Auriga: Heading for Development, Training, and Security

The 2012 year turned out to be successful for Auriga in many ways. But there are a few areas that we consider strategically important for the company and its clients in the long term.

Mentorship System Development and Taking the Training System to a New Level

The importance of learning and growth is one of the fundamental principles at Auriga. The curriculum of our educational program is tailored to the ever-evolving business environment, and apart from technical knowledge, which includes up-to-date practices and methods of software development and project management, the training system also focuses on developing employees‘ soft skills.

In 2012, a new long-term corporate training program with a focus on employees’ communication skills development was launched at Auriga. The comprehensive program, designed specifically for Auriga, employed various study modes, including training sessions, webinars, and online courses. The program helped to improve employees’ hard and soft skills and received high accolades from the participants. In total, the number of seminars and webinars held amounted to 100, and the total number of training man-hours amounted to around 2,000.

We also focused on the unique program Senseition, which is a combination of a mentorship and leadership program where experienced employees introduce newbies to the company’s values and rules, help them adjust, and supervise their activities. This program is open to all employees and is completely voluntary. Experienced employees (Senseis) are positioned as an elite group of leaders who have open career opportunities and who enjoy additional benefits from top management as they prove their exceptional leadership abilities. As a result, we expect an improved knowledge-transfer process, better adjustment of new people in the company, the development of technical expertise, and an overall improved leadership-development culture.

The program was an instant success, with 24 people expressing their interest in becoming a Sensei in the first month. Auriga is not planning to rest on its laurels and is instead focusing on further development in order to conform to up-to-date software development standards and to continue to exceed our clients’ expectations.

Information Security

Information-security issues have moved to the forefront due to network and computer infrastructure virtualization and the widespread use of mobile platforms, cloud technologies, and big data.

From the very beginning, Auriga has been building information-security policies in strict accordance with the advanced global standards in this area.

During 2012, a number of customers conducted external audits that covered (among others) cyber-security aspects. This was a very valuable experience, yielding interesting recommendations. Based on the audits’ results, we analyzed the existing information-security system and improved the processes related to data protection and the prevention of cyber-attacks.

As a result, we updated Auriga’s comprehensive set of measures dealing with cyber threats and enhanced the company’s security policy. Along with standard security measures (e.g., regular scanning of the IT infrastructure to detect and eliminate threats and vulnerabilities; the use of up-to-date anti-virus systems, firewalls, systems for prevention and detection of intrusions/attacks, logging systems, etc.), Auriga is now also using enhanced information-security measures. Among other things, we implemented two-factor authentication to protect remote VPN access.

Regions’ Growth

The growth of regional offices is one of the most important elements of Auriga’s development strategy. It allows us to respond to the IT needs of Russian companies in various regions in a timely fashion, bringing great new opportunities for potential and existing clients.

In 2012, for the first time in the history of the company, one of the regional offices surpassed the Moscow headquarters in terms of the number of engineers employed. Started in 2006 as an extension of the Moscow-based team dedicated to one of our key customers, Auriga-Nizhny is now a fully functional branch of the company with over 100 employees working on projects for major US, European, and Russian companies.

Auriga-Nizhny has plans of further development.

Today, we are in the top five leading software development companies in Nizhny Novgorod, which is one of the key centers of information technology development in Russia. In the near term, we plan to employ 200-220 engineers and to continue to put our best efforts into working with our current and new customers. It will allow us to strengthen our position as one of the major and most attractive players in the Volga region among software development companies, said Ildar Gabdulline, Head of Auriga-Nizhny Novgorod Development Center.