 2001 that the Russian team, now composed of ten employees, became an independent offshore software development company known as Key-Soft Ltd. This was the same year Key-Soft registered with Elance and created their own profile^[4] to gain their first independent contracts.

In 2005, an effort to unite a circle of Russian software developers, Key-Soft created its virtual service outlet called HireRussians. Following ISO (International Organization for Standardization) and CMM (Capability Maturity Model) standards, Key-Soft delivered hundreds of projects for retail, oil/gas, security, finance, real estate, health care industries, education and entertainment for children and adults. The key market at this time was the United States only.

As a result of this development, Key-Soft underwent re-branding in 2006, when Key-Soft was officially renamed "Sibers".^[5] The new name reflected the geographical location of the company and differentiated it from the numerous "xxx-soft" teams, that were popular at that time. The company now employed 70 developers and managers and continued to grow by widening its presence on Elance as well as other online and offline marketplaces. The company gradually continued to expand the range of key territorial markets to include Canada, England, France, and Scandinavia. In 2006 Sibers earned its first million dollars on Elance and became one of the site's top providers. After almost a year of consideration Sibers' trademark was registered,^[6][7] for outsourcing in the field of software development in 2008 by USPTO. Sibers then entered the German IT market with a new regional website www.sibers.de and solutions for Green IT in November 2008.^[8] At the same time the Sibers company has been marked as one of the leading contributors to the fast-growing IT market in Novosibirsk.^[9]

Today Sibers' staff numbers 100+ employees, the company has 3 internationally functioning offices, it is recognized by International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) as an ITO company with the most personnel in Russia,^[10] and it is a member of OISV and has become a Microsoft Certified Partner.^[11] One of the most important markets at present is Australia and New Zealand, where in 2010 Sibers was recognized by IAOP as one of the "Best 10 among service providers for Australia and New Zealand region".^[12]

Service

Sibers offers services in the following areas of information technology outsourcing: software research, development, and testing of applications for web, desktop and mobile platforms.

Custom Remote Team

The service model for IT outsourcing suggested by Sibers is the CRT. This model acts as a natural extension of the client company's local staff and adopts its business practices and industry-specific standards. Customers receive a dedicated team of developers assigned on full-time basis to their specific project. Further, customers are provided with detailed reports on their project's progress. The assigned team takes on responsibilities that include: software development, project time and performance tracking; as well as suggestions for ideas relating to project improvement, along with specifying and sharing the customer's business values.

Customers know their remote people by name and face, see the individual progress and impact of each team member, communicate with them directly and have all financial transactions and progress tracked under strict control.

Software Development Life-Cycle

1. Declaration of a statement of work. The first person who contacts the customer is a sales manager, whose mission is to understand customer's needs and to suggest the most productive course of action. When all these aspects have been discussed, both sides sign an agreement and statement of work.
2. Technical analysis and specification. Where needed and possible, it is a good practice to create a detailed specification document with the required project's functionality, workflow, usability and visual presence. Professionals from Sibers' Technical Office create the specification documents relying on their background and experience, as well as by standing in close contact with the customer.
3. Management. A dedicated Project manager drives all development tasks of the project with accurate reporting and planning practices. Constant communication ensures the right length of iterations and frequent deliveries. The Customer care manager is aware of the customer's business, ideas, goals and represents them offshore, acting like an advocate.
4. Development process. The project plan with milestones and functionality for each phase is prepared by the project manager and is then approved by the customer. Work is performed on an iterative basis as developed and tested versions are sent for the customer's approval. The customer receives daily reports with a list of tasks in progress and development plans for the next day. Weekly reports include extensive information about the project progress, actual hours worked and an accounting of all money spent.
5. Support. Once the project is completed, further support and maintenance is provided to the customer.

Global distribution

Originally the solution offered by the Custom Remote Team was to strongly relate to the Offshore Development Center business model. Wherever the client or the business is located, they can hire an experienced, highly skilled technical team with dedicated project and customer care managers. Sibers has been selected by customers from Australia and New Zealand, Western and Northern Europe, USA and Canada.^[13]

Serving industries

Web to Print solutions, Healthcare IS, Marketing and Advertising, Education and E-learning, E-commerce, Green IT, Multimedia, Mapping and GIS, Real Estate.

Employees Certificates and Industry Awards

Employee certification program

The certification program for employees at Sibers ensures the professional certification of major company's programmers in PHP and .NET technologies.

The most common certifications include:

• Zend Certified Engineer (ZCE) certification^[14]
• Microsoft Certified Professional program
• Linux Professional Institute Certification (LPIC)

Industry awards.

The Year 2010 was marked by Sibers receiving 3 notable awards:

• IAOP Top 100.^[1]
• Microsoft Certified Partner.^[15]
• OISV Contributing Member.^[16]

Global presence

Sibers is located in Siberia (as its name suggests), but has a number of offices in different cities and countries. Sibers has one of its headquarters in California (US), and all the business processes follow the rules of US legislation. The company's development offices are located in Novosibirsk (Russia) and Bishkek (Kyrgyzstan); there are some Sibers representatives in Germany as well.

Today, Sibers customers live and work in the USA, Australia, the UK and other European countries, the Middle East, etc. Statistical data breaks down like this:

• USA – 60%
• Australia – 9%
• UK – 8%
• Ireland, Canada – 2%
• Spain, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Sweden, Italy, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, Belgium, Tanzania, South Africa, UAE, Norway, Bulgaria – 21%

International platforms where Sibers provides its services for clients all over the world include Elance.com and Guru.com. Sibers has been working on Elance since 2001 and has already earned more than $3 million. Representatives of Sibers visited the headquarters of Elance in the beginning of 2010.^[17]

Green IT / Environment Responsibility

In order to expand its presence in the European IT market, Sibers created a German website and a campaign on promoting green IT-solutions. The main purpose of the campaign was to bright to light issues relevant for Germany, along with the whole world, specially related to environmental responsibility.

Aside from promoting its services regarding the development of ordinary software applications, Sibers created a special tool which shows how much people think about the environment and protect it, even in terms of IT industry. The name of this tool came from the combination of two opposite notions - green nature and mechanical (or electronic) machines thus culminating in the name: green-or-machine. Knowing how popular green ideas are throughout the world, Sibers developed a dedicated site GreenOrMachine,^[18] which checks the "greenness" of any website or blog on the Internet. Its aim is to promote the best green practices for creating websites and to help reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions caused by internet servers. In fact, this tool even goes a step farther to define how environmentally-friendly different things are. For measuring the greenness of websites, the term "greendex" is used. It is a mixture of two words: green and index. Greendex of websites varies from 1 (very not green, thus machine) to 10 (very green). Each website goes through a number of tests that check how much energy is required to load and maintain the website, whether its content is green, whether visitors are encouraged to print out the website pages and destroy forests and so on. A truly progressive site is supposed to have a high "greendex", which may add to its popularity.

Charity

Novosibirsk Center of New Medical Technologies (NCNMT) cited Sibers as one of most active philanthropists by helping children who suffer from cerebral spastic infantile paralysis. Sibers personally takes care of two children who are in need of financial help for their expensive treatment: a little girl who couldn’t walk at all but now, after a course of treatment paid by Sibers, has made good progress, and a boy wishing to compete with his classmates not only in academic subjects, but also in physical training. Sibers employees donate on their own free will, and the company doubles the sum raised. Thus, the children are provided with the necessary sum for current treatment and necessary equipment, which guarantees progress in their recovery. Charity is important both for the company and for its employees as evidence of an active life position.

Another Sibers charity action, which was international, dealt with the consequences of the major earthquake that affected Haiti earthquake. Sibers developed a site located at www.MacheCheche.com,^[19] whose mission was to facilitate communication between the authorities and relatives of missing people, to give them an effective tool to search and find missing people and those in need. The ultimate task was to make the site as user-friendly and effective as possible, and Sibers provided just that. The project had a very unusual name, which can be explained like this: Mache Chèche is a Haitian Creole slang phrase that can be literally translated as "walk searching." The term is also linked to a saying: "Mache chèche pa dòmi san soupe!" which can be translated as "seek, and ye shall find."

Employee environment

Sibers pays close attention to the environment for the employees and introduced a number of practices that led the company to becoming a "favorite employer" according to Ancor, the largest recruitment company in Russia.^[20] Some of these practices include:

• Building a reputation of being a very close and accessible company. For example, Sibers representatives speak at a Career Day in Novosibirsk State University by means of video presentations;
• The Internships Program under the supervision of a senior developer, which opens the company's doors to anyone interested in becoming a software developer but without the necessary skills to work on real commercial projects. About 80% of these interns become junior developers at Sibers and get a chance to try their new skills on real paid projects or receive certificates on the skills obtained;
• Options for both vertical and horizontal career development. For developers wishing to advance with their programming skills, the company always has more complex tasks that usually involve some research and technological challenges. If a person decides to try working in another department, that too is possible, and this practice is how the company has gotten its best project managers and designers. A very flexible and clear system of grades helps to keep employees' salaries on the level that corresponds with their experience;
• The Alumni Club has been established for colleagues who decide to leave the company and work for other IT companies. Sibers invites these alum to attend regular seminars and informal meetings, some corporate events and referral programs. Sometimes alumni return to work for Sibers; sometimes they become freelancers that Sibers uses as outsources; regardless of their path, a database of experienced and reliable people with a good reputation is a very useful resource for any company.

Sibers encourages its developers to obtain professional certifications. Developers have specially allocated working time for self-education and self-development, to review necessary practices and to demonstrate their level of expertise by passing the tests. Certifications are paid for by the company, making them equally beneficial for the employers, who gain new professional status. So far, Sibers employers have become Microsoft Certified Professionals,^[21] ZEND Certified Engineers, etc.

References

External links

• Main website
• German division
• Sibers in Russian
• HireRussians
• #1 Greendex checker in the internet