I.T.Co and the DATA FORT project have officially announced the granting of commercial services for the use of the Human Resources Management system BOSS-Kadrovik in Application Service Provision mode.

The launch of the new service was the result of a growing interest on the part of Russian companies and organizations in automated HRM systems. According to the results of marketing research by I.T.Co,  the yearly growth of the HR-systems market amounts to 25-30%. Experts from the DATA FORT decided to use this trend to expand their business. In the spring of 2002 they performed an analysis of the HR-solutions available on the Russian market in order to choose the most suitable one for granting in ASP mode. They selected the software suite BOSS-Kadrovik by I.T.Co which is essentially the only complete HR software available. Its architecture allows operational organization via remote access.

In addition, I.T.Co, which has been granting  remote demo-access to its product for about a year and a half, has regularly received requests for commercial operation of separate modules of the BOSS-Kadrovik via the Internet, and has been seeking a reliable partner, who would  assume the responsibility of ensuring trouble-free operation of the system in the remote access mode. After almost a year of close interaction, active testing and joint study of the financial aspects, DATA FORT and I.T.Co have officially begun the implementation of commercial services.

The solution offered by DATA FORT and I.T.Co incorporates such modules as "Manning Table" and "Personnel Records", which satisfy key requirements in the personnel management area and allow customers to avoid large lump sum expenses, the hiring of the additional personnel and the development of a sophisticated deployment project using their own resources. In addition, the clients of DATA FORT will have an opportunity to use an HRM-circuit of the BOSS-Kadrovik system, which allows the automation of such functions of human resources management as:

• hiring of personnel;
• evaluation of employees and enhancement of their certification process;
• training and improvement of the professional skills of employees, and professional retraining where necessary;
• development and implementation of a system of motivational and compensatory measures;
• planning of the professional growth of employees, design of a rotation process, deployment of reserve personnel

Moreover, this opportunity will be free for the first three months. As a routine calculation of an agreement for leasing five workplaces of the BOSS-Kadrovik system shows, the monthly payment of a client organization would be $1,075.00 during the first year, and  $732.00 during the second year, whereas the organization would have to pay $25.451.00 to purchase the system outright.    

The offered package of modules does not require the reorganization of crucial business processes, which undoubtedly is an additional advantage of this solution. This factor is of special importance for companies striving to stabilize expenses for the creation and maintenance of the IT infrastructure and to optimize their investments in the automation of primary activities. As a rule, these are organizations with a small staff, and they do not require complicated adjustments of various kinds of payments, which characterize large enterprises.

Thus, companies interested in improving their model of HR management have received an unprecedented opportunity to automate HR-functions at an appropriate level and are provided with optimal conditions for adopting the new solution within the accurate planning of the IT budget.

According to the conditions of the agreement, DATA FORT provides system users with Application Services. In addition, it monitors on a constant basis the availability of the application and the basic parameters of the server, performs daily back-ups, updates hardware and software to guarantee an appropriate level of operation. The application is allocated in the DATA FORT own data center, which is equipped with the advanced technology of the world's leading manufacturers (Cisco Systems, IBM, Dell Computer, BMC Software, Sun Microsystems etc). The developer of the system - I.T.Co - undertakes to train the staff of the customer, as well as to provide technical support for the ASP-version of its product.

According to Dmitry Komissarov, DATA FORT Commercial Director, the market has long awaited such an offer. "We are sure that the leasing of the BOSS-Kadrovik system will allow many companies to realize deferred plans and implement effective tools to manage their staff, while simultaneously keeping an optimal cost ratio. The economic appeal of this service consists of utilizing a consistent method of payoff distribution throughout the entire term of operation, which is highly beneficial to the customer, and avoiding huge expenses related to the purchase of a costly information system. At the same time the customer may surrender the lease at any time, or redeem a license for its full-scale use", he said.

"ASP makes our product available to small and middle-sized companies, which couldn't afford to purchase our system earlier', comments Eugeny Kuchik, Director of HR-systems department, I.T.Co. “At the same time, we expect that a certain proportion of the new service users will be large companies who would wish to test our product or to carry out its pilot implementation, without a need to invest in the purchase of licenses and computer equipment, as well as to hire additional technical experts. Such companies can decide to buy the full-scale BOSS-Kadrovik system at a later date”.