I will have a Pentium 4, a sandwich and some coffee, please

The world recession of the IT business does not seem to have reached Romania, where sales keep going up. Still, now that the fierce competition has pushed the prices down, the profit margin is also decreasing. In other words, the market is growing up. At the same time, another market is constantly expanding across major cities, where one can find both money and people open to new things: the restaurant market. Two business owners that made millions out of IT are now thinking about seizing this opportunity and enter a business that has nothing to do with RAM chips, CPUs or software.
Robert Coman and Teo Paduraru, founders and shareholders of Best Computers, importer and dealer of IT equipment, are soon to open their first fast-food restaurant part of a future chain. The two entrepreneurs got the franchise from a major international company (17,000 restaurants in 73 countries).
Although unwilling to reveal the name of the franchiser, Coman and Paduraru told Ziarul Financiar that the first restaurant would open for business in downtown Bucharest by the end of the year. The investment in this first “specimen” amounts to $100,000.
“We are planning to open four more restaurants in 2003, two of which in Bucharest and two in the provinces. The investments in opening restaurants will gradually go down,” Teo Paduraru said.
How come they chose a food business? First of all, because the owners think the profit margin for restaurants is better and then the risk of getting stuck with obsolete inventories – the nightmare of those dealing in the IT sector, is none to zero in the fast-food world. Second, Paduraru feels the computer business is good enough to allow expansion to other fields of endeavour. He says this was too good an opportunity to miss: “We thought representing one of the top five international fast-food chains in Romania was a big opportunity.” The Best Group is also developing its computer store chain at the same time, with two new stores to be opened in the provinces.
On the other hand, market sources were saying last year that another leading computer company was planning to expand and go into the tourism business by building hotels. The plans of this company are now on hold.
Best Computers started out as a company importing and selling computers and computer parts. It later expanded to related fields such as PC and console games, security solutions and e-commerce.
Over the past few years, several international fast-food restaurant chains have found the Romanian market to be a good place for business. Besides the famous McDonald’s and KFC, regional players such as Everest and Gregory’s have worked their way in, as well.