Arrk Group 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 senior 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 win-win collaboration. 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!). Collaborative innovation thus shone through as an early value as did a focus on imaginative innovation and the delivery of outstanding levels of Customer satisfaction.
The jaded nature of many of the bigger established players also reflected itself in the way that they view, manage and treat their people. Acting with integrity, in an authentic manner, treating all people with respect and dignity, being fair and even-handed and working hard to create a sense of being part of a community with strong morale compass are all strengths of Arrk.
Given the above, it is no surprise to Arrk that research undertaken by TechUK identified that there is a fundamental industry-wide lack of trust in the IT services market between buyers and sellers. Too many of the promises made by large IT vendors have failed to match up to expectations. Too many large technology companies ride high on massive profits whilst their customers struggle with half-baked solutions and unstable technology. For Arrkitects professional and personal integrity and a commitment to always seeking collaborative win-win outcomes governs our behaviour.
We are unique
Most large IT services businesses are multi-national organisations with traditional, bureaucratic management structures. There is little interaction between their functions – even within one country, let alone globally. Arrk Group is completely different.
Although our team spans two continents and two different social cultures we have a very closely integrated organisation. At Arrk we are used to working in a distributed but tightly joined-up manner with people at all levels being in almost constant communication. This creates a solid foundation for our distributed agile delivery model. One of the ways we maintain this unity in by having a strong, unified culture and by having very similar policies, procedures and management approaches in all locations. Another critical success factor in building and maintaining a unified culture is leadership. Arrk has one joined-up management team who share responsibility for both UK and India operations.
