On 17-18 October 2013, the Polish-German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (AHK) in cooperation with the Chamber of Commerce of Upper Bavaria (IHK) invited the Polish IT companies to a bilateral meeting with representatives of IT industry from Bavaria.

High quality in software development

The aim of the meeting was to introduce opportunities of cooperation to Polish software companies, explore the potential of this market and establish contacts that may someday turn into a business partnership.

Each time whether it was during the tour around the Smart Mobile Labs (innovative mobile applications laboratory in Munich), an BMW plant or directly during conversation with companies such as REC Global, I realized how much we contributed, we Polish people, to the IT culture of the European market, in this particular case in Germany.

During the second day in the capital of Bavaria the brief presentations of Polish IT representatives, also JCommerce, took place.  I had a “five-minute” exposé to present the range of services and expertise of JCommerce (I mentioned the expansion of nearshoring, development of our Microsoft, .NET, JAVA, and Business Intelligence departments, methodologies of design: Agile, Scrum, and partnership with companies such as QlikTech and Microsoft). Of course, I did not neglect to mention the important value, which is the result of the work of our local IT professionals, that is the Quality of software development! I was surprised, when the moderator of the conference said after my presentation: “Here in Germany, we are convinced of the high quality of Polish IT services. Here, You are well-known for that, and you do not have to prove anything to Europe … “

Finally I want to say few words. If we are witnessing the changing the generational stereotype of “Polish drunk and thief” to “Polish IT specialists  and Polish software quality” it means that we have reached the point where we have a national treasure of which we are known and respected in the world and certainly at our neighbour’s (which has been shown even this year by CeBIT and the Polish role in the project).

This year Brussels Marathon was an opportunity to meet and discuss the current cooperation, projects being carried out and our future plans. This time it was a double challenge. I was supported and cheered by two of our Clients – totally different from one another in a view of technology (.NET and JAVA), company’s size and the way they manage their projects. With a great dose of curiosity they awaited my appearance and, what was the most motivating, they were planning to follow and watch me on the route. Having known their expectations regarding the quality of our services and projects, I had no choice but to approach the subject the best I could and my preparation allowed me to (here always lies the great unknown :D), and just confirm our high class. The beautiful, sunny weather and tactically well-played run let me reach my personal record and good looks for photos during and after the run.

Furthermore, I think that each member of JCommerce teams has done a great job this year, and every day, without exception, we try to implement the idea of Team Extension in our projects for Customers from abroad, which has a single aim – WE ARE A TEAM.

A lot of thanks also for my photographer and Technical Director – Jarek for his support and help before, during and after the run!

Let me try to prove my hypothesis- Doing IT business is like participating a Champions League tournament… by providing a thesis in the example below:

Since the beginning of this year (January 2012) we have been focusing to prepare ourselves for participating in the biggest Mobile Conference in Europe called Apps World 2012.
As an IT Company we deciding to join the most influential event in Europe related to mobile industry, where top market leaders from all over the world included: developers, mobile marketers, mobile operators, device manufacturers, platform owners and industry professionals are meeting in one place, once per year: at Earls Court 2 in London!

I personally believe that there are a lot of common factors when a football club is preparing for the Champions League tournament and IT Company is preparing for attending the most crucial event in the IT industry.

If you ever watch a football team interview before the Champions League game, you can always hear the following words showing up in the statements:
Prestige, confrontation, positioning, knowledge & experience exchange, bitter defeat, mobilization, strategy, challenges, harnessing our own stereotypes, fight, and many more…

It means that we, people are not so far away from each other, no matter what the industry, social status or any other differentiating factor is.

While attending the Apps World 2012, we felt that we are there rather small (with services offering, scale of product influence), when comparing with brands like: Google, Apple, Facebook, Samsung, etc. but on other hand, we had chance to make live interaction with them, try to see what their good and weak sides are, how they are preparing their business model and long term strategy. But even if you stand in front of your competitor acting as Dawid meeting Goliath, and your chances to win anything seem very low, there is a glimmer of hope. Because all the pressure is put on your “enemy” you do not feel any prejudice and paradoxically you can win even more than you might have expected before.

We spent some very busy time during those 2 days of exhibiting at Earls Court 2 in London (See some selected pictures below). We met a lot of interesting people (hundreds of business cards exchanged), had some nice brainstorm discussions with business owners and also shared our knowledge and industry approach with workshop attenders on panel discussion: “In-House app building versus working with vendors, and pre-packaged solutions”. We gained a lot of fresh inspiration how to handle security (in the development process) and how to monetize the mobile applications. We also had a chance to review and focus on our core mobile and web based solutions. We were being asked about dedicated solutions, resources availability and technology focus.

We were surprised when, at the first day of exhibition, we saw two project leaders from our current Belgian Client (this year we developed together top sports applications such as: Tour de France, Olympic Games or Gouden11).
They decided to attend Apps World event to get an industry update and meet us there as a partner to share their experience with prospects visiting our stand (#65) and explain to them the near-shore cooperation model (focusing on team extension mode).

The idea of entitling my blog post: “Doing IT business is like participating a Champions League tournament…” has its beginnings in watching a Champions League game: Arsenal London – Olympiakos Pireus (on the Emirates Stadium in London). We have been invited by our Belgian Client to go out for a match on Wednesday evening (just after the 2^nd day of exhibition), 3th of October and integrate with each other watching an incredible football performance LIVE!
Doing IT business is really similar to the Champions League tournament. If you focus on the top things, you head to get the top Clients, top projects and top IT knowledge. But it also goes in the same direction with the local league. If your ambition and carrie  goal is to win only the local league, you will become what you deserve, like in the Ben Howard’s song “The Fear”.

And the last important conclusion:
If you would like to join the Champions League tournament and win the main award later on, please remember that your whole team needs to put their hearts in the desire to fight for IT; doing IT alone will be useless…