Ixxus has rapidly established itself in the information management space as a creator of fully integrated solutions with a special approach to project delivery. Steve Odart, managing director of Ixxus Limited tells the story.

Our New Zealand team delivers the technical support – at a third the cost of a UK-based team.

From our inception in 2004, my focus has been to build a core team of information management specialists based ‘onshore’ in the UK, with a larger development group based ‘offshore’ in New Zealand.

Critically, this structure and accompanying working practices enables Ixxus to deliver a proposition that customers find compelling: meeting business, user and technology objectives quickly and cost-effectively.

So how do we make ‘offshoring’ work at a time when many companies are suffering as a result of similar practices?

Firstly, it is the choice of New Zealand as the offshoring location.

Secondly, by dividing the work between the two locations, we tap into the strengths of each. Our UK hub works closely with clients (who are based in the UK, Europe and North America) from project definition to delivery.

Meanwhile, our New Zealand team delivers the bulk of the technical capacity – at a third of the cost of a UK-based team.

One team, one vision

We use a one team methodology, which differs from the traditional way of dealing with offshore development where, typically, core developers are in the home country and the offshore developers write isolated chunks of code as sub-assemblies to the main development without any great insight into the client’s requirements.

Instead, we have core developers in both centres. Each of the teams involved works closely as one project team with a holistic view of the project, which delivers real efficiencies.

Going off-piste

Knowing that I wanted to deliver ‘more’ to clients for ‘less’, realistically, this meant going offshore. However, after detailed analysis I soon ruled out the traditional countries, such as India and China. Whilst they undoubtedly offered the cheapest labour, there were obstacles that would have compromised our fundamental proposition, be they linguistic or cultural differences, which would have led to communication difficulties, inferior quality work, high turnover of staff, or inadequate management requiring significant ongoing investment to maintain the necessary standards – it was enough to put me off.

It was a timely conversation that led to the investigation of New Zealand as an alternative location. Firstly, much of the risk associated with usual outsourcing destinations is neutralised by the excellent cultural fit between the UK and New Zealand.The steady flow of Kiwi travellers on working visas and ex-pats going in both directions, have contributed to the similarities between the two cultures extending to the workplace. These similar working practices and attitudes, not to mention the common language, minimise miscommunication, which so often blights international working in practice.

Although not the bargain basement priced labour that some countries provide, New Zealand offers approximately three times the amount of resource as a UK-based workforce at an equivalent level of technical skill.

Another major benefit is that a Kiwi team allows a second development day within a 24-hour period which can significantly reduce lead times – great when there are tight deadlines to hit and for offering ongoing support.

Indeed, Conduit, as our earliest client, was the first to discover just how well this worked in its favour. As owners of a number of directory enquiry services across Europe following government deregulation in these markets, Conduit commissioned us to build an online directory solution for the UK. The 20-hour development cycles meant that Conduit exceeded its initial development timescales and could roll out across Europe far earlier than expected to give it a significant lead over the competition.