Examples of EU-CIS telework in business

A couple of similar to each other examples in teleworking in the IT area are companies Nicotech and Cinimex (Moscow, Russia) and their West-European counterparts.

Telework is mostly operational in the areas, where the subject of the work is either easily movable, or non-material. Information is one of such subjects; it can be easily moved from one place to another, or can equally easily be transmitted over the lines of communication. Thus it is no surprise that telework is especially popular in the industries dealing with the information. In particular, the programming is one of the professions which are well positioned for the successful telework.

Nicotech and Cinimex

Company Nicotech was established in the middle of 1992 as a Russian-Dutch joint venture (with a company L+T, Eindhoven) with the programming as its core business. Company Cinimex split from Nicotech in the middle of 1997 with the same business in mind, but with differences in the details. Both companies work for West-European clients, both use telework as their main method of the work, both are successful. So these are two examples of fully operational teleworking between EU countries and CIS countries.

It can be interesting to consider the experience of these two companies. Their examples can be the guidelines for the development of the other successful telework projects between EU countries and other countries. Here it must be mentioned, that although the experiences of both companies are similar, these experiences have the different time frame. Nicotech has (as of today) more than eight years of experience. Cinimex has only three and a half years. But company Cinimex was split from Nicotech, and at that moment it had the same level of telework as Nicotech itself. From that moment on, the both companies have similar, but not identical experience. This gives a better ground for generalizations.

Concerning telework, we can outline three different time periods in the life of these companies :

• First period. Elements of telework. Traditional means of telecommunications.
  
• Second period. Low-speed Internet communications. Offline teleworking.
  
• Current period. Online teleworking via high-speed Internet connection.