Betsson Technologies

Betsson Technologies is a Swedish software company specializing in software for the Internet gaming industry. The company is part of Betsson AB that invests in companies offering gaming services over the Internet.

In the third quarter of 2008 we had a demand for IT development resources as we were continuously expanding our existing team in Sweden. However, given our knowledge of the market we knew that it would be hard to find the amount of skilled software developers we required. We wanted both a cost efficient resourcing alternative as well as a better suited location to find skilled resources quickly to be able to grow to meet the demands.

We knew about Ciklum from Betsson Malta, which had previously used Ciklum's Relocation services. They recommended Ciklum as a potential supplier and after a meeting with one of Ciklum's consultants we liked the proposed dedicated development team concept. The identified cost savings of approximately 50 to 80% compared to hiring the equivalent IT people in Sweden sounded too good to be true. Therefore we checked several Ciklum's references. We were quite happy with what we heard back and this gave us the needed comfort and assurance to move one step forward.

Next we had a telephone conference with Ciklum's HR department during which we together defined the requirements for the team we would need. As the next step Ciklum initiated the recruitment process, did the first round of the interviews, and only two weeks later we flew to Kiev to interview the first short listed candidates. During one and a half days in Kiev we interviewed eleven candidates and we were positively surprised about their competence levels and attitudes. During our visit we also met with Ciklum's key management as well as Ciklum Service and Consulting department. After those meetings we had a clear picture of the start-up help they provide to ensure a streamlined and productive start-up process.

Based on this field trip we had a very good feeling that the candidates and Ciklum's client team model was the right set up for us, hence we started the team with the four developers we selected during the trip and two weeks later they flew to our headquarters in Stockholm to start knowledge transfer. We had decided to have them there for the first six weeks in order to ensure that these employees would feel as part of the Betsson Team as well as learn and digest Betsson's culture and values on site. This has proven to be very valuable as the time needed to manage the setup is limited and we did actually get an efficient start with rapid productivity and good quality. Very soon after the initial hiring we got some more candidates presented to us and within three weeks we had expanded our team further, to a total of seven software developers working for us in Ukraine. Furthermore, we have stationed our own Swedish Project/Team Manager in Kiev because we see this near-shoring as the long term cooperation and a substantial part of our total development process. Moreover, we continue sending team members between Sweden and Kiev to improve the knowledge sharing between the two locations and make sure that they all feel part of the Betsson company culture.

 

Overall I believe that Ciklum's experience in using best practice around setting up a successful software development abroad is the key to the success. The total time from the first contact with Ciklum to the team start up was six weeks. We were surprised how fast the process was and how little resources we needed to invest. Currently, the quality and efficiency of our near-shore team in Ukraine is already up to a level matching our IT development team in Sweden. We would definitely recommend what we have experienced and Ciklum per se to any company wishing to either expand their IT team or save costs via establishment a near-shore software development team in Ukraine.

Reference date: April 2010