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Interview of Frédéric Lasnier |
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«The French SMEs must not be forgotten
due to the internationalization. They
also have to benefit from this “large
scale game” by cutting their IT
development costs. Pentalog, the second
French-Romanian offshore company, deals
with needs by providing solutions in a
European framework.»
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| August
2004 |
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Frédéric
Lasnier, Pentalog’s chairman, lays
out his vision of offshore outsourcing:
an economic point of view, emphasizing the
human dimension.
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Aleth D. : While
in United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the SMEs choose
the offshore outsourcing as a solution for IT developments,
in France they seem to be more reluctant. How do
you explain this phenomenon? |
Frédéric
Lasnier : The offshore subcontracting is
not so accustomed among all the French companies.
The large national and international companies did
not hesitate to turn towards the foreign countries
to develop their programs and save money in the
same time. Meanwhile, there are companies which
outsource in India or in South-West Asia; the French
ones are not so confident. Is it a punishment of
the internationalization process? The offers are
less transparent? The offshore activities are not
completely acknowledged.
Yet, the offshore might represent a true integration
axe for the client as well as for the subcontractor:
it widens the horizons (economic but also cultural
and linguistic), allows the integration in an extensive
economic diagram, and thus contributes to the increase
in competitiveness.. |
Aleth D. : And
still, for most of us, offshore means delocalization:
we reduce the employment in France to create new
jobs at the other corner of the world… |
Frédéric Lasnier
: Nowadays such a narrow vision should
be avoided. The economic development is strongly
connected with the internationalization process
– it is a well known fact – independent
of the fields: informatics, textiles or alimentation.
Consequently, it is up to us to create the framework
which will allow the blooming and the enrichment
of all activities. It is a vicious circle in some
way. The offshore in our vision is integrated in
a European conception. This year,
the EU was enlarged with 10 countries; two more
are to join the EU in 2007 – one of them is
Romania.
Most of all, we see the offshore as a nearby
service. Our project managers are always
located close to our clients, in order to intervene
quickly: in Orleans (nearshore of Paris), in Bucharest
and Brasov (nearshore of Bucharest). Our offshore
developers work in Brasov and in Bucharest so we
can provide services at competitive tariffs. |
Aleth D. : Well,
there are other companies, that follow the same
logic… why chose Pentalog? |
Frédéric
Lasnier : We have three major assets:
The legitimacy: we have been in
Romania since 1999, we have built a company according
to the Romanian laws, and all the employees are
Romanian. Only the manager is French.
French-speaking excellence: except
for two employees, the rest of the personnel are
French-speaking; the majority handles Molière’s
language as well as you and me. Our developers are
thus used with the “direct” manner of
the projects, without using dictionaries at every
step. Moreover, the projects in English raise no
problems, as the personnel speak fluently English.
Loyalty, a guarantee for quality:
legally paid, having a contract which states all
the aspects, our Romanian collaborators can rely
on their salaries, independent of the hard times,
allowing them to invest in their housing and proving
a stable team for our customers, which can be rediscovered
from one mission to another.
Going offshore along with Pentalog means
for French SMEs an assurance of quality, competitiveness
and continuity at all stages. |
| Contact
: Hélène
Hemery |
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