Q1 2020

EU BUSINESS NEWS / Q1 2020 9 , Check and Mate until the necessary staff have been employed to replace him. Finally, there is the option for Dmitri to find his own replacement, whether there is a suitable person in post at the company or if someone from outside the business. Before leaving, Dmitri ensures that the replacement is fully trained and able to fill his role. With such thorough procedure in place, we asked Dmitri what the benefits could be to businesses: “After my work is done, my client will have the control over its own IT system,” he explained. “The IT department – or whatever the structure is – will be able to consult on business changes and give the correct estimate for the time and schedule of any change.” The slow implementation of necessary business changes is built-in to every business, in Dmitri’s experience, with the main difficulty not being the technical challenge but a simpler case of mind over matter. Such is the alien nature of many aspects of IT and its costs to most managers that they simply don’t pay it any attention. Fortunately, there are several common indicators that his services are required. The obvious option involve management trying to save money through sending this work offshore instead of investing in the company as well as thinking it best not to change too much in IT because every change is a potential risk. Dmitri’s opinion on this is clear: “Who does not evolve will not survive” he says simply. It’s a characteristic statement that carries a great deal of weight in a world that revolves around change and renewal, but where business leaders are afraid of making the next big step. Other potential indicators include teams being forced to adjust to new frameworks and systems, even if they do not fit what the business wants and needs from its IT system, too many meetings that end without tangible results or progress and there are major issues with performance. For Dmitri, this reflects the big trends of the industry. “The CEOs think that the IT must be expensive, difficult and impossible to plan correctly. This is the biggest problem, the mindset problem. Because they think that these problems are NORMAL, they even do not try to solve them. All their neighbours/competitors companies have the same problems, it is then completely normal.” Sometimes, this stems from taking over another company that was a competitor and merging the two different systems and sometimes this stems from attempting to solve the inherent problems with using different development processes like SCRUM, misunderstanding the roles that must be taken and curated in the project and organization. We turned to Dmitri to discover what the primary causes of these problems was. “On the market, there are people who want to correct the code and use new techniques, but they all forget that the most important is to include the IT guy into the decisions before deciding to make an unrealistic project.” What Dmitri offers, amongst other things, is a way to implement these projects in a way that incorporates all the important players within the change. “I have a blueprint for successful large software projects. That blueprint describes the project structure, the roles with their responsibilities and rights, teams and meetings, resource planning for the key roles, and finally the steps on how to start.” This straightforward guide is a godsend for businesses, providing the perfect way forward for companies. Dmitri’s guide has won many contracts with various big companies. Interestingly, this does not mean that he deals exclusively with IT, although all the companies have big IT departments. This means that Dmitri is not only rubbing shoulders with Porsche, Daimler, Bosch and Siemens, but is able to solve problems with banks, assurances and electricity board with equal aplomb. Given his view that the majority of companies and organisations are afflicted with poor management and a lack of clarity in terms of the implementation of IT systems, we asked Dmitri just what he thought needed to be done for business owners. “The biggest trends in Germany, and internationally, is that the CEO think that IT must be expensive, difficult and impossible to plan correctly. This is the biggest problem – the mindset problem. Because they think that these problems are normal, they even do not try to solve them. All their neighbours and competitors have the same problems, so it is completely normal.” Fighting the normalisation of this process comes first and foremost from Dmitri resetting the standards for IT structures and processes. When we enquired about how he intended to change these entrenched positions on IT, he explained that “my goal is to streamline their organisation’s IT infrastructure so that they are able to change their processes depending on their needs, rather than changing the needs to fit the processes. They should be able to take over competitors without having to spend years merging infrastructures together. The organizations should be able to change their processes depending on business requirements and not because that’s the IT limitation.” In many ways, this is a reflection of Dmitri’s skill on the chessboard. Inspired by Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov, he makes sure to look at life with an open mind and to see the entire board when focusing on problem solving. One of Dmitri’s activities as an entrepreneur is taking a role in the world of real estate. Even here, he is able to meet new clients through the problems they are facing thanks to poor IT management. This is where Dmitri’s passion for other businesses pays off beautifully, with he and his wife Florence investing in real estate in an exclusive part of Stuttgart, Germany. This rental property portfolio has grown over the years granting them significant success. Looking forward, it’s clear that the methodical approach that Dmitri can bring to a variety of businesses is one that pays itself back several times over. For a one-off change in how businesses work, the reward is complete control and understanding of how to move forward for all core teams. With a commitment to making IT suit the needs of the company, as opposed to twisting the company around the IT, Dmitri could simplify business operations the world over. Contact Details Company: Bountsman Dmitri Software Architect Contact: Dmitri Bountsman