Danish maritime and logistics solutions company DFDS, the owner of U.N. Ro-Ro, will establish a software development center in Istanbul. DFDS, which incorporated U.N. Ro-Ro for 950 million euros in April, will open its third software development center in Istanbul in addition to its existing headquarters in Copenhagen and software center in Immingham, U.K.

DFDS Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Vice President Gert Möller said that DFDS, which operates in Northern Europe, has become a company operating throughout Europe after the acquisition of U.N. Ro-Ro.

Möller stated that they have experts in every port working in the field of informatics in order to render ship transportation services without any problems, adding that they have embarked on a quest, due to the high price of applications developed by external firms, for themselves.

Touching on how the company came up with the idea of establishing a software development center in Istanbul, Möller said that that it was very hard to find expert software developers in Western Europe due to the employment gap. "We thought that we could find them in Eastern European countries, but we faced the same situation there... While thinking about 'what to do,' they advised us India. However, in addition to the time difference, they are also culturally different from us. After the acquisition of U.N. Ro-Ro, we

searched whether we can attract software developers more easily as Istanbul is very big and has very good universities. As a result of our research, we realized that there is good potential and high level. For these reasons, we decided to establish a software development center in Istanbul," he explained.

Stressing that the center will start with a software team of 20 people in the first stage, Möller stated that they will increase the number of software developers in the team if they succeed. Indicating that they will divide the 20-person team into three groups, Möller noted that the first group will work in the field of system compatibility and develop software for the compatibility of the company's systems with customer systems.

The second one will provide services in application areas that currently lack in other software development centers of the company and that they have had done by other companies. Pointing out that they want to develop more applications and to make the application team established in the Istanbul center specialized, Möller expressed, "Our application development center will have its own hierarchy and will only serve in our software development center in Istanbul. The third group will develop the software we use at ports. I cannot say that we are good at warehouse management software that we use in ports, and we want to close this gap. The systems that we will develop will be used in ports where U.N. Ro-Ro, as well as DFDS, operate." Möller stressed that the software development center they will establish in Istanbul will cooperate with Copenhagen and Immingham, although it will have its own hierarchy.