Activities

Nexum Boğaziçi Shared Its Off-Shore Development Experience in Cologne

 
On November 8th,- 2005, Dr. Joachim Behrendt, Chairman of the Nexum Boğaziçi board,  attended the Turkish-German Information Technologies Forum within the context of Exponet Fair organized  every year in Cologne. At this forum, Mr. Behrendt presented the Off- Shore Development experiences of Nexum Boğaziçi. During the presentation, Mr. Behrendt gave information about an example project realized for Dertour, a member of Rewe Holding and one of the most important tourism companies in Germany. The presentation, in which Mr. Behrendt explained the off-shore development of online rezervation systems of Dertour from İstanbul, can be summarized as follows: 

Dertour is providing services  in tourism  business since 1917 and is one of the three biggest tourism operators in Germany. In 2003, with 4.39 million visitors, Dertour reached 2.41 billion Euro yearly sales revenue.  

By the project developed in Dertour with the help of Nexum Boğaziçi’s expertise, all tourism agents, web users, and call centers using the reservation systems are able to reach  product ( accomodation, tour, airplane, car, fair, congress etc.) informationand make online reservation. Interacting with global distribution systems (Amadeus, Worldspan, Pegasus, CMED etc.), Dertour Reservation System can update the realized reservations in all connected distribution systems concurrently.

Many companies may not have enough resources, budget and know-how to develop some comprehensive IT projects. Thanks to the off-shore development, without being limited with country borders, these problems can be easily minimized by the support of an experienced business partner.

Off-Shore Development Success Factors
In order to obtain successful results in off-shore development, there are some important  elements to consider. First of all, the two cooperating companies must have similiar corporate cultures for the efficiency of the operations. In Dertour example, starting with the board chairman Dr. Joachim Behrendt, Nexum Boğaziçi staff was very familiar with German culture in terms of both business –they have also some other projects with German companies- and lifestyle.

Understanding each other’s expectations  and having a strong communication is also another important element.  In Dertour Project, strong communication provided a fast solution process in  revision demands and error repoting.

Lack of communication with the project team, because of the time difference, may cause delays in the projects. Although the meeting invitation is sent a very short time ago, the project team  should be able to attend the meetings. Small time difference can allow travelling even in the same day.

Making face to face meetings in certain intervals of the project is also among major reqirements of off-shore development. Besides, every company should evaluate if the bussiness partner is experienced enough in specific business fields. Some other important elements  to be successful in off-shore development projects are  meeting the project’s pre-determined deadline, forming a clear project organization, using well-known high quality development and control tools, and sharing risks among the business partners. 

Off-Shore Project Processes (Dertour)
In order to proceed successfully in project management, first of all, project management metodology must be written down , and project phases must be determined correctly. In Dertour project, by the communication provided via MS Project Server, project plan, resources and time control of these resources can be conducted from single source. The project team can reach MS Project Server via internet to record working hours and to follow the updated project plan. In addition, the project manager can direct the project indepently from the location of his resources.     

In project controlling, project development steps must be followed via various ways such as telephone, status meetings, e-mail etc. Besides, the availability for the customers to keep track of resource usage is another key element in this phase. In order to give more detailed information about this issue, reporting to the customers with small time intervals is necessary. 

In Dertour project, it is decided that making business process analysis together Nexum Boğaziçi and Dertour on site in Frankfurt, is the most appropriate alternative. There, by presentations and workshops, detailed resource planning and project plan was shared with the customers.    

The next phase in the project was functional and technical design. In design phase, again many workshops must be done to be sure that the needs of the customers are understood correctly and the project is developing successfully. At the same time, formal documents were prepared for new demands of the customers and studies were conducted over these documents.    

In the development stage of the Dertour project, only the project coordinator was in Frankfurt, other Nexum Boğaziçi team members were all participating to the project from İstanbul. A safe communication among project participants was obtained over VPN and Remote Desktop.    

After working on designs, the team started working on tests and revisions. In the Dertour Project, Bugzilla was used as a revision management tool and CVS was used for version control of the program. With the help of Bugzilla, customers managed to report every kind of error and revision demands to Nexum Boğaziçi and it was immediately responded with a solution.

At the last stage, Dertour implemented the online reservation system by the support of Nexum Boğaziçi staff in İstanbul and San Francisco. Nexum Boğaziçi transfered the necessary know-how to Dertour IT department. 

08/11/2005