S&T aims for new business
By Timothy Sifert
As a part of its strategy to grow a larger, more formidable client roster, S&T Services Polska is now developing outsourcing, infrastructure, integration and consulting products for public and private companies intent on getting up to scratch with European Union IT standards.
S&T, which recently acquired the operations of Fujitsu Services, already gets about 30% of its revenue from EU and government-related projects. Further attacking this business area is paramount to the company's long-term goal of maintaining a client list with at least 10 clients each providing €1.5 million in annual revenue. Today, the local operation of the Vienna-based parent company counts four such customers.
"There are an awful lot of systems that need to be put into place in Polish institutions, those that need to have systems that comply with EU institutions," said Patrick Flanagan, S&T's managing director.
Flanagan added that the company's strategy is an addition to its focus on business in the private sector, in which it has American Restaurants (KFC and Pizza Hut) as a customer.
Flanagan also said that the nature of local institutions' IT systems is ideal for companies like S&T that can provide customized integration technologies, since such systems are large and not integrated. "You can't buy such a (integration) product off the shelf."
And while Flanagan says that IT projects here can be large, they are usually very manageable and are much easier to complete than similar IT projects in the U.K., for instance, where they very often run into the hundreds of millions of euros. U.K. deals, Flanagan said, are met with complications and delays. In Poland similar projects are E1 million-E5 million on average and move more smoothly, he noted.
"I can only compare it to the U.K.," he said. "The projects in Poland are much more successful than in the U.K. They are smaller, in bite-sized chunks."
Compared to the U.K., he said, "We're not having significant delays (with) budget overruns."
At the same time, Flanagan sees a better opportunity in EU-related business because EU tender standards are more transparent and timely than the domestic process. While he said he's not directly faulting Polish standards, he pointed out that the EU has much more rigid and dependable deadlines and guarantees.
However, this will not cause S&T to shun the government-only deals by any means.
"In the future there will be more and more opportunities to work with ministries also," Flanagan said. Besides deficiencies in specific EU technologies, many ministries have a definite lack of advanced technology that would enable systems to seamlessly communicate with other levels and segments of state. "The finance ministry has a lot of IT, but the ministry of agriculture, for instance, has less so," he pointed out. "It really varies."
This strategy will be particularly beneficial in targeting local governments, which on the whole have some of the least-automated and most IT-demanding processes.
