Softec in 2011

	Where is Softec headed in the 21st year of its existence? What are the trends in the IT market and which solutions are most interesting for clients? What is Softec doing to maintain its top position among its many competitors? And why should your company choose our services?  We talked to Aleš Mičovský, the Director of Softec.

Softec recently celebrated its 20th anniversary of its presence on the IT market. How would you describe Softec today?

Softec consists of three companies: Softec, s.r.o., Softec CZ, s.r.o. and Centaur, a.s, which unite more than two hundred professionals in the development of information systems. Our services focus on the design of specific solutions, development of customized software systems, integration of applications and their maintenance and development. Most of our current customers for solutions are institutions in the financial market – insurance companies, banks and broker companies. For a long time we have also been serving state administration – especially in the areas of social welfare, health, statistics and transport. Recently we have succeeded in expanding our client portfolio to include telecommunication and utility companies. From a regional perspective, we serve clients mostly in the former Czechoslovak region, plus in six other countries of Central-eastern Europe.

This seems to be quite a wide spectrum of services. Could you be more specific, so I can better understand the solutions you offer?

Thanks to our long history, we do cover a wide spectrum of services. I will mention those that are the most popular among our clients today. Question number one for businesses today is how to optimize sales as well as serve clients. In this area we have developed many solutions. Support of online selling channels – includes direct on-line sales, tele-sales through call centers, sales through partner networks and a company's own sale points. Serving clients can be partly delegated to self-service zones – this is the current trend in the insurance and telecommunication industries. Portals of this kind are also used in state administration, and they significantly speed up the processing of many different types of documentation which are processed by departments.
Another area is “business intelligence” and everything having to do with data. That involves operational reporting, creating data warehouses, data mining, consolidating data from various systems and data quality. These are linked to specific areas of use such as risk management, support of financial fraud detection, etc. We also have specialists in statistics – solutions for large-scale statistical surveys, calculation and evaluation of results. Our company has gained considerably extensive know-how in building systems utilizing geographical information – central supervisory service, GPS-based monitoring systems , administration and maintenance of road networks, and so on. And of course –we 'cut our teeth' in this area by creating complex systems for commercial and health insurance companies.

IT experts are also surely interested in your focus on technologies.

I'd dare to say we use the best software technology currently on the market. Consolidation of technology producers means that today we build on technologies from strong producers such as IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and HP, while at the same time monitoring “open source” solutions, many of which are very positively perceived by clients since these offer a solid price/performance ratio. We are a certified partner for all commonly available data systems, various types of BPM technologies and different BI technologies. And most importantly, we continuously expand and improve our know-how, we experiment with new tools and we build our own application frameworks for fast prototyping of applications in specific areas. Thanks to this, we are able to develop solutions in a shorter time – which not only lets us apply solutions faster, but also lowers costs.

2010 was not only an anniversary for you. What else did it mean for Softec?

For me it was mainly a year of paradoxes. There was the spirit of a global economic recovery and at the same time a constant expectation of its slowing down, even of its repeated falling into a crisis, which never actually happened. The recovery primarily affected industry. Private sector customers continued to operate in a careful cost-saving mode. There were various new tenders opened, many of which ended up as market research or as a confirmation of the fact that return on investment is not to be seen in the short-term perspective. Another motivation for publishing tenders was to create pressure on the current suppliers' prices for services. Actual economic recovery took place in the Czech market. I believe that in the same way the Czech market indicated the beginning of a crisis half a year in advance, it will be a precursor to the beginning of a recovery in Slovakia. 

In state administration, last year was affected by a political power change. In this area, the beginning of the year for Softec started in a very promising way, although its end was not so positive. At the beginning of last year, we signed a hard-won extensive contract with the Ministry of Labour, Social affairs and family of the Slovak Republic, whose goal was to computerize distribution of social benefits. In the middle of last year, the project was stopped. Since then we have been negotiating and submitting details of the proposed project. I do believe that it will end well, and rational arguments will win, because our solution will significantly improve the functioning of this social area.
Inside the company, 2010 meant reorganization. We added seven expert centers into our traditional division structure. In these centers, we concentrated education. New specialized groups were created – project managers, analysts, testers, developers (Java, NET, Gupta) and specialists for databases. It was a very important reorganization step, since it allowed concentrating and sharing know-how among our specialists, and it also brought a more effective training system. Development of human potential is the most crucial thing for a company of our kind, which affects our business potential on one side and the quality of our services on the other.

Out of all the values which you follow as a company, the most accented is quality of services. How do you succeed in bringing this to practice?

This is a good question for our clients since they are our best feedback. Every system that we deliver to clients means for them some kind of improvement, and that is usually evaluated from the point of view of improvement of processes, price, quality and delivery time. Our goal is to achieve a balance between all the criteria in a way that satisfies our clients. With many of our clients, we started by taking on small assignments, and continuously they built strong trust in us, and we were given the confidence to solve their complex problems, which made us their strategic partners. This would not be possible to achieve without high quality services.
Every year we determine the satisfaction of our clients and search for areas where we can further improve our services. Feedback is very important to us. From the assessments of previous years I can state that most of our clients are very satisfied with us, which makes me very happy. In the end, the best manifestations of satisfaction are long-term contracts, which are not unusual for us.

This is a new year, with new goals and resolutions. What kind does Softec have?

This year brings big changes. After many years, during which the company has grown organically, we are moving from various offices into one newly reconstructed building on Jarošova Street. In doing so, we are also optimizing various processes and innovating; we are certainly looking forward to better information exchange as well as a more modern working environment.
We are preparing positive changes for our clients. We want to be able to bring them more information, provide better suggestions for them while showing the current trends, and we especially want to create a good environment to build relationships, which is the foundation for long-lasting cooperation and trust.
This year we will strengthen our position in Prague, and thus utilize the potential that we gained by delivering high quality solutions for our clients there. Also, we plan to move into a new office space in Prague; during the last two years our team there has significantly grown and needs a new working base.
And of course, we have new business targets. We would like to to expand our services in all our business segments. We have been gaining new know­-how in new areas, which we will gradually incorporate into the services we offer to our clients.

And what are your resolutions?

At the end of last year I attended a cycle of trainings called “the 7 habits of highly effective people” lead by an honored man – Zoltán Demján. Most of you probably know him as a famous Slovak rock climber. It was a great experience for me both from a professional and from a human perspective. I would like to utilize the knowledge gained in my work and thus improve my effectivity (and selfishly minimize my age handicap compared to my younger colleagues). At the same time, I believe that I can use the knowledge gained in my personal life as well so I can become a better father, husband and friend.