Because I reserved time for around 12 meetings it was a challenge for me to plan how to get to every single meeting with a Client and not being too late. The time pressure, a laptop bag included small gifts for my Clients and most of the main Tube Station in London closed generated me a lot of problems with getting on time for my meetings…
Moreover Autumn period in UK, especially in the big metropolis like London brings a lot of tourists crowd there and the more difficult the travelling is.
But fortunately I managed to be on time for every meeting, especially because of my Client full tolerance and the subject of the meetings. Most of my appointments were related to how our Company could participate in the software development process for theirs end Clients. We discussed our software development model, methodology of delivering services, way of handling with the outsourcing risk, dedicated team management and etc. Beside discussing above, I learned few interesting things from persons that I met that time in London.
One of this was a quite fresh pricing model that Companies in UK are requiring when it comes to a software development partnership with Company like ours. It is called: ‘Benefit-Based called also Gain-Sharing’. My Client explained to me the general idea of handling projects in that pricing model and how a Company should react and participate in that. Another great lesson I have learned coming back from my trip to London was short presentation (having in the nice ‘Little Ship Club’ in London) about ‘EMPESO’ – support for mobile payments development (e.g. Starbucks customers can pay for their skinny caramel macchiatos with an iPhone, iPod Touch or BlackBerry).
The most important part of my trip was signing in a contract with UK based Company related to Healthcare Industry in Great Britain. We are involved in mobile application development (mostly in Windows Mobile and Windows Phone technologies) and we are working together with our Client to customize theirs clinical software systems. While I’m writing my blog post our team is working Onsite Client in London, learning the architecture of the Client application, processes and tools. We do hope that this partnership agreement will transform into long lasting relationship in near future!
I took with me some conclusions regarding actual IT needs there in Great Britain, just few of them I will present below:
– More and more e-commerce solutions will be implemented and customized by British Companies (small and medium one)
– Mobile Payments Development becomes very popular and will generate demand for experienced software engineers
– Insurance Industry is becoming very strong and this branch will request for optimization and migration from older to modern systems and application, it is just matter of near time
I’m very satisfied with results I brought with me after my trip. I also learned a lot from my Clients and I had a chance to change my opinions and thoughts with them. And in the end I like London, this multicultural atmosphere, architecture, people and live music… I will remember very long that beautiful evening in London having my supper in Chiswick (‘Chiswick Piano Bar’) when an Iranian girl played amazing on the piano soundtrack from ‘Romeo and Juliet’. It’s a pity that such an events are so rarely in my home town, I wish I could going out for a nice live music concert just in the middle of the week like in London…
Responsible for expansion of JCommerce’s range of software development services and products, thus extending the reach of Clients portfolio mainly throughout Europe and North America, as well as establishing strategic presence on this markets.