ComArch venture promises hassle-free software
The Krakow-based IT powerhouse ComArch is launching two new ventures soon.
One is a new activity through its new CDM subsidiary, and will involve what insiders term an "applications service provider" (ASP).
That means CDM will provide financial software, which clients can get tailored to their needs, said ComArch CFO Rafal Chwast. Clients will then be able to access the customized software online, through whatever browser they want, and as often as they need it.
"There would be no up front investment on their part. They don't have to buy software," Chwast said, which can be expensive and sometimes counterproductive if it turns out not to be able to do precisely what the company execs had expected it to. If they do hit on the right software, then they need to regularly update it and do their own problem solving when something doesn't work right.
"This is a huge market. There are 2 million small and medium-sized companies in Poland. This is a very fragmented market. There is a lot of growth potential," Chwast said, adding that ComArch/CDM consider all of these small companies their potential customers. And he said the IT firms have a head start; CDM itself has 21,000 customers.
Up to 200,000 of the 2 million small-to-medium new businesses are one-person entrepreneurs. They may be the core beneficiaries of this concept of "outsourcing" software applications, since they will save money overall by paying CDM a monthly fee to use software without "having to worry about the upgrades. This is software with no hassles you are only buying the service," Chwast said.
This new venture will start in June.
The second new initiative "will be an online commodity exchange for agricultural products. Our partner is the largest commodity broker in Poland, Krak Brokers," Chwast said, which is listed on the CETO over-the-counter market.
Chwast said ComArch "will develop a platform for suppliers and buyers to connect them." ComArch has a 30% stake in Krak Brokers and expects the new Netbrokers program to have a major positive impact on the ag-market.
"There is a very bad flow of information from the small ag-factories," he said. Enter ComArch and its new Netbrokers platform. For a "relatively small amount of money," Chwast said, buyers and sellers can find each other online.
The launch date hasn't been set but could be as early as July, he said.
Odds 'n Ends:
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) used its Riga annual meeting to announce what it calls a "ground-breaking" joint venture with the European Community to help Poland upgrade its dairy sector. That's good news. Too bad they can't spell the name right of the bank that will be the EBRD's liaison in shaping the dairy industry quality improvement plan Bank Slaski. Their press release repeatedly referred to "Bank Slaskai."
Piotr Kalita has been recruited by Weco Travel from Cathay Pacific Airlines, where he had been an innovative country manager. While at Cathay Pacific, he noticed a boom in certain sectors including the two-way travel by thousands of Vietnamese who have built successful retail and restaurant businesses here and are taking frequent trips back home.
"Gessler" is the banner still draped across a central Kazimierz Dolny building, but exactly when and how the Warsaw restaurant family plans to proceed with its plans for a large-ish hotel and restaurant isn't clear. The conservation/ planning folks in Lublin vetoed the original plans as too large and obtrusive for the near-Rynek location.
Kudos and good luck to Malgosia Halaba, who helped the Business Journal shape its financial coverage for the past five years and is taking a job at AP Dow Jones' Warsaw office. She once had a lucrative job as a translator. After the transition, when her clients included the first marketing companies doing focus groups, she became so intrigued by the idea of asking folks their opinions about products a real departure from the socialist past that she began shaping questions for those focus groups and questionnaires. She decided to throw over her translating and get an MBA degree. Then she opted not to go into business but to cover it. And, as they say, the rest is history.
It's great to have so many restaurants carving out cafes for the spring and summer months. One of the nicest, tucked out of the traffic path, is Zacheta's cafe, on the side of the art museum (near the Victoria Hotel). The only problem and this isn't the only place where it's a problem are the pesky varmints. Not cats and dogs, but fleas attacking your ankles. Maybe some bug spray would do the trick. But it ought to be the cafe, not the unsuspecting guests, who provide the spray.
Briefly back in town is former PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Dean Ruehle, who now is an emerging market specialist at Ernst &Young. When he left Poland a year ago, he was cycling out after four years here but also in the midst of the tumultuous restructuring that came with the merger of the two huge accounting firms Price Waterhouse and the former Coopers & Lybrand. He was hooked on Poland or at least the challenge of an emerging market, including training people and wrestling with problems of switching to a competitive market economy. He balked at staying stateside at the next PWC executive posting, however, and defected to Ernst &Young, getting a job offer three days after making the first inquiry. Obviously that Polish experience stood him in good stead. He's now in charge of more than a dozen Latin American countries and, he says, "Poland is a big model of a successful change for them."
