Happy 21st anniversary, IT Smart Systems!
About two months into the new year, we gathered all the puzzle pieces from our lovely and #flexible colleagues on some interesting aspects of the directions we took the last year and even made predictions for each domain for the current 2023.
We want to start bold & strong, pretty much like the year itself, and share Cristi’s input regarding Digital Transformation with you. ‘ITSS will define itself as a Digital Transformation Company as long as Digital Transformation remains an imperative for enterprises which is, I think pretty much forever: from paper, brick, and mortar to digital, from on-prem to cloud, from physical assets to digital assets, from traditional financial services to DeFi, the journey will never end,’ says Cristian Barbu, Managing Partner ITSS.
We have asked some of our colleagues about the highlights of 2022 for them, professionally, along with some predictions for the new year, and this is what we found out.
A consolidation year that paid off
‘2022, as planned, was a consolidation year on all three growth directions (Geographic expansion, SaaS, Fintech), a year of hard work that ended up with a 30% growth of our revenue’, tells us Cristi, as he sets his expectations for 2023, besides continuing to consolidate what we’ve already built over the past years: ‘we are aiming to maintain our innovation leader status. We are expanding our solutions portfolio to help our customers to keep up with both business trends (such as DeFi / Crypto-Assets) and technological trends (such as Cloud Transformation) in an environmentally and socially responsible manner (using our ESG solution).’
Following the technological trends
It is no surprise for our followers that our primary purpose is to use new and relevant technologies for implementing solutions and developing products, to keep our high standards well… high for our partners and clients, and as well to attract and maintain the most relevant and happy talent in the industry.
So, for 2022 we saw that ‘the clients in the financial field have continued to upgrade their traditional technologies and introduced new Open-Source and Cloud technologies.’ For example, ‘we had a transformational project for SWIFT MX ISO 20022 for one of the biggest banks in Romania, with upgrades for both ISO SWIFT and technology from a legacy framework to a modern one’, recalls Alex Cociu, Executive Partner ITSS. When we dared him to make a prediction for this year, Alex saw ‘our clients migrating more and more to Cloud-ready or Cloud native applications on Java/Spring technologies.’
Aiming to utterly agility
Another process we are keeping a close eye on and trying to transform is the adherence to the Scrum/Agile methodology completely, and we are glad to say that for 2022 most projects were agile. ‘The tendency is to become utterly agile, and we estimate that for 2023 approximately 90% of our projects to be like that. Agility in ITSS creates and encourages a proper context to rapidly adapt to changes and considerably optimizes the delivery process and client satisfaction, adds Alex.
A transformation year to #keepITflexible
As we must align all our streams with envisioning the business strategy, we’ve talked with our HR and Employer Branding colleagues to learn more about the 2022 company transformation.
Our over 20 years record brought many transformations for our company to adapt and readapt to market realities, with the one from the past year being only the latest.
Diana Dina, HR Business Partner, thinks that ‘2022 was a very active year for us in HR, in all HR-related areas: from recruitment to learning, performance, wellbeing, employer branding, and organizational development. Last year we focused on flexibility and organization transformation, understanding that the power to choose and the will to adapt answers best to people’s needs and creates the perfect environment for performance’.
Keep IT flexible was our statement for the many challenges that the past few years have brought us, as we realized it is vital to keep our options open and create our workspace at our own pace and on our terms. The ITSS Community’s comfort and wellbeing are the most important traits we are trying to nurture, and we realize that we can answer them best through flexibility as a high value.
‘As for 2023, we continue our transformation journey to enable a more agile HR department closer to the business and people's needs, a department able to support and guide better. Moreover, even if all predictions for 2023 say that the struggles from last year will continue, we see increased unease in IT. We sense that the sonorous layoffs from the beginning of the year raised some questions in people’s minds making them more attentive to their employer's stability on the market. At ITSS, we find ourselves in a privileged place as pathbreakers in multiple domains while ensuring expertise on various digital transformation traditional trends. We are looking for people who want to leave their mark in the innovative world of technology to help us build the enterprises for tomorrow’, continues Diana.
The novelty in signature products
Even if IT Smart Systems is already a well-consolidated business transformation enabler
in the financial, retail, or telco sectors, it is probably less known for its innovative
products. In 2022, ITSS upgraded its signature products list with an exciting Open Banking product for the local market: TPP (Third Party Provider) validation (the ‘Validator’ from the SmartPG suite). ‘I am very proud of this particular product, not only because I kept a close eye on it, but also because the biggest bank in Romania integrated it; moreover, this upcoming year, it will be integrated by other Romanian banks as well,’ confessed Ana Maria Georgescu, Executive Partner ITSS.
‘ITSS evolution of the past years it’s spectacular, I would say. From 0 products in 2018 to 7 launched products in 2023’, confirms Alex Cociu.
ITSS, in light of its 21st anniversary
“For me, ITSS is a stronger brand every year; it continues to evolve and differentiate so nicely in the local environment. It is a Romanian self-made company with unique traits that were consolidated over its 21 years journey through hard work, recognised as reliable by internationally established partners, and enhanced by the valuable people that formed our ITSS Community over the years”, believes Ioana Dumitru, Marketing and Brand voice of ITSS. ‘I expect that the creative signature products to bring market value and grow in 2023’, adds Ioana.
As we celebrate our 21st year of technological transformations in the Romanian market (by the way, Happy Birthday, ITSS!), IT Smart Systems has become a trusted partner, innovator, and flexible workplace in the local environment. As always, we’ll keep IT simple in all our directions and look forward to an amazing 2023.
If you are curious to find out more about our #ITSScommunity, check out the new website page we've just created for you:
