IBM Romania: We could reach several thousand employees

IBM Romania has discreetly reached 500 employees in its IT support centres. Its plans to open new such facilities throughout the country, besides the two it already has in Bucharest, could drive the number of people involved in this business to several thousands, Mihai Tudor, general manager of IBM Romania told ZIARUL FINANCIAR.
IBM is therefore increasing the pressure on the IT specialists market, after companies like Oracle, HP or Genpact have opened such centres that provide IT support services to local or international customers. Oracle already has 450 people in its support centres, while Microsoft is to hire 200 for the centre it will open in Bucharest.
“We will continue to develop IT service centres, and they will dramatically expand the number of staff,” Mihai Tudor said.
One of the reasons why IBM will be hiring more people is the expansion of the geographical coverage of the support centres in Romania to other Central and Eastern European countries. “We have big plans and if they materialise, they will generate several thousand jobs,” Tudor stated.
“Timisoara, Iasi and Cluj are areas we are watching most carefully,” he added. The company has yet to decide on the location of the new centres, and did not care to provide details about the pacing of these operations.
IBM Romania’s boss, however, specified that Moldova was an “area of choice” when it comes to evaluation conducted in view of opening new IT support centres. Both IT&C and consultancy company owners anticipate a wave of investments from high-tech companies in Moldova.
The first centre IBM opened in Bucharest, Global Procurement Services Group (GPSG) started with 10 employees in 1998 and now has over 250. GPSG provides consultancy, software development and testing, embedded software development, for domestic (banking and public sector) and international customers.
The second IBM centre in the capital city, Application Services Delivery Center (AS) had 5 employees when it opened two years ago and has now reached more than 200, the company says.
The AS centre provides development, maintenance and packaging software for local and international customers. IBM Romania chose to provide details about this business to ZIARUL FINANCIAR first.
As for the likelihood of call centre business development, Mihai Tudor said the company was researching the possibility but “is not a key area” for it.
IBM, however, is carefully looking at the trends on the domestic IT market, and does not rule out the acquisition of a Romanian company, if it can bring new elements to improve IBM’s business strategy, Mihai Tudor said.
“We in our turn are looking very carefully at the market of Romanian companies, which provide value added services. We saw the recently announced acquisitions, we know others will follow. This is a natural consolidation process, which has already taken place on other markets in the region,” he added.