Romanian IT&C Directory 2018

A Project of iBusiness Romania A The Project of iBusiness Romania 18th Edition, April 2018 www.ibusiness.com.ro www.ibusiness.com.ro

A Project of iBusiness Romania

ROMANIAN IT&C DIRECTORY THE IT INDUSTRY IN ROMANIA The most important success story for our country!

ROMANIAN ITC MARKET: FACTS&FIGURES

THE BIG DATA BANG AND THE INTERNET OF THINGS

SO LITTLE IS SO MUCH TRANSFORMING GDPR “CALAMITY”EFFECT IN BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY ROMANIAN ITC COMPANIES ibusinessevents.ro

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

The IT Industry in Romania – the most important success story for our country!

It is already a common acknowledgement that Romania has one of the most significant “crown jewels”: the IT industry. This is simply a fact and a strong reputation created in years of sustainable work in clusters or in companies spread all around the country.

The list of accomplishments could be a very long one, but I will try to underline what I believe it really matters. Firstly, we have talents able to be programmers, to lead projects to fulfill maybe the most difficult goals in implementing complex IT infrastructures. Some + 80 000 people are now employed in thousands of companies creating applications, working in outsourcing or near sourcing entities, providing IT services (in a very wide range) for third parties both from Romania and on an international level.

Mihaela Gorodcov

General Manager iBusiness Romania Mihaela.gorodcov@ibusiness.com.ro

Secondly, but not as top of skills and advantages, there are a lot of big names (international brand names) having in Romania their support centers, which provide services for their international clients no matter where they are located. I would add here maybe a secondary skill of our IT people which is the ability and the education to know and speak foreign languages so that, besides our common English, they can deliver information and assistance in other foreign languages, as well, and this one is a very strong point!

And, of course, not least, one more very important factor which helped over the years this industry to expand at the level we see today and we have hopes for tomorrow: the fiscal legislation with some tax reductions and in some cases tax free for the employees in the IT industry. These fiscal incentives have two main positive consequences: the brain drain was stopped (so the young IT programmers stayed in Romania, as their income was comparable with the one abroad) and the number of the young high school graduates going to the computer science universities increased, because they saw and see their careers perspectives and their prosperity in Romania.

After a decade of such policies we can bare the fruits of these incentives and encouragements, as the IT industry, with + 80 000 people accounts for almost 10% of the GDP comparable with the agriculture contribution but with a far-far bigger number of employees (millions).

I can share with you of course more details about the Romanian IT industry, about the IT market and its perspectives and about the main tendencies which follow the main international ones. In this guide you find a lot of data, facts and figures but, besides all these, we are here to give you details, to provide you with a “map” of the IT roads in Romania.

So, do not hesitate to contact us. This guide is a traditional one we do for many years as a mirror and an invitation for you to come and to do IT business in Romania.

And, we can guarantee, you will be both successful and profitable.

General Manager Mihaela GORODCOV

Project Manager Gineta ROȘCA

(mihaela.gorodcov@ibusiness.com.ro)

(gineta.rosca@ibusiness.com.ro)

Editor Oana POROINEANU

Sales Manager Romulus MAIER

(oana.poroineanu@ibusiness.com.ro)

(romulus.maier@agora.ro)

www.agora.ro • www.ibusinessevents.ro

Layout Editor Oana CAMBREA (office@ibusiness.com.ro)

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Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

“

Successive industrial revolutions of the past two centuries have lead us to a point where the very nature of human interactions has been thoroughly transformed. As new technologies (next gen VLSI, 4G+) gain increasing traction, the Internet of Things is becoming a reality, bringing everything and everyone a mere digital „hop” away from us.

In the context of this considerably faster and more interconnected era, international organisations and world governments strive to ensure an adequate framework for the continuous technological advancement and the economic growth it enables. New business models, new occupations, new leisure activities, an ever-growing human capital, an increasingly varied set of competencies and needs – all these are new challenges which we, in government, and especially at the Ministry of Communications and Information Society, address every day.

Our forward-looking Government Agenda sets out administrative and legal measures imperative for the state to keep up with the needs of its citizens. In full agreement with the National Strategy Digital Agenda of Romania 2020, as well as with the Digital Single Market Strategy of the European Commission, we endeavour to develop public electronic services centred around citizens’ life events, to foster competencies which are indispensable for living in an information society, and, above all else, to build trust in our government’s ability to provide electronic services with a high level of quality and cyber security.

Well thought out accelerated aggregation of highly secure public electronic services, up to and including the point of digital convergence between state and citizen, is our priority.

The lynchpin of the entire approach is the establishment of a government cloud, in conjunction with the set out of regulations for a uniform management paradigm of IT projects. In this fashion, in the medium and long term, our goal is to build a government architecture framework for electronic services which not only meet citizens’ needs, but also add value by being pro-active. This is something the digitally-enabled generation has come to expect from a 21st century public administration, and we aim to deliver.

“

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Petru Bogdan COJOCARU Minister Ministry of Communications and Information Society

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

New technologies bring a fundamental change to industries & business models Hary Olaru

Vice President, Client Innovation Centers Europe IBM Global Business Services

Nowadays, future technologies such as augmented, virtual, mixed reality (AR/VR/MR) and Internet-of-Things (IoT), start shaping the industries and business models, coming as productive applications for industries like Utilities, Life Sciences & Pharma or Automotive, and many more.

The Internet of Things is emerging as one of the major trends transforming the development of technologies as it rapidly composes and extend apps that take advantage of data and analytics from connected devices and sensors.

Within two years, the Internet of Things (IoT) will be the single greatest source of data on the planet, generated by billions of interconnected sensors and devices embedded into the world’s physical systems. IBM’s Watson technologies thrive on tremendous volumes of data, and the IoT provides that.

Cognitive systems get insight from all types of data -- even data that you may not be aware of -- into context with systems that learn at scale, reason with purpose and interact with humans naturally.

To reap the benefits of this cloud and cognitive infusion across all industries and sectors, organizations must be prepared for the Internet of Things integration. Companies such as IBM build and develop the required skills to support clients in adopting advanced IoT solutions.

IBM is an established leader in the IoT with more than 6,000 client engagements in 170 countries, 1,400 partners in its growing ecosystem and more than 750 IoT patents. IBM is extending the power of cognitive computing to the billions of connected devices, sensors and systems that comprise the IoT, helping to transform the way we all live and work.

The new IBM Institute of Business Value (IBV) study Intelligent Connections: Reinventing the enterprise with Intelligent IoT shows that C-suite executives recognize a strong need to reinvent their enterprises by digitizing communications and interactions. This is part of a shift in focus from product and service innovation toward building superior customer experiences. IoT technologies can help companies make this change. Most C-suite executives surveyed say they are deploying IoT solutions at some level: 66 percent are in various stages of piloting, implementing or using IoT capabilities.

A group of high-performers (the Reinventors) is looking to further extend the potential of IoT within its business operations. Reinventors excel at using customer data and analyzing competitors to innovate their products and services. They scrutinize any available data to understand customer needs, and anticipate what customers want. Reinventors also analyze their competitors’ responses to customer demands. And they are using these insights relentlessly to evaluate, reengineer and fine-tune their customer responses.

For example, the IoT team within the IBM business services center in Romania, led by Ovidiu Bastea, is working with clients from Energy and Utilities industry, where the team applied an Automated Meter Management (AMM) solution to give the company greater insight into asset performance and customer usage patterns via automated data collection.

Complementary to the IoT adoption, in the last 2 years, a team of IBM developers in Romania created and developed an emerging technologies lab focused on augmented, virtual, mixed reality (AR/VR/MR), led by Eusebiu Marcu, Innovation Architect and Member of IBM Academy of Technology.

These emerging technologies can support a high number of applications in various industries such as Life Sciences & Pharma industry where an application can facilitate the visualisation of patient disease specific movements during clinical trial tests by using mixed reality eyewear and glasses.

Several demonstrative applications have been developed for the Automotive industry. One example is for vehicle visualization and interaction such as a virtual showroom for standard and prototype cars. Another example of an augmented reality app could support as the vehicle manual for understanding and recognizing dashboard controls, or what various error or warning messages (displayed on the vehicle dashboard screen) mean and what the owner can do to fix them.

For most of such applications, the user interface is achieved by using IBM cognitive capabilities, which features several services like Text-to-Speech, Speech-to-Text or Visual Recognition.

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Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

Romania - between the high demand for nearshore services and the lack of public administration IT investments The Romanian IT sector is unanimously appreciated for its ability to provide high-quality services to companies in Western Europe or in the US. The appetite for multiculturality and opening towards the external markets is a key element that continues to attract young specialists in the field of IT into global companies; on the other hand, the interest of multinational companies in the Romanian market, at least from the viewpoint of the mix of attractiveness including the quality of skills of the human resources and the rates for which the latter can be hired, shall remain high at least in a medium term (3 to 5 years).

It is equally interesting to analyse the evolution of the domestic software and IT services market. Compared to the 14% growth for the total software and IT services industry in Romania for 2017, PAC’s SITSI® (Software and IT Services Industry) research program for Romania shows a very low singledigit growth rate compared to 2016, a year that had itself shown an involution in the internal consumption.

Considering the drastic slowdown of the public investments in software solutions and IT services, the local industry relies at first on private investments, a market segment that, happily, is currently enjoying a positive growth rate and creating synergies in various verticals.

Probably one of the most important inadvertencies of the strategy aiming at the development of the IT infrastructure in the public field consists in the inconsistencies that occur when implementing the existing projects meant to automate and render efficient interinstitutional programs and those with an external component which target social interaction.

Unblocking investment paths around local and central administration, in education, healthcare or the defense sector might draw considerable volumes of EU funding, whose impact could strongly reinvigorate the local IT industry.

The industrial sector continues to target two main investment directions, one consisting in the optimization of the production processes, and the second focusing on coordinating and controlling actual production, with the final objective of minimizing the losses. The companies in the industrial sector continue to invest in software solutions dedicated to BPM, but also to ERP, mainly in components that assist logistic and supply departments, as well as those that provide an aggregated monitoring of the financial activity, analytic solutions intended to design the various KPIs in a dynamic «dashboard»- style output. As for the IT services, the market’s still immature level continues to create demand for classical services in the field of infrastructure maintenance and system integration; this happens because the high technologies focused on digital components and software automations have still not fully entered the market.

The banking sector witnesses an ongoing digital expansion focused on the development of the internet banking platforms, virtual assistants, interactive front-offices and on adapting, respectively, strengthening core banking systems, by aligning itself to omni-channel standards that confer higher control and a better view on the entire ecosystem. The services and the solutions focused on cyber security are also on top of the Romanian banking institutions’ agenda of technological fitting and development, particularly in accordance with the EU context, which is marked by an intensification of malware-type and ransomware-type attacks.

Concerning the most relevant horizontal coordinates of the IT market in Romania, we notice an intensification of the initiatives around digital transformation and connectivity projects in the Internet of Things category. Although it lags much behind the western markets, the Romanian market is starting to grow an appetite for intelligent technologies that can provide any economic activity with agility and important competitive advantages. For the moment, in the field of IoT, the initiatives are not very complex, the ground is tested by means of projects that focus on data transfer, monitoring certain parameters such as air quality, remote control and monitoring of street lighting systems, collecting the information generated by RFID or LoRaWAN technologies.

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Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

Another context that maintains an accelerated trend and continues to gain more and more ground against the traditional on-premise business model is the SaaS segment, based on promoting Cloud-type infrastructures and on migrating towards applications that include modules and components integrated with the mobile terminals. Additionally, Real time Analytics solutions gain popularity among the end users on the local market, in segments such as retail, telecom.

In the Cloud Computing area, the Romanian market gets more and more involved in adopting the new infrastructure models and solutions that are delivered «as a service». The CRM-type of applications, as well as the standard financial modules (invoicing, primary management) start to bring to surface the right market for Cloud solutions and services.

The outsourcing is another attractive business area, especially to larger providers able to take on their own the long-term responsibility over sensitive processes (such as payroll/HR, or data/card processing), the IT infrastructure (support, evolutive maintenance or IaaS), or the core applications (package/ standard or custom-made). This market segment is expected to grow much faster than the traditional installation/implementation and support models on the Romanian market.

It remains to be seen to what extent, in the years to come, the local IT industry will be able to find the necessary ambition and resources to consolidate itself in the context of the internal market, to adopt innovative technologies and to be able to generate intellectual property solutions based on which future premises of sustainable, organic growth to provide stability to the entire sector and to strengthen Romania’s reputation on an international level will become likely to be developed.

Founded in 1976, Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) belongs to CXP Group, the leader of the European market of research and consulting for the software, IT services and digital transformation industry.

For information and comments, please contact: Bogdan Cotovelea Consultant – IT Market Analyst Romania & CEE Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) a CXP Group Company Phone: +40 (0)799 919 090 Email: b.cotovelea@pac-online.com 7

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

Join us, give us your trust and make profit with the Romanian companies Two decades ago, we started to internationalize our member companies Alexandru Borcea all over the world. The total IT export of Romania mounted to 30 million $ President ARIES at that time. After more than 150 events, trade fairs, trade missions, and brokerage events, organized in the frame of the Export Promotion Program, of the Ministry of Business Environment, Trade and Entrepreneurship, over 50 events, matchmaking, and best practice and know how sharing, organized in the frame of European projects and more than 20, organized by ourselves, only the software development export grew to over 2.6 billion EURO, and other half a billion EURO of software service export last year.

Perhaps the figures are not so impressive compared to a nation of about 20 million inhabitants, but the outcomes for sure. Based on the chip labor cost business model at the beginning, the Romanian IT sector evolved to competitive IT innovation hubs, build on competences, related mainly to the big university cities like Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj Napoca and Iasi. And this is not the entire picture. This remarkable development of the IT sector enabled innovation in many other fields of activities and export competitiveness, unleashing the future value chains, the trust among people and self-confidence.

Of course, there are still many things to do, especially enforcing the internal value chains, the national system of innovation, and the community’s trust and recognition, to be able to face the actual and future socio economic challenges in front of us. But we are determined and self-confident that we’ll be able to surmount all this barriers, and we’ll be able to guide our companies towards new technology frontiers and socio economic paradigm.

All this reasons makes me confident to call you to join us, to give us your trust, and make business and profit with the Romanian companies, all over the world. Don’t hesitate to join our events to taste Romanian food and wine, and eventually to visit our country too, to enjoy the beautiful landscapes and nature of Romania.

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Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

Engineering DNA, Agile at the core Tremend’s revolving forces for high-complexity projects In 2017, Tremend continued its success story as an advanced software engineering company to the core, joining the fastest growing companies in Europe in Inc. 5000, Financial Times 1000 and Deloitte Fast 50 rankings. Its trumps were world-class software engineers and a strong engineering culture.

From local to global

Ioan Cocan Co-Founder

Marius Hanganu & Ioan Cocan Co-Founders

Fastest growing

Founded in 2005 in Bucharest, one of the most dynamic technology hubs in Europe, Tremend is now a global company. With hundreds of projects for major EU telecom operators, automotive companies, media, leading retailers and banking clients, that translate in more than 60 million end-users in 15 countries on 3 continents, the company’s ambitions don’t stop here. After 12 years of organic growth, expansion is Tremend’s new long-term strategy for becoming more competitive globally. And the first step was taken in 2017, when the company consolidated its position in the US by acquiring 648 Group, a US-based company delivering premium web and mobile platforms for brands like Netflix, Ford or Samsung. The Romanian based organization already has customers in 14 US states and this acquisition was an important step in the company’s strategy to expand its presence in the US. UK and the Scandinavian countries are the next targets for an ambitious development plan.

Ioan Cocan, co-founder and managing partner, counts some elements that ensure Tremend’s place amongst the most dynamic tech companies in the region:

“A technical DNA that feeds the organizational culture, a mindset that encourages collaboration and continuous learning, strong performing Scrum teams fully engaged in clients’ projects and a structure that facilitates the transfer from idea to execution. “

Add investment in new tools and learning new technologies, some in trend clients investing in large-scale platforms and you have the basic ingredients for Tremend’s year after year growth. Nonetheless, this purebred tech company packs more punches: an accelerated adoption of the latest tools and technologies such as AI, Machine Learning, IoT and Biometrics. These are the very things that differentiate them from the competition, according to the co-founder Ioan Cocan.

Experiment, then innovate

Last year, the company also focused on experimental learning through CityHack, an event gathering over 100 specialists from Tremend, Orange, and Actility, the start-up of the year in France. Marius Hanganu, managing partner, says that

“besides the innovative prototypes resulted from the project, invaluable practical experience was gained, ready to be used for more complex solutions.”

Tremend’s most recent and biggest investment was in CloudMatix, an IoT platform that connects physical devices to business platforms like CRM and service desk, using Alexa or Google Home. For that matter, IoT is regarded by the management as a promising market, with tens of billions of devices to be interconnected in the next years.

Fast-forward to future

There’s no surprise that Tremend’s 6 million Euro turnover last year placed the company for the second year in a row in Deloitte Technology Fast 50 and INC. 5000. The software engineering company’s whopping growth is also visible in the 50% team expansion, that will continue in 2018 with more than a 100 new roles. All these also meant moving into a modern, scalable and easy to reach innovation and development center in Bucharest’s Timpuri Noi Square and opening a new office in Brasov.

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Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

TRANSFORMING GDPR “CALAMITY” EFFECT IN BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY

How we try to convert the GDPR Disruption Effect in Business Development Engine Like all other EU countries, Romania has to prove this year the local data controllers and processors will be ready to comply with GDPR key challenging regulations.

How to prevent the disruptive effect of new EU Regulation mostly perceived as a ”Calamity” and to transform these compliance efforts in a real “Trust Label” for core business?

One of big chance, special for a SMB company is to widely adopt “disruptive technologies” offering security and privacy warranties for personal data protection.

The entry into force of the new Personal Data Protection Regulation on May 25th, 2018 is already perceived as one of the major critical events of the next year. It will be “Day - O”, with apocalyptic effects for many companies that will not have the resources and time to become GDPR compliant? We think will be not the case.

A country where the tech industry has 2nd contribution at GDP

Radu Crahmaliuc

GDPR analyst and adviser, Cloud & Digital Transformation evangelist

Romania has been one of the best-performing economies in the European Union in 2017, with a GDP growth rate estimated at 5.5%. According to “The Guardian” (October 2017), the economy grew 5.7% year-on-year in the second quarter of 2017, the fastest rate in the EU, where the average growth rate was 2.4%. According to the International Monetary Fund, Romania’s economy is expected to grow by 5.5% for the whole of 2017.

The tech sector, in particular, is expanding fast, built on a communist-era legacy of excellence in science, mathematics and technical education, as well as Romania’s strong language skills, which have long made it a hub for IT outsourcing. According to industry insiders, the tech sector – which employs about 150,000 people – is expected to double its share of GDP to 12% by 2025, aided by one of the fastest broadband internet speeds in the world (behind only Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Iceland).

With +520 Euro million spending in 2015 (IDC), Romanian Cloud computing market is well positioned in regional landscape due to its strong networking infrastructure, low-cost high-speed Internet and a very skilled human resources base. The market potential is driven by the nature of Romanian Cloud providers, represented by international vendors (offerings SaaS; PaaS, IaaS), local players (represented by traditional service providers, SI and ISV), and web hosting & telco providers.

Cloud adoption key drivers are related to: The Impact of Cloud Computing on the IT Industry Penetration of Broadband and the Internet Large acceptance of Hybrid Cloud Models Increasing level of local solutions for virtualization Adoption Well development of IT infrastructures, data centres and hosting services Increased adoption of SaaS subscription model of enterprise software applications (ERP, CRM, SCM).

Source: cloudmania market analysis, 2017

How is GDPR adoption level in Romania?

For many Romanian organizations, the new EU regulation 2016/679 comes with the force of an unprecedented change. It seems to have a much greater disturbing effect than the digital wave. GDPR genesis was not easy. Considered as an absolutely necessary update of Directive 95/46 / EC, GDPR consolidated after 4 years of debate and 3000 amendments. Over 80 new requirements have emerged from the old directive. Many companies will have to make radical changes in business models.

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Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

According to cumulative research efforts, 50 days before the GDPR entry into force, 15 percent of Romanian companies didn’t know if they are acting as data processing controllers or processors. Only 18% interviewed controllers have a project implementation team, and 54 percent didn’t have an implementation plan. 79 percent of companies didn’t participate yet in a data protection solution presentation, and 48 didn’t know if they need or not to employ a DPO. Source: GDPR Ready Initiative - Research in progress, partial data estimated.

The GDPR services landscape in Romania During the last period, a lot of companies, legal services providers, consulting organizations or IT system integrators offered GDPR awareness presentation and training. Between local initiatives, IAPP and PECB Romanian partners started offering 4-5 days DPO training. According to our estimation, more than 200 peoples already graduated a DPO or IAPP certification class.

In the GDPR emulation local landscape, a private initiative has become popular through the impact in the business community and the variety of activities offered. The “GDPR Ready!” The initiative was designed primarily from a real need for information. Despite the increasing number of GDPR issues and social media discussions, perceiving GDPR as “something of great importance” for our organization’s business health is still quite low. The volume that may seem overwhelmingly informative, the arabesques of the legal framework, the lack of a project management culture, and especially the lack of a clear perception of the GDPR implications at the managerial level are as many brakes in developing concrete action plans.

Few peoples understand that the GDPR compliance process is not a simple IT project, nor is it an exclusive task of the legal department. This process requires a concentrated and complex action from all those involved in processing personal data in an organization. That’s what we proposed through this initiative in June 2017, starting primarily from the need for knowledge. To our joy, a large number of specialists and organizations have been involved in the projects launched under the “GDPR Ready!” Initiative.

What have we made under GDPR Ready Initiative? More than 50 articles dedicated to GDPR subject, three dedicated GDPR Catalogues, with “how to” useful guides for local GDPR implementation, the only Romanian professional Group on LinkedIn with more than 180 members lawyers, consultants, security and confidentiality specialists, project managers, system architects, and others, a series of dedicated panels in B2B events, free of charge advisory services for SMB, a GDPR adoption market research – in process, and more…

The engine of GDPR compliancy long time running

Many times the alignment with GDPR requirements is perceived as a compliance challenge only. What few realize from the very beginning is that GDPR does not involve a push-up effort, after which the relaxation is coming. It’s not an IT project, nor any simple modification of privacy policy on an e-commerce site. GDPR is the beginning of a process that should become irreversible, and for this, it needs a source of energy to keep it moving. The energy source for maintaining GDPR compliance for the entire lifecycle of a business is the organization’s internal capacity to maintain compatibility. And this is called Company Culture.

How do we advise Romanian controllers to transform GDPR challenges in business development opportunity? GDPR is about peoples, processes, and technologies - First of all, better explaining to them what a GDPR implementation process is. GDPR implementation is not a simple software adoption project, nor a simple legal basis update of supply contracts. GDPR is a long-running team effort, involving people, processes and technologies.

GDPR adoption benefits for business – After all, GDPR compliancy adoption should be considered a quality fast forward step for business efficiency through digital transformation, an internal risk reduction through employees’ education, and a trusted label for customers, partners, and suppliers.

Eliminating disruptive effect of business transformation through the fast adoption of disturbing technologies – adopting better infrastructures, more safety storage capacities in the Cloud and more safety encrypting and communication solutions, any organization, despite the size and business nature, could benefit a data protection by design solution, reducing the data breaches risks.

Radu Crahmaliuc, GDPR analyst and adviser, Cloud & Digital Transformation evangelist

cloudmania knowledge platform: http://cloudmania2013.com/ GDPR Ready Initiative: https://cloudmania2013.com/2017/06/09/initiativa-gdpr-ready/ GDPR Ready Services: https://cloudmania2013.com/2018/01/27/gdpr-ready-services/ 11

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

SO LITTLE IS SO MUCH For so many years, Romanians used watch on TV the Olympics every 4 years with breath taken. At that time, Romania would relentlessly smash most competitors in gymnastics and the little acrobat ladies would win most of the gold and silver medals. It was kind of magic. Looking back, that magic seems even more difficult to understand. How can such a small, kind-of-insignificant, kind-of-poor/resourceless, (at that time) communist country, produce such great gymnasts? The secret was kept in a small province town, where out-of-the-ordinary coaches would mold and bring to light incredible, sparkling ‘acrobats’. It all started with Nadia, and it seems to be an unstoppable phenomenon.

Unfortunately, the media, the economics and the gossip (alsounstoppable force) smashed away ‘the unstoppable’. The bitter lesson we have learned ever since is that performance at its greatest state is a matter of passion and perseverance, tradition and hard-work – and neither of the component is optional.

On the football ground, Duckadam turned upside down any reasonable expectancy when gone to penalties, after 120 goalless minutes, and he saved all four spot-kicks and thus sealed the European title in 1986. But on the other hand, that was a glorious moment, not so much an amazing trail, such as Hagi’s – and this is the reason he is better -known all over the world. Thus, one genius, dazzling result may be worthy of a Guiness book-like record, yet public opinion and history shall always appreciate and reward passion, consistency, and hardwork…

Halep is the currently ongoing page of history... The topic is too hot, too contemporary, too good to comment: regardless of anyone’s opinion, the fact is that Halep is ranking number one in WTA. And besides rather individual, incredible efforts and sacrifice, her true story is most likely to be founded on passion, determination, and hard-work...

These days, or – to be accurate, last years – our national performance has moved from sports ground to a more sophisticated, ‘key-based’ field: technology. It seems that Romanians have a special apetite for keen technology and top knowledge. We love “0” and “1”, and they love us back.

At the International Olympics of Informatics, the Romanian high-school students have succeeded to win important medals, almost every year.

In 2014, all four Romanian contestant won a medal at Central Europe Informatics Olympiad, and another 4 medals came from Balcanic 14

Aurelia Butolo

PR Copywriter Carousel Counsulting

Informatics Olympiad for Seniors. In 2015, one gold, two silver and one bronze medal were won at the International Informatics Olympiad.

In 2016, Romanian students won 3 more medals. And in 2017, another two gold and two bronze medals were won by the Romanian students participating in the International Informatics Olympiad. The figures are impressive: Romania is number 4 in all time ranking, with 103 awards: 30 gold, 45 silver and 28 bronze medals!

IT industry has been immensly progressed all over the world in the last two decades, and for Romania it became an important chapter of the national ‘brand’. Romania has been producing enough IT specialists to feed significant ‘exports’ and to still fuel important local tehchology hubs. International corporations have been choosing Romanian cities to set their regional technical support centers, and the high quality of the specialized human resources was the critical decision factor. Each and every international producer facing the local facts and deeds shall reckon that Romania, at least, fully benefited of the technological advacement, and in many terms this was facilitated by the excelent level of technical expertise. Of course, specialized tools, physical resources, facilities may matter, both in sports and in technology field; but above these, performance – with our without sweating – is more about passion, perserverance, and hard-work.

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

The Big Data Bang and the Internet of Things We live in a more and more connected world. Smart is the key word that governs our daily personal and business lives. It is estimated that by 2020 more than 200 billion of objects will be connected which means that each Planet Earth inhabitant will have 26 such devices upon him!

Big Data represents now a challenge for all fields of activity: telco, utilities, meteorology, hydro, healthcare, transportation, and the list can go on and on. They are both structured and unstructured data and it up to the IT management of the companies to find the best solutions to monetize the data, to analyze them, to mine and to implement the best IT infrastructure (storage included) in order to maximize the efficiency of the business or, in public sector to increase the transparency and services towards the citizens and between the Governmental bodies.

Big data is often characterized by 3Vs: the extreme volume of data, the wide variety of data types and the velocity at which the data must be processed. Although big data doesn’t equate to any specific volume of data, the term is often used to describe terabytes, petabytes and even exabytes of data captured over time. So, in terms of Big Data we shall soon lack the multiples and the powers of “10”!

As for the devices and objects connected wireless the spread by industry is as follows: 40.2% - business/manufacturing, 30.3% - healthcare, 8.3% - retail, 7.7% security and 4.1% - transportation. From smart cities devices to wearables and smart sensors IoT is already a pervasive presence.

So, we have the facts and the figures. What’s next? This is to be debated in our conference: The Big Data Bang and the Internet of Things and to try to make a picture of the actual landscape in our country as well as to have a glimpse into the future. We have the pleasure to invite you at the 4th annual conference to be held in Bucharest, on the 11th of May. The main themes and ideas to be debated during this conference are: Session 1: Internet of Things and our Smart Life Narrow Band IoT – the “new big thing” in transferring small amounts of data; Smart cities and …smart citizens; Cyber Security in the objects world; AI and ML – the cause and the effect of IoT; Cloud & data warehousing – the IoT infrastructure;

UPCOMING 2018 EVENTS June 20 – Tech Brunch

September 19-23 – The IT Camp:”iTalent? IT Will be FUN!” (the 10th edition)

October 11 – BPM EE Forum National Conference (Business Process Management) - Bucharest

October 19 – Tech Brunch

November 22 – ROCS (Romanian Computer Show), 23rd edition

Session 2: The Big Data Bang December 6 – Data Centers & IT Infrastructure Management – Bucharest IT–as–a–service – the ground for the business efficiency and profitability; Cloud and Virtualization – an upgrade to the good old style; Big Data analytics; structuring the unstructured data and transforming the data into business; Platforms and applications in the virtual world; We trust that at the end of this conference we shall have some answers and some main strategies because we live in a more and more interconnected world and we have to be part of it.

The Conference is organized jointly by iBusiness Romania and Agora Group in partnership with ANSSI and with the support of DB Global Technology.

Mark the date in your calendars, further details can be found here: www.ibusinessevents.ro 16

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

Reliable FinTech middleware for your business Allevo plays in the Financial Services field and provides software solutions that help banks, companies, microfinance, and public administrations process financial transactions and achieve compliance.

FinTP is a versatile FinTech middleware that creates the opportunity of achieving real-time payments and better management of liquidity and assets. Its core enables technical integration between various proprietary formats and applications, performs message routing and format conversion, while also ensuring data persistence, protection and archive with advanced reporting capabilities.

FinTP consists of a variety of functional features that make up the core of the application, and additional business and operational features are available, allowing the setup of an environment suited for every customer’s need.

FinTP-Instant connects back-office applications of a bank to the Instant Payments service offered by TransFonD, retrieving payment messages in any format provided by these applications (tables, queues, etc), ensuring their conversion to the ISO 20022 standard and routing them to the Instant Payments System (IPS). Target audience: banks, public administration.

FinTP-Connect is a solution for centralized management of requests initiated by PISP/AISP on behalf of the final customer. It retrieves and processes these requests, transfers them to the Core Banking system, and then returns the responses back to the PISP/AISP. Target audience: banks.

FinOps Suite is an innovative open source solution for corporate treasuries which centralizes financial and treasury operations, helps consolidate payments, and includes a short-term prediction component for liquidity flows. Target audience: big manufacturers, service providers, small and medium enterprises, payment processors, financial infrastructures, microfinance.

FinTP-Instant

FinTP-Connect

FinOps Suite

Instant Payments

PSD2 compliance

Corporate treasuries

Straight-through processing

Centralized request management

Payment management

Connection to TransFonD

Back-office integration

Reporting

Process credit transfer instructions

TPP identification & validation

Reconciliation

Interface via web services

API management integration

Operational features

Timestamp

Data analytics

Message routing

Monitoring

Access for PISP & AISP

Automation and integration

www.allevo.ro

office@allevo.ro 17

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

The importance of the information systems security in Romania The National Association for Information Systems Security (ANSSI) has been established in 2012 to become a bridge between public and private sector, in order to promote best practice and enable a cultural change towards information security. Our association is actively monitoring the IT market conditions and has pointed out potential inefficiencies to the competent administrative bodies. We have also presented opportunities for PPP’s that could support the development of integrated systems in Romania. ANSSI is a private, professional, independent and non-profit organisation. It unites around 50 members, companies with around 25000 employees, representing 25% of the total number of employees in the private IT&C sector. Our members, due to the large diversity of technical and professional competencies and capabilities form a group that is representative for the entire sector, the group’s interests being the same as the overall sector’s interests.

ANSSI has also organized, alone or together with other authorities, public institutions or embassies, several national and international conferences and events, in fields like: telecommunications, e-government and e-administration systems and solutions, UE funds, HR development, occupational standards, the technological and infrastructure security component being a key issue. Nationwide, ANSSI has setup partnerships with organisations like the Ministry for Communications and Information Society, the Romanian National CSIRT - CERT. ro, the Bucharest Stock Exchange - BVB, the Romanian Banking Institute - IBR, the Financial Services Association - ALB, the CIO Council, the Romanian Association for

18

Security Technique - ARTS, the Romanian Association for Promoting Critical Infrastructure and Services Protection - ARPIC and other, in order to ensure coherence with other fields that use IT&C infrastructure between the beneficiaries and the services provided (such as: energy, financial, Internet services) and to enable the transfer and adoption of internationally recognized best practices.

ANSSI has already set-up partnerships and is preparing new ones with similar organisations from other countries – France, USA, Canada and other.

Recognizing the ever increasing influence of new technologies in all economical-administrative verticals, ANSSI decided to extend and diversify its activities.

Considering the requirements for increase efficiency, convergence and complementarity of information systems, we identify the need for developing technical solutions in line with well-defined national and sectorial strategies, so the information systems will become more participative to the activities modelled or assisted by them. In this context, since many activities are dependent upon the proper function of information systems, we cannot overwhelm the importance of an information security based culture that should include the security dimension throughout the entire life-cycle of a system (design, implementation, data and functional redundancy, preventive and evolutive maintenance, users training and so on), no matter the activities supported by the IT&C infrastructures and systems. office@anssi.ro

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

COMPANY

WEBSITE

COMPANY

WEBSITE

ABC Telecom Distribution

www.abctelecom.ro

Arobs Transilvania Software

www.arobs.ro

ABN Systems Int'l

www.abnsystems.ro

ASBIS Romania

www.asbis.ro

Accenture

www.accenture.com

Asseco See

www.asseco.com

Ager Business Tech

www.ager.ro

ASSIST Software

www.assist-software.net

Agis Computer

www.agis.ro

AuraPortal

www.auraportal.ro

Agnor

www.agnor.ro

Avitech

www.avitech.ro

Allevo

www.allevo.ro

Avnet Technology Solutions

www.ts.avnet.com

Allview

www.allview.ro

Axel Soft IT Group

www.axelsoft.ro

Altex

www.altex.ro

Beia Consult International

www.beia.ro

Appnor

www.appnor.ro

BIT Solutions

www.bitsolution.ro

Aquasoft

www.aquasoft.ro

Business Information Systems

www.bisonline.com

Archibus

www.archibus.ro

Cegeka

www.cegeka.ro

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th 18th Edition, Edition, March April 2018 2018

COMPANY

WEBSITE

COMPANY

WEBSITE

Cisco Systems Romania

www.cisco.com

eMag

www.emag.ro

Class IT

www.classit.ro

Endava Romania

www.endava.com

CodeSphere

www.codesphere.ro

Enea Services Romania

www.enea.ro

Computaris Romania

www.computeris.com

Entersoft

www.entersoft.ro

Bitdefender

www.bitdefender.ro

Environ

www.environ.ro

Brainspotting

www.brainspotting.ro

Epicor Software

www.epicor.com

Bull Romania

www.bull.com

Eta2u

www.eta2u.ro

Concept Electronics

www.c-e.ro

Euroweb Romania

www.euroweb.ro

Crescendo Int'l

www.crescendo.ro

Exe Software

www.exesoftware.ro

CRIsoft

www.crisoft.ro

Fujitsu Siemens Romania

www.fujitsu.com

D Link

www.dlink.com

Gecad Net

www.gecadnet.ro

DB Global Technology

www.db.com

Gemini SP

www.geminisp.ro

DELL Romania

www.dell.ro

Germanos

www.germanos.ro

Despec

www.despec.ro

Fortech

www.fortech.ro

Dial Telecom

www.dialtelecom.ro

Freescale Semiconductor România www.freescale.com

Distinct

www.distinct.ro

Fujitsu Siemens Romania

www.fujitsu.com

EEU Software

www.eeusoft.ro

Gecad Net

www.gecadnet.ro

Elkotech Romania

www.elko.ro

Gemini SP

www.geminisp.ro

ELO Digital Office

www.elo-digital.ro

Germanos

www.germanos.ro

Elsaco Electronic

www.elsaco.com

Google

www.google.ro

DB Global Technology is Deutsche Bank’s technology excellence centre in Central and Eastern Europe.

Opened in January 2014, the Bucharest office is constantly expanding.

DB Global Technology develops cutting-edge software applications for Deutsche Bank’s global operations and represents a platform for highly skilled software engineers. The team members specialise in Software Application Development, IT Architecture, Quality Assurance and Testing, Functional/Business Analysis and Project Management.

www.db.com/careers/Bucharest 20

Deutsche Bank is one of the leading German banks and consistently wins the #1 Bank in CEE accolade. Deutsche Bank has been present in Romania since 1998. It delivers tailor made products and solutions in Corporate and Investment Banking and Transaction Banking to its corporate and institutional clients as well as Private Wealth Management to private clients.

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th Edition, April 2018

COMPANY

WEBSITE

COMPANY

WEBSITE

GTS Telecom

www.gts.ro

Manpower

www.manpower.ro

HP Romania

www.hp.com

Metro Systems

www.systems.metrogroup.ro

HTC Romania

www.htc.com

MGT Educational

www.mgt.ro

Huawei Technologies Investment

www.huawei.com

Nestor Cables

www.nestorcables.fi

IBM Romania

www.ibm.com/ro-ro

Net Brinel

www.brinel.ro

InCrys

www.incys.ro

NetSafe Solutions

www.netsafesolution.ro

Ines Group SRL

www.ines.ro

Omnilogic

www.omnilogic.ro

Info World

www.infoworld.ro

Oracle

www.oracle.com

Intel Romania

www.intel.com

Orange

www.orange.ro

Intrarom

www.intrarom.ro

Panasonic

www.panasonic.com

iQuest Technologies

www.iquestgroup.com

Pentalog High Tech

www.pentalog.ro

istyle

www.istyle.eu/ro

Philips

www.philips.ro

IT Six Global Services

www.itsix.com

Printec Group Romania

www.printecgroup.ro

KA@TE

www.ka-te.ro

PRO SYS

www.prosys.ro

Kapsch

www.kapsch.net/ro/

Provision

www.provision.ro

Kaspersky

www.shop.kaspersky.ro

Purequad

www.purequad.com

Kepler-Rominfo

www.kepler-rominfo.com

Q-east software

www.qeast.ro

Lasting Software

www.lastingsoftware.com

Q'NET International

www.qnet.ro

Legrand Romania

www.legrand.ro

Qualitance

www.qualitance.ro

Lenovo

www.lenovo.com

RCS&RDS

www.rcs-rds.ro

LG Electronics Romania

www.lg.com

RHS Company

www.rhs.ro

Logicom

www.logicomdistribution.net

Rinf Tech

www.rinftech.com

Logitech

www.logitech.com

Rokura

www.rokura.ro

London Logic Bucharest

www.llpgroup.com

Romsym Data

www.romsym.ro

Luxoft Romania

www.luxoft.com

Romsys

www.romsys.ro

Magister Software

www.magister.ro

S&T Romania

www.snt.ro

Maguay Impex

www.maguay.ro

Samsung Electronics Romania

www.samsung.com 21

Romanian IT&C Directory - The 18th 16th Edition, Edition, March April 2018 2016

COMPANY

WEBSITE

COMPANY

WEBSITE

SAP Romania

www.sap.com

Syncsys

www.syncsys.ro

Schneider Electric

www.schneider-electric.ro

TeamNet

www.teamnet.ro

Senior Software

www.seniorsoftware.ro

TechTeam Akela

www.akela.ro

Sistec

www.sistec.ro

UTI Systems

www.uti.eu.com

Siveco Romania

www.siveco.ro

Vitacom

www.vitacom.ro

Sobis Solutions

www.sobis.ro

Vodafone

www.vodafone.com

SoftNet

www.softnet.ro

Wayfare

https://wayfare.ro/

Softwin

www.softwin.ro

WinMENTOR

www.winmentor.ro

Spearhead Systems

www.spearheadsystems.ro

Wizrom Software

www.wizrom.ro

Star Storage

www.star-storage.ro

Ymens

www.ymens.ro

Sysco

www.sysco.ro

System Plus

www.system-plus.ro

Sysware Systems Integration

www.sysware.ro

Syncsys

www.syncsys.ro

TeamNet

www.teamnet.ro

TechTeam Akela

www.akela.ro

Syncsys

www.syncsys.ro

TeamNet

www.teamnet.ro

TechTeam Akela

www.akela.ro

Safetech Innovations is the first company in Romania strictly specialized in the “information security” domain, who has the capacity to cover the entire spectre of security needs of a company. We have one of the most powerful well-prepared penetration testing and incident investigating team from South-Eastern Europe.

Frunzei Street nr. 12-14, Frunzei Center, floor 1-3, Sector 2, code 021533, Bucharest, Romania Tel/Fax: +4 021 316 05 65 office@safetech.ro

22

We are the first company in Romania and one of the few companies in Europe listed on the NATO Trusted Industry Partner Roster and an active member of the NATO Industry Cyber Partnership (NICP).

At the same time, the company owns the NATO Commercial and Governmental Entity (NCAGE) code that certifies that SAFETECH INNOVATIONS meets all the requirements for organizing and conducting defence activities.

In 2015, we founded STI CERT, a Private Centre for Security Incident Response, certified according to International Management Standard of Services and also recognised and accredited by International organizations (Software Engineering Institute and Trusted Introducer Service).

E PERFORMANCE. MEET YOU!

YOU LOVE PERFORMANCE. NICE TO MEET YOU!

YOU LOVE PERFORMANCE. NICE TO MEET YOU!

26 YEARS OF EXPERTISE IN SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT MOBILE APPS & GAMES / WEB APPLICATIONS / IoT DATABASE SYSTEMS / CLOUD BUSINESS PLATFORM

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BASED IN ROMANIA