SoftOne: Romania will be a hub for our expansion in South-Eastern Europe

Haris Zachariades, the CEO of SoftOne Romania, the local branch of Greek-based SoftOne Technologies, a provider of business software solutions (ERP, CRM and BI), talks to Romania-Insider.com about the company’s plans. Although he studied mathematics, Haris Zachariades was more attracted by the business environment, and always wanted to be an entrepreneur. “Studying mathematics probably helped me, I believe it helps you to develop your thinking, to have analytical skills,” he said in an interview for Romania-insider.com. Business software is what brought him to Romania back in 1995 when he opened a branch in Bucharest for another company active in this sector. Seven years later, in 2002, the company was sold. He started traveling again to Romania in 2012, this time in the name of SoftOne Technologies. The local branch was opened a year later, in 2013. However, Romania was no new market for SoftOne. “By that time, we already had some customers. We had some 50-60 customers by 2012 and Romania was getting more and more attractive for our business, so we decided to start our activity here,” Zachariades says. The company came with a quite new business model in Romania: selling through partners. It currently has 30 partners on the local market, but the plan is to have at least one partner in every county by end-2015. This means over 40 partners – small and big companies. SoftOne offers support to its partners, trains them, and provides them with solutions and marketing materials. In return, the partners sell the company’s software solutions and benefit from recurring revenues from subscriptions. By end-2015, the company will open a new office in Romania’s Cluj-Napoca, which will create some 5-10 new jobs. However, SoftOne Technology’s expansion plans don’t stop here. The Greek company also wants to open a branch in neighboring Bulgaria, which will be coordinated from Romania. ”The branch in Romania is going to be a hub for expanding in the South-Eastern Europe. If we have the know-how here, we’re going to help Bulgarian partners from Romania,” Haris Zachariades says. SoftOne plans to become a powerful international company and estimates that in 5 years time, more than half of its total turnover will come from South-East Europe markets. There are currently 20 people working in the Bucharest office, but the company wants to increase the number to 30. Together with the 5-10 people to be hired in the future Cluj office, SoftOne’s total local team will reach some 40 people. The company has some 200 customers in Romania but plans to double the number by the end of the year. It also wants to double the turnover in Romania, from EUR 500,000 in 2014, to close to EUR 1 million this year. SoftOne invested some EUR 1.5 million in its Romanian activities so far and plans to keep investing as it expects its local business to continue the positive trend in the coming years. This year, the company also started roadshows in Romania, as part of its partners recruitment program. Through these events, the company wants to educate IT companies and to present its business model. It already held such an event in Iasi, which targeted companies from Iasi and the north part of the Moldavian region. As a businessman who splits his time between Romania and Greece, Haris Zachariades has fully seen the differences between the two countries. Things are more stable in Romania, from the economic point of view, as the country’s economy is growing, and the unemployment has low rates. There are also good signs in the political area. On the other hand, Greece continues to be affected by the economic crisis, especially its private sector. However, this crisis found SoftOne in a good financial condition and didn’t stop it from making investments and even expanding abroad. “For example instead of firing people, as many companies did, we were hiring people, we invested in R&D. Cutting expenses from R&D, marketing, sales, doesn’t help you,” he says. Today, SoftOne is present in Greece and Romania but also has partners in Turkey, Serbia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Malta, Albania, and even Russia. The group has some 14,000-15,000 customers, 200,000 users, and a network of 500 partners. “This entire community is managed by 100-120 people only.”