Bucharest, February 20, 2014 – In Romania 45% of IT managers say that their budgets will grow in the next three years. 17% predict even “strong” growth. This makes Romania the fastest growing market in the CEE-region. The overall performance of the Romanian companies concerning future utilization of IT is in many aspects higher than in other countries. In the IT Readiness Index developed by Kapsch, one of the leading ICT service partners in the region Romania ranks fifth out of seven. In the ICT Market Development Index, which compares the predictions for the future in the surveyed countries, Romania already is on rank 2, two points behind Poland. These are the main results of a comprehensive study by Kapsch BusinessCom, one of the region’s leading ICT service partners. “IT and telecommunications are not only important elements in modernizing and increasing the efficiency of companies. This sector, with its upward momentum, is also a significant growth driver for the general economy. Romania shows the biggest dynamics here and has a great number of skilled IT specialists,” according to Jochen Borenich, COO of Kapsch BusinessCom.

Romania’s rise to the rankings is not only due to the budgets. The companies of the country have some other remarkable features: Romania is comparably strong in offering mobile access to enterprise applications via smartphone or tablet and the opportunity to integrate own mobile devices into company networks. Concerning the plans to offer this BYOD (Bring your own device) opportunity in the next three years, the country has the highest figures. 20% of the IT managers have plans to do that. The average in the surveyed countries is only 14%. These features for better employee productivity and convenience have to be considered with the cross cutting security issue. Although the number of companies that had external security audits in the past three years is only 38% (the average is 46%), Romania is catching up: The personel expenses for security will grow for 57% (average: 46%) of the companies and 53% expect the financial expenses to grow (average: 55%).

The survey commissioned by Kapsch asked nearly 900 IT managers in seven countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Turkey) about their budget trends and their estimation of various ICT challenges. Now available, the “ICT Business Trends and Challenges” study was conducted by Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), an internationally operating market analysis and consulting firm. The findings presented in the study are very detailed and valuable and will be useful to Kapsch in the continuous development of its operations in the CEE countries. “The study confirms that the sector will continue to register revenue growth. We want to take maximum possible advantage of this momentum, and there is one finding that is of particular interest: In many fields such as outsourcing, the companies surveyed gave preference to providers with a strong local presence over international enterprises. This confirms our strategy for these countries, in which we are proceeding similarly as in Austria,” states Jochen Borenich. In the growth market of Romania, Kapsch is already among the most important system integrators with growth of approximately 40% compared with the previous year. In 2011 Kapsch BusinessCom significantly strengthened its position in the Romanian Market with the purchase of Romanian IT service provider Squario IT Solutions SA, fully integrated in local subsidiary, and in the past three years has made particular gains in the oil & gas sector, banking and insurance, telecommunications and health industry, and with numerous Austrian enterprises such as OMV.

ICT Market Development Index: weaker economies are catching up
ICT challenges are largely the same in all markets. For example, Poland is at the top of the field in plans for the utilization of cloud services and overall has good results in nearly every category. These countries are thus at approximately the same level as Austria, which, however, has significantly better economic data on the whole.

Cloud: only 27% utilize cloud services, while 46% use virtualization
IT virtualization has become extremely widespread. A total of 46% of those surveyed use solutions involving virtualization. The focus is on the virtualization of servers and data centers, with these options being implemented by nearly 90% of all companies that use virtualization. Turkey stands out with a particularly high level of 73% for desktop virtualization. The average is 49%. There is still great potential in the area of cloud computing, with an average of 27% of those surveyed stating that they used cloud services. Private clouds from local providers accounted for the highest figure here (46%). The Czech Republic and Romania have stored the greatest proportion of their IT in the cloud, with 32% (Czech Republic) and 24% (Romania) indicating that they use the cloud “heavily.” Plans for cloud migration exist to the greatest extent in Poland, whose figure of 30% is well above the average of 24%.

Outsourcing market dominated by local providers
Of the total of 44% of companies that outsource their IT services, nearly three-fourths (72%) make use of local providers. Satisfaction with outsourcing partners is on the whole very good. An average of 22% even reported that they were “very satisfied.” The main argument put fourth by IT managers in favor of outsourcing is the quality improvements attainable (42% “strongly agree”; 37% “agree”).

Unified communications and video conferencing: strong regional variations
Strong regional variations are discernible in the use of collaboration tools. While an average of 27% of respondents indicate that they already use unified communications, the figure in Turkey is only 17%. The main argument in favor of unified communications is improved cooperation within the company (53% “agree”). The regional variations are particularly great in video conferencing, which has the strongest representation in Austria (46%) and the weakest in Slovakia (25%). The average figure is 35%.

Big data: only 21% take advantage of enterprise search potential
Although companies assume strong growth in their data processing quantities, their use of tools to utilize this data more efficiently is very low. Only 21% of the survey respondents use solutions for structured searches of their company data. These types of tools are most commonly used in Slovakia (29%). The chief argument for their use is faster access to information.

Security: external audits remain the exception, expenditure for security rises
A total of 38% of respondents are confident that they are implementing the best possible solutions to guard against external attacks or downtime and data loss (37%). The responses to the question of whether the companies have their systems audited by outside experts indicate that there is still great potential here. In Austria, 57% have had such an audit conducted during the preceding three years. In Romania this figure is 38% and thus well under the average of 46%.

Mobility: only for selected employees – Romania is the future BYOD country
Of the 42% offering mobile access to IT applications beyond e-mail, only 11% allow this for all employees. Austria (58%) and the Czech Republic (52%) are at the top in the overall rankings. The average is 42%. In many cases, this negative attitude is likely due to the fact that the required structures and processes are not yet available at the companies. The advantage of employees being better able fulfill their daily tasks is clearly recognized (91% “agree”). When it comes to letting employees use their own smart phones or tablets to do their jobs (BYOD, or “bring your own device”), Austria is again in the lead at 36% (average of 25%).

Study: “ICT business trends and challenges”
For the purposes of the study, questions were developed on operationalization of the ICT challenges identified by Kapsch BusinessCom. These are: cloud computing & virtualization, collaboration, big data, mobility & consumerization, and security. In a computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI) conducted by market analysis and consulting firm Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), 885 IT managers were surveyed in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Slovakia, and Turkey. The survey was held between October and December 2013. To calculate the indices, the percentage of affirmative responses to each question were taken, ranked by country, and evaluated using a point system (7 points for rank 1 and 1 point for rank 7).

Kapsch BusinessCom expands operations in South East Europe region
Given the potential of the growing need for professional IT solutions and services in the countries of South East Europe (SEE), Kapsch BusinessCom (KBC) decided to expand its operations in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia starting this year. This initiative is part of the KBC strategy to expand the network of local presence already established in Central and Eastern Europe
Romanian subsidiary of KBC will act as a regional hub through which the know-how and the resources will be shared according to the projects Kapsch will decide to approach. In these countries, KBC will develop local presence through authorized partners or subsidiaries, depending on the level of business upgrowth. KBC will use and expand the capabilities of the International Delivery Center (IDC), established in Romania in early 2013, which provides support and IT services for the companies within Kapsch Group and also for their clients.