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Asseco: Call with Renata on bad news [3-Oct-19] (Quest Related Discussions…
Asseco: Call with Renata on bad news [3-Oct-19]
Summary
How did the board meeting go?
Door is still open, and she feels this is their negotiating tactic
Her supervisor (CEO) said that they can find a different company, since the cost and long term contract option is not appealing
Answers we were looking for
How will she manage the 20% increase in staff capacity?
They are considering involving recruiting agencies
Will they hire locally only? Or will they work with freelancers or other vendors?
Looking for hiring locally
Is the project still a priority?
Yes, and the aim is to start in Jan still
What are the risks she sees with them not outsourcing?
What were the main concerns?
Monthly cost?
Yes, if they compare with getting people locally
No, if we compare with freelancers
She pointed out that the Czech COO, Jiri Hub noticed that the cost initially shared were lower than the cost we shared later - is again clarified because we were
Long term contract?
They don't want long term contract, and I clarified that we have the SOW based option, and the long term contract was proposed only to make the first 3 months more attractive as per her suggestion
Does Asseco not work with other vendors in other countries?
What can be done better next time?
She pointed out that it is not over and in fact things have been good so far, and this is just the initial speed bump
I shared that there were some communication gaps here and there which could have been resolved if we had more regular calls
I also shared that I was expecting her to let me know if the cost and the long term contract was going to be a problem before the decision was made
That is when she clarified that the door is still open, and even she did not expect the cost to be a problem before she spoke to her supervisor
Looking ahead
I think this demonstrates the flexibility of Cybage
She will share tech stack with us, but briefly she shared .NET Core, NPAQ, PAQ, Rabit MQ, MicroServices
She agree and feels that we can still find a way if we keep an open contract and not 12 month or 16 month etc.; and if we come up with better cost
We can have a simple contract which is not long term and offers them flexibility to terminate at a 30-day notice
The costs part can be reviewed, she did share the cost that Mr. Jiri Hub reviewed from before which was in the range of 14K euros monthly | the proposal we shared had higher cost
She will share with me the rates for hiring engineers in Bratislava / Ukraine etc. which are comparable to our rates
What I feel
I have a feeling that she has discussed the Quest/Metalogix billing rates with her ex-colleague Chris Capson which are in the range of 2700 USD
The rates for quest are very low already as per what I discussed with Debasis, but she may want to get a better deal out of this
Other Discussions
She has been busy traveling
She learnt that Ryan has joined Cybage from Malte (who was Ryan's colleague before and is still in Quest/Metalogix)
In the last few months there is an upswing the number of profiles they are getting for job openings
The rates in general in Ukraine and Bratislava are lower
I did add that offshoring is not just about rates, it is about the value they get for the investment they make, the ecosystem, and the access to the bigger pool of knowledge and expertise - enabling them to scale
She asked how long is the conversion cycle
I shared that in cases it is though a referral (which is in our case), it usually is 3-4 months
Quest Related Discussions
She gave a heads-up that Chris Capson from Quest/Metalogix is visiting Bratislava next month
They are hiring in Bratislava, while the process has been slow so far, they reached out to old Metalogix people who were fired some years ago - and they are willing to rejoin
Quest wants to get rid of their center in China, so she feels that it is a good opportunity for Cybage
That said, rates is a challenge
Cost is a factor for them since they want to show that they are profitable
I asked if Chris had shared any other concerns apart from Cost, to which she said no