April 19, 2005. The IBS Company has announced the consolidation of the company’s internal resources to provide outsourcing services and to establish DATA FORT Outsourcing Center. This Center has been established through consolidation of all IBS outsourcing practices that were previously part of the Service and Support Division and the DATA FORT project.

The Outsourcing Center Director’s position was appointed to Yuri Samoilov who was previously the Integrated Solution Department Director. 

This restructuring is a result of the long-term IBS strategy aimed at intensive development of the outsourcing practices, activity increase in this business area and considerable increase of the company’s share on the IT outsourcing market. The IBS’ main strategic objective is to capture the leading position on the IT outsourcing market by developing new products and services and by increasing a scope of the services offered. According to the Company’s long-term business plan, by 2007 the IBS’ share at the IT outsourcing market should be at least 30-35 %.

The main factors in favor of the decision to establish the DATA FORT outsourcing Center appeared to be the significant growth of the IT outsourcing market along with the growth and quality change in demand on the part of the outsourcing service users. According to IBS’s recent forecast, in 2005-2008 an average growth rate in this segment of the IT market is expected to be 41 % per year.

Within the last three years the IBS Company has carried out dozens of projects, most of which have been handled through joint efforts taken by the following two divisions: Service and Support Division and DATA FORT Project. By integrating practices, resources and infrastructure into one DATA FORT Outsourcing Center, IBS is establishing an organization, which will allow the company to more efficiently use the resources, to decrease the services cost with a quality of the services being improved. Currently the DATA FORT Outsourcing Center comprises the following main business areas:

• Equipment and Infrastructure Outsourcing
• System and Network Control Outsourcing
• Technical Staff Outsourcing
• IT System Backup

As Yuri Samoilov, DATA FORT Outsourcing Center Director put it: «There is a great potential for the IT Outsourcing market in Russia. Currently there are more and more companies that realize the need for integrated multifunctional IT solutions. A high cost for implementation and support of such solutions dictates cost structure optimization performed just by means of the outsourcing model. It should also be taken into account that some potential clients who are interested in outsourcing the IT functions would like to be able to start doing it step-by-step, beginning with some user-friendly and comprehensible services used for specific business objectives, further extending the services range. The new organization will allow us to offer the widest possible range of the services with «one-window» access, which is extremely important in order to establish long-term partnership between a company outsourcing the IT services and an outsourcing services provider».

Integration of the practices and resources will allow DATA FORT Outsourcing Center to offer their clients a team of 375 experts, a commercial data center with unique infrastructure, high-speed data channels, support in 170 service centers throughout Russia, and also to bring expertise and experience in implementation of the outsourcing projects both at clients’ sites and at the DATA FORT site.

As Sergey Merkulov, IBS First Deputy General Director said: «Three and a half years ago, when launching the DATA FORT project, we realized what resources we need and how much efforts we should take to be able to go forward with the new organization, as well as to develop the outsourcing market in general. To some extent we have succeeded in pursuing both of these objectives: IBS is currently taking leading positions at the IT outsourcing market. The market itself is now certainly at the very initial stage of the development, however it does exist, it is rapidly growing, and this requires new approaches in terms of methodology, management and marketing. DATA FORT Outsourcing Center is our response to changing market demands with regards to current situation as well as to potential development. As part of our long-term plans we consider a possibility of transforming this Center into an independent company of the IBS Group».

In 2005 it is planned to invest $5-6 million in the development of the Outsourcing Center.