Serbian IT company Gowi believes that the key to success lies in managing a relationship rather than simply governing a contract
In today’s competitive and challenging business environment, it is difficult to stand out.

Sustaining the profitable growth has been more difficult than ever, and it is well known that the key to success is to innovate, to offer extraordinary experience to customers and to assure future growth. However, it is up to each company to find their way through, to make the right decisions at the right time, to explore strange new worlds and go where no one else has gone before. Business requires constant planning, adoption of new ideas, and leadership to allow for continued success year-on-year, regardless of the pitfalls faced.

Employing the best staff, reliable and trustworthy, is one of the key factors in long term success.

It is becoming very important to maximise the utilisation of existing assets in order to overcome some of the issues companies are facing in a challenging economy, and to ensure the business growth. So, companies are either looking at internal sourcing or, quite often, they are trying to build the best possible outsourcing business models.

Regardless of the type of business or the type of service that might be outsourced, one of the biggest challenges for companies is to choose the right partner. It is not just about cutting costs, it is more often about entrusting the business process to someone outside the organisation.

It is not about technology, but people
Gowi is facing the software development outsourcing challenges together with its clients by focusing energy on understanding customers’ business needs as well as their strategic goals in order to support them: to put innovation to work, grow the business and gain a competitive advantage.

Through collaborative outsourcing and a process that is fundamentally client driven, Gowi supports customer growth and innovation by providing business flexibility, enabling access to talent, helping customers to drive the change, taking initiative and proactively working together, being honest and transparent, building a strong relationship based on trust, shared values and reliability, and of course delivering value.

After over 12 years of experience in the software development offshore outsourcing sector, GOWI has been recognised as a reliable partner that is able to help clients select the best-suited approach to their challenge.

According to Danijela Stojadinovic, CEO at Gowi, as a result of this kind of approach Gowi has developed long–term trust based relationships with a number of clients and partners from the UK, Germany, Holland and Serbia.

“Gowi demonstrates a commitment to serving its customers. We tend to build the partnering model with focus on collaboration, flexibility and results. Our collaborative outsourcing model implies: shared values and cultural fit along with wanting to ensure that both parties are successful,” she says.

Gowi is a dynamic, fast-growing software company that was established in 2000 and over the period since has successfully gone through a number of transformation cycles. Today, Gowi’s team is based in Belgrade and Pancevo, Serbia. In 2011, Gowi invested in Urdgroup Ltd and became one of the owners of the business based in the UK.

In 2011, Gowi was named Microsoft Country Partner of the Year for Serbia for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of exceptional Microsoft-based solutions. In 2009, the Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA) recognised GOWI as Exporter of the Year in its SME category. This award was received as a result of Gowi’s extraordinary exporting results achieved primarily on the UK market.

Pragmatic approach to challenges
Significant numbers of outsourcing contracts tend to fail in the implementation phase mostly because of lack of strategic fit between the client and the outsourcing service provider. The key to success lies in managing the relationship rather than simply governing the contract.

Gowi understands the risks companies are taking by deciding to outsource software development and through its pragmatic approach the members of Gowi’s team take full responsibility and accountability for meeting business expectations.

Gowi has set up a communication framework supporting a range of communication strategies and skills which promotes collaboration with the client, sharing information, giving and receiving feedback, learning from outcomes. Gowi encourages people to actively engage themselves in the problem and to come up with suggestions for improvements, bearing in mind the purpose of the project.

GOWI’s customer-focused approach
Gowi specialises in Custom Application Development and ensures that applied approach conveys how solutions can address customer’s complex challenges, maximise efficiency and reduce costs. The custom solutions are tailored to meet both clients’ professional and practical business needs and to serve their intended purpose, while obviously ensuring return on investment.

Quality business analysis, planning and design is the key to successful custom application development as it can give a developed solution unique and valuable features, but also make sure that the return is worth the cost.

According to Mrs Stojadinovic, front liners who communicate directly with customers are knowledgeable, experienced and empowered to solve problems. They are in a unique position to observe, understand and communicate the needs of customers. “We are open minded listeners who understand the true meaning and feeling that lies beneath the customers’ words. The ability to put ourselves in clients’ shoes and walk a mile allows us to connect with our customers and create a sense of teamwork between us. Our understanding of the way customers uses our products or services influences our choices about our strategy,” she says.

Keeping promises and working together
By putting the focus on people rather than technology, Gowi has developed the values and communication framework that ensures openness, honesty, empowerment, trust, and teamwork. Its approach ensures the focus is on having effective discussions rather than just trying to ‘get it right.’

In order to overcome some offshore outsourcing challenges, Gowi has developed a collaborative outsourcing model that ensures that teams are working together cohesively, focused on achieving the same objectives and working from the same context. Through collaborative outsourcing, Gowi ensures that the client’s knowledge is enhanced, not lost, as a result of outsourcing.

Gowi’s project management and software development life cycle methodology is stringent to ensure that all the necessary aspects of software development are addressed and yet remain flexible enough to be customised to fit the needs and size warranted by each specific project and client.

The professional teams that are allocated to each project provide a personalised approach for each client. Gowi’s customers benefit from its unique approach to software development, offshore outsourcing and from its diverse pool of talented and innovative people who understand how to fit the technology into specific business needs.

According to Mrs Stojadinovic, Gowi is the team of people who are not just doing their jobs, but enjoying the work, not just another group of software engineers capable of designing and building software solutions simply wanting to sell their knowledge to customers. “We set up a company where people bring passion, enthusiasm, high energy and excitement into their work. We created an environment in which people are genuinely enthusiastic to give their ideas, go the extra mile and move things forward,” she says.

Putting innovation to work
Both public and private organisations are concerned about keeping pace with a fast-shifting environment. Every company wants to achieve profitable growth over the long-term and to outperform industry competitors. The long-term success of organisations is largely defined by their ability to grow and innovate more successfully than their competition.

Accelerating growth through innovation comes down, ultimately, to the performance of a company’s people. Optimising that performance, however, depends on a unique and diverse pool of talented contributors, internal and external. Through its collaborative outsourcing model, Gowi provides effective communication, talent management, and organisational effectiveness to help its clients implement the changes that need to be made to their IT landscape in order to start making things happen.

By understanding a customer’s business objectives, Gowi allocates the appropriate resources, with the right skills and competencies, understanding the strategic objectives and driving the required change, transforming the business and assuring future growth.

Gowi provides a range of IT outsourcing services and solutions to enable companies to develop challenging and innovative software products, as well as run their day-to-day operations. Over the years Gowi has specialised in designing and implementing the tailor-made software solutions for different vertical markets such as publishing, insurance, education, government, health, and so on.

Gowi’s mission is reflected in its name – which comes from Go With Ideas – as it encourages both employees and customers to put innovation to work. By building positive experiences over time, Gowi gains trust and builds long-term relationships.

According to Mrs Stojadinovic, the company’s business development plans is to grow strategically through expansion into new and existing markets. “The key drivers of the Gowi business growth are happy customers and happy employees,” she says.