Arrk was founded on a desire to create a business that challenged the traditional values, behaviours and attitudes of many of the established consultancies and IT service companies. Most of the management and senior technical people at Arrk have been ‘buyers’ of these services at one time or another and there was a general level of frustration not only with the poor quality of service and lack of value for money, but also with the absence of any meaningful customer focus. Too much of what large IT service companies do is governed by short-term revenue targets and commercially driven risk management strategies (theirs not yours!).
Creativity thus came through as an early value as did a focus on delivering outstanding levels of Customer Satisfaction. The jaded nature of many of the bigger established players reflected itself in the way they view, manage and treat their people. Treating people with respect and dignity, being fair and even-handed and giving them a sense of being part of an entity with values are all strengths of Arrk.
Given the above it is no surprise to Arrk that research undertaken by Intellect identified that there is, industry wide, public and private, a fundamental lack of trust in the market between the buyers and sellers of IT. Too many of the promises made by the sellers have failed to match up to expectations. Too many technology companies ride high on massive profits whilst their customers struggle with half baked solutions and unstable technology. Professional and personal integrity emerged as important factors in determining our behaviour at Arrk.
Most multi-national organisations are very large, functionally organised and traditional in their management structures. There is little interaction between their functions - even within one country let alone globally.
Arrk is completely different. We have a tightly integrated organisation that spans two continents and two very different social cultures. People in Arrk at all levels are in regular communication, daily and in some cases hourly. This creates a solid foundation for our Integrated Global Delivery Model. One of the ways we maintain this similarity in operating culture is by having similar policies, procedures and management styles in both operations. Another critical success factor in building and maintaining a single culture is leadership. Arrk has one management team who share responsibility for both UK and India operations. We even have a ‘cultural committee’ that is dedicated to the continual effort of maintaining Arrk’s distinctive culture.