Is it bad to have an offshore development center?

These days are really hectic. There are about 20 meetings everyday, mostly with our German potential customers/partners/clients. Amongst these 70% have think that since we are just another offshore service provider so it’s really bad. That is …

a. we work in a sweat-shop like enviroment
b. we are ready to work on rock bottom hourly rates
c. we do just about any kind of work whether it’s software development or plumbing.
d. we have absolutely no idea about software architectures or quality assurance processes

Mostly people think this also because of the fact that they are approached by quite a lot of Pakistani, Indian, and Russian firms for “outsourcing” jobs.

I wonder why is there a bias towards any software consulting firm that operates from India, Pakistan or Russia? Is there a special reason for this? Ok, yes people hate these firms because they work at lesser rate and local people tend to lose jobs but don’t they move into “higher” valued jobs? They charge too less, but then why would you want to pay them same rate when the economies aren’t same. If the cost of production is low, why should they even charge you higher?

The concern about quality is also a bit outdated. Yes, a few years ago quality was a problem because of lack of exposure in these countries, but now things have changed. It’s really easy to access information, new technologies and latest ideas. No wonder we see web 2.0 products coming out of Pakistan and India. Actually quite a lot of web 2.0 products being launched in the West are beign developed in India, Pakistan or Russia.

So may be, people are just annoyed. They don’t want to outsource, but don’t you already import machinery made in China? Or at least components made in China?

Anyway, back to the original question: are we a yet-another-offshore service provider? The simple answer is No! We aren’t a bunch of freelancers trying to get work at rock bottom prices. When we contact our potential customers, we are looking for long term partnerships not quick-turnaround, small projects. We are working on products which we can integrate with our partners’ products. So when we contact you we are NOT always looking for work. We would like to add value to your software system and add value to ours as well.

As far as outsourcing is concerned, please attend our seminar “How to outsource safely and effectively” in one of the following cities:

Munich (13th March), Frankfurt (15th March), Cologne (17th March), Hamburg(20th March), Hannover (21st March), and Nuremberg(22nd March).

We are out to exchange ideas, listen to people’s frustrations and educate people on how to utilize the power of outsourcing.

Our work finally coming to life…

We’ve started to upload our work to the site. Actually we would like to call this page “our partners” page as most of our clients end up being our long term partners. For the sake of clarity we’ll keep the page as “our work”.

Click here to view the page (remember there is A LOT more to come here).

Upcoming Seminars

We are conducting a series of seminars in Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hamburg, Hannover, Nuremberg and Berlin. A few of our participants have asked us to post the schedule on the website. So here it is:

1. Seminar: Launching a new media sharing portal

Location: TBD, Munich (München)

Date / Time: 12th March. 1900 – 2000

Details:

Social media portals are becoming very common these days. There are a lot of enterpreneurs out there who may have an idea involving video sharing or audio sharing functionality. This presentation will give an overview of the technologies involved, positive and negative sides of the options and different case studies.

This is going to be a very casual event where we will guide you through each step of creating and launching a media sharing portal.

The case studies will give you an insight into how other have done it.

There are no charges to attend this presentation. The purpose is to share knowledge only.

Agenda:

a. An overview of technologies
b. An overview of media sharing portals
c. Competitor overview
d. Planning your own media sharing portal
e. Implementation strategies
f. Release plans
g. Managing/maintaining the portal

2. Seminar: Launching a new media sharing portal

Location: TBD, Frankfurt am Main

Date/Time: 14th March. 1900 – 2000

Details: same as above.

Locations will be updated shortly. Also for other cities we’ll update the schedule in a few days.

See you there!

Web 2.0: Pakistan’s contributions

Generally speaking Pakistan is regarded as an outsourcing destination for low end jobs. It’s assumed that the level of technical expertise will be lower than that of America or Europe. We have been working on different solutions and we know for a fact that some of these are indeed on the cutting edge. However, we needed examples of firms who were doing the same. So we did some research all over Pakistan and our findings are quite interesting.

iScrybe – This is one of the hot new startups based in Islamabad Pakistan. They’ve managed to get a following and are working on a pretty cool product. Some people say their business model isn’t quite profitable, while some people say they’ve failed to manage the product successfully. Well, whatever is the case, we love their product, their efforts and their expertise. Keep up the good work iScrybe!

Rozee.pk – Rozee.pk practically created the online job market in Pakistan. This fact aside, they’ve been able to develop a pretty sleep product which is definitely one of the best web2.0 portals we’ve seen. As you can see we use rozee for our job hunts already. Two thumbs up, rozee.pk!

Other than these there are other firms which are creating cutting edge web 2.0 portals. We are currently working on five different web 2.0 portals and will soon be putting up their links.

Bottom line: Pakistan probably leads the offshore nations in their technology expertise and experience with keeping up with the trends. In terms of sheer numbers, there are fewer firms working on cutting edge Internet portals but in terms of quality and value-for-money, Pakistani firms are probably the best!

What can we do together?

These days are real rollercoaster rides. We are meeting with various people from investment bankers to management consultants to software service providers to business process outsourcing firms. One question we come across almost everywhere is that “what can we do together?” At times the answers are straight forward:

a. Let’s be technology partners.

b. I think we should work on this idea together. You develop it, we market it.

c. I think this product will sell quite well in my client-circle.

d. I’ve been planning a large scale portal, I think Uraan can help me.

However, sometimes things are not this clear. If you are a marketing or a PR person, you may be wondering what can i possibly do with this firm. Also a lot of companies think of us as ‘yet-another-offshore-software-firm-pitching-for-more-projects’

No, we are not a’yet-another-offshore-software-firm’. We are building contacts aggressively but we aren’t looking to get projects only. We are looking to share our knowledge with other companies and help them find more business, niche markets and grow. This isn’t a one-way relationship.  We want to educate our potential partners regarding the ideas that we have and then build relationships across the entire spectrum of industries. A lot of times, we want to see your products/services and see if we can integrate ours with yours so that we can add-value to each other’s products.

We are here to build partnerships and not secure customers!

Jobs at Uraan Software Solutions

We are hiring. All applicants must have at least a bachelor’s degree with excellent analytical approach and ability to deliver effective solutions under tight deadlines. Please mention the position aimed for in the subject of the email. HR at Uraan: hr@uraan.net

Check out our current openings on Rozee.pk

PHP Developers
We are almost constantly looking for good PHP talent. If you have experience in PHP development, please send in your resume and you’ll be listed with the HR department.

We are an equal opportunity employer offering highly competitive salary packages and benefits. You can apply at hr@uraan.net with the subject: “PHP Developer”.

Check out our current openings on Rozee.pk

Work at Uraan

If you are an ace programmer with an excellent academic background and an experience of consistently working with stability in a fast-paced, team-based and result-oriented work environment with defined procedures and processes and you are highly ambitious and you love challenges and you are highly motivated to develop yourself and if you are not already working at Uraan, do apply with us and see what Uraan has to offer.

Founded a few years back, we are establishing ourself to be one of the largest software houses in Lahore in near future and we are looking way beyond that. Sky’s the limit! We are taking every necessary step to ensure that this growth is shared mutually on individual levels with all our people.

Stop compromising with your career and save yourselves from stiff and rigid company policies that narrow down the human potential and limit the scope to merely the work they want to extract. Let us help you explore your potential and explore new horizons of personal growth. Come see how dynamic flexibility brightens up the most remote corners of human mind and how burning potential can be molded into mature abilities and skills through a rigorous yet simple process of personal development.

With the introduction of fresh ideas, we have ensured that learning never stops for the people at Uraan. There are always unexplored corridors and undiscovered pathways. Uraan’s vision comes from the collective vision of all of us. Our strong belief in constant development and learning new technologies has enabled us to create a widely diversified skill set among our people.

Work at Uraan – be a part of the IT revolution.

Drop by: hr@uraan.net.

Our current jobs

Your bid is too high!

“Your bid is too high”. We hear this almost everyday. The question is how “high” is “too high” and also “compare to what”?

The purpose of this post is to educate our potential buyers about our quotes and our pricing.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs (beginners as well as experienced) miscalculate the cost for building software. Just because you are outsourcing to a developing country doesn’t mean that you can get hours for free! Let’s do some math here. If you are in America, the cost of hiring an “entry level” developer would be approximately $30/hr, excluding the infrastructure costs and other costs (do keep in mind that entry level developers will require a lot more management and guidance than experienced consultants and the cost for experienced consultants will be above $100/hr). The costs in Europe would be higher and Japan will certainly be highest. So what are the cost in India, Russia, Pakistan and other low cost countries? Well, this depends on the infrastructure a company maintains. You could get a really shabby office and hire developers at rock bottom salaries (as low as $100 / month or 50 cents an hour), but then you’ll have to see what you get for paying this amount (Any developer with an undergraduate degree and some experience will charge at least $3/hr including the cost for a reasonable infrastructure). Actually it’s not a straight forward equation; there are numerous variables that determine the hourly rate of a company:

1. Infrastructure – internet bandwidth, test servers of different specifications, backup internet connections, power sources, capacity to grow etc.
2. Quality of developers including experience and education.
3. Company processes – Do they have ad-hoc processes? What kind of documentation they provide? What support do they provide? How do they manage the project?
4. Company profile – Do they have a big client list? Are they just starting the business? What’s their profile compare to others in the marketplace?
5. What’s the number of hours that the company has estimated for a particular project? A lot of companies will simply give a generic quote for 2 months (i.e. something like 300 – 400 hours) only to find out later that it will take a lot longer than that. Also 2 months into the project, the buyer can’t really back out without causing a loss to herself as well!

On average the charges for companies will fall under five categories:

Ø      Rock bottom: Less than $5/hr.

Ø      Small company with some portfolio: $5/hr to $10/hr

Ø      Small to medium size company (20 – 50 people) with a small portfolio and very few processes: $10-$15/hr

Ø      Large company (100+ employees) with a large client list and ISO 9000 certified or other certifications: $15-$20/hr

Ø      A true multinational with office in America, Europe and else where and strict processes. The company may be CMMi 4 certified or above: $20+/hr.

 

There will be companies that will be pretty good but will be charging you less. At the same time there will be companies which will have really less experience and almost no processes as such but will charge you $20/hr and above. So where do we stand?

We are a small to medium size company with “very well defined” processes and a very well organized documentation process. Typically you will not find a company with similar size to have such processes. Furthermore, our portfolio ranges from hardware based systems to high traffic portals.

Our quotes are best estimates of the effort that our buyers can expect for their projects. These quotes are made by technical sales people who take great pains to actually research on the project and its competitors and then create a quote for the entire effort. At times we’ll charge you very less (as low as $8/hr) and that will be so that launching the site becomes easy for you.

So when you read our quotes, please bear in mind the following things:

1. Our hourly estimate is as accurate as it can get. Divide our competitors quote by the hours and you’ll see what hourly rate they are getting. If it’s too less you can be sure that either they are going to change their rates, or they haven’t estimated the effort properly or they’ll stick with you and in the process file chapter 11!
2. Where do our competitors stand as far as skill set, processes and experience are concerned? Be sure to double check their claims of doing some really successful sites. If there is a small company claiming to have done a huge site, chances are that they are bluffing!
3. What is the difference between the presentations of quotes? If they’ve just quoted a bid and there is little or no presentation that means they haven’t taken the pain to go through the project, discuss it with team and spend sometime to impress you. Which means they’ll do the project in the same way and just try to get over with the specification (by the way, did they make any specifications?).

If your budget is tight, please tell us so. We’ll work through the project requirements and create release plan for you with minimal possible budget. This way you will be able to launch your product quickly and at a much lesser cost.

I hope this answers a lot of questions in the mind of our potential clients. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us at www.uraan.net/quote.php.

 

Uraan @ Cebit 2007

Though we are not exhibiting this year, we’ll be all over the place so you can catch us in the following halls:

March 15th thru Marchh 18th – Hall 8

March 19th – Hall 3 and 4

March 20th – Hall 1 and 3

March 21st – Halls 4, 5, and 6.

We will be in Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Cologne, Bremen, Hamburg, (ofcourse) Hanover, Nuremberg and Berlin (may be). There are going to be a lot of presentations and meetings so we expect to be quite busy, however, if you want to arrange a meeting please contact us here and we’ll get back to you shortly.

By the way, the main purpose of this visit is to educate our potential clients and partners on the capabilities of our products and services. So if you are interested in looking at pre-launch demos of any of our product, this is going to be an ideal opportunity.

We will also be displaying all our portals which, due to contractual agreements, we can’t display on our website. This will include quite a few web 2.0 portals with some cutting edge AJAX work.

Deutschland, kommen wir!

New website launched

We’ve just launched our new website. This site accurately represent what we do and how we work.

There are certain areas which are currently under construction:

a. portfolio – we are compiling our portfolio, it’s a pretty daunting task, given the fact that there are over 300 sites that we need to arrange.

b. tour video – this is under production right now.

There are going to be numerous updates in the site, but right now we just wanted to release it and let our customers know about us!