|
| |
| NetDoktor, Denmark |
| KRINGs offshoremodel has helped Netdoktor achieve increased development |
| |
 Industry: Healthcare Services
NetDoktor is much more than an Internet-website, which is visited by 340,000 Danes every month. NetDoktor has offices in Spain, Austria, Germany, Sweden and England and monthly visits exceeding 1 million European users makes it the leading European digital health-information source on the web.
Competencies only a phone-call away
The company’s core competency relies on generating ideas in collaboration with the clients and realizing them rapidly – something which demands a high degree of flexibility and extensive project management of the IT-systems within the company.
New ressources for innovation
In 2004 the decision was made to transfer all of NetDoktors IT development to KRING Technologies and its overseas development center in India. The background for the decision relates to an increasing demand from NetDoktor’s clients in regards to obtaining rapid development and implementation of new IT solutions.
Furthermore, the flexibility, which was required of NeDoktor was becoming increasingly expensive compared to what the company – and the clients- had available in resources.
NetDoktor needed a development model, which firstly could handle the demands for flexibility, secondly which was resource saving and thirdly, which was effective. Consequently, it was decided to take advantage of KRING Technologies´ offshore model, which provides a combination of good flexible profiles in India as well as in Denmark.
Personal Contact
Since then KRING Technologies has been closely involved in all of the phases of the transition to offshore development, which NetDoktor has undergone. In order to secure the management and ensure as smooth a transition as possible, a decision was taken to have a Danish project manager work directly with NetDoktor in Copenhagen throughout the entire process.
Despite of the close contact and management, the transition which NetDoktor has experienced has been more bumpy than the company initially expected. Especially due to the fact that there was only 1 months overlap between former and new employees. This problem was solved for NetDoktor by inviting the Indian team to Denmark. And the face-to-face contact helped rapidly and efficiently created an understanding for the complex systems, which NetDoktor operate within. The experience from here has been useful for KRING, who also have incorporated this in strategic considerations for future endeavors.
Structured work-routines
The decision to go offshore with their development has required some adjustments I the daily communication at NetDoktor, and has at the same time required discipline, precision from the new work unit and also a new development strategy:
- In the past NetDoktor used iterative system development, where you can adjust throughout the process.
- Now NetDoktor use the waterfall method, where milestones are set for each phase of the project.
- NetDoktor now has a more formalized and documented process in the development process.
- More important decisions are taken early on in the process. Nonetheless, it has become more complicated to interrupt and change already initiated project.
Simplification and scalability
NetDoktor, which came about under the dotcom era and branched out into different systems, had grown too big for its current framework. But with its outsourcing to KRING’s development center, a simplification was under way.
- From 60 servers in the past, NetDoktor is currently down to using only 10 servers.
- Six fulltime programmers have been reduced to 2 at KRING and 1½ systemadministrator in India.
- NetDoktor can up- and downscale according to demand.
The transition to offshore development has meant that NetDoktor has become much more structured in its work- and communicationprocesses, where the design phase is now separated from the development phase.
The increased amount of documentation and structure has, according to IT manager Jamie Bramer at NetDoktor, has strengthened the company for the future, and he points to clear defined advantages in the scalability, which KRING Technologies can provide for the company.
Click on www.netdoktor.dk to find more information about this company |
| |
|
