Sii extends cooperation with Scandinavia. The company pursues projects for nearly 20 partners from Nordic countries
Sii is gaining more and more trust of companies from Northern Europe. The IT and engineering leader delivers its services to media groups, insurance companies and representatives of various other sectors, such as banking, automotive, education and publishing. – We have the possibility to pursue projects involving innovative ideas and latest technologies. This allows us to hire for Sii the best specialists, guarantee them professional development opportunities and challenges in projects, which has always been the key mission of our company – says Grzegorz Brzostowski, Media & Services Business Unit Director at Sii.
Sii, the top IT and engineering services provider, consequently strives to extend the portfolio of international clients. One of the strategic geographical directions, in terms of further development, is Scandinavia. In March, Sii representatives for the second time took part in 600Minutes Executive IT conference, a must-attend event for top IT decision makers. After the debut in the edition, that took place in Copenhagen, Sii followed the organizers to Stockholm, once again becoming a sponsor of this event, along with such companies as IBM, Fujitsu, Cypro and KPMG, since it is Scandinavia where Sii plans to develop its business in the near future.
– Such an event is the perfect opportunity to confront our offer with the needs of the Swedish market. What is important, most of the participants were interested in our most advanced services offered by Sii. We are becoming recognizable as a reliable and stable organization, which has the ability to address many different needs of the clients and find the most beneficial cooperation model to both parties – says Bartosz Borowy, Business Manager in Media & Services Business Unit at Sii Gdansk, who represented Sii at the conference.
About the beginnings of Sii’s development in Scandinavia, pursued projects and development plans we talk to Grzegorz Brzostowski, Media & Services Business Unit Director, who is responsible for the cooperation with many Sii’s clients from the Nordic countries.
Zuzanna Siondalska, Communication Specialist: When did Sii start developing business in Scandinavia and what was the company’s first project?
Grzegorz Brzostowski, Media & Services Business Unit Director: Our first experiences with the Scandinavian markets date back to 2014, when we started the cooperation with a Danish media group – Berlingske Media. The first project that we pursued together was building an e-commerce platform, which was so successful that it was followed by a steady stream of projects connected with the remodelling and ongoing optimisation of Belingske’s digital press portals. Due to high recognisability of this client in Denmark, over a short period of time we caught the attention of a few other companies, which made us realise how big the need for outsourcing IT projects is in this region. Interestingly, the local managers had more experience in cooperating with partners from India or Ukraine, than Poland – a country located as little as 45-minutes by plane away from their headquarters – bearing in mind that it is Sii’s branch in Gdańsk that is responsible for cooperation with Scandinavian companies. In the following years, based on our experience on the Danish market, we have expanded our strategy to other Nordic countries, that is Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland, both in terms of our business and adjusting our offer to the local conditions.
Z.S.: Why are Scandinavian markets of strategic importance to Sii’s development?
G.B.: We were intrigued by the high absorption of the latest technologies by the Scandinavian markets. It is no secret that one of this region’s characteristics is innovativeness. Along with particularly high GDP per capita, it translates into several IT initiatives both in the private and public sector. The widespread use of broadband Internet, popularity of mobile technologies and wide utilisation of cashless payment channels are factors, that contribute to the fact that those countries are open to digitalisation and are especially innovative in those aspects. At the same time the entire region does not have an easy access to IT specialists, which is caused by low population and the demographics. The closeness to Poland, EU membership and the high supply of well-qualified IT specialists should make our country a natural direction, where Scandinavians could search for outsourcing support. Based on our experience we conclude that Polish partners, with Sii in the lead, may constitute a very interesting alternative to offshoring to further parts of the world and nearshoring outside the EU. It is worth remembering, especially in view of the new EU regulations with regard to processing of personal data (GDPR) to be introduced in the near future.
Z.S.: How would you describe cooperating with Scandinavians?
G.B.: Pursuing projects for clients from Scandinavia is pure pleasure. Besides the partnership relations on the business level, we have the possibility to pursue projects involving innovative ideas and latest technologies. This allows us to hire for Sii the best specialists, guarantee them professional development opportunities and challenges in projects, which has always been the key mission of our company. The satisfaction of our employees is crucial to the quality of the services we deliver and the level of engagement in the project.
Z.S.: How did Sii’s cooperation with Scandinavia develop in recent years?
G.B.: Over a short period of time we managed to gain trust of almost 20 partners from the entire region (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland). A vast majority of the projects is in accordance with the prevailing trends and is based on digitalisation, that is building digital solutions dedicated to websites, portals and mobile applications. Media groups, insurance companies and representatives of various other sectors, such as banking, education and publishing are amongst our clients. The latter consider digitalisation to be an alternative for traditional media, whereas production and trade companies develop their sales channels via e-commerce or OmniChannel. Moreover it allows companies to better serve their retail customers via digital media. On the other side of the spectrum are companies representing the automotive and engineering industry, such as one of our clients – a world-leading hearing aids manufacturer.
Z.S.: What is Sii’s business development plan for Scandinavia in the near future?
G.B.: In the future we will primarily focus on gaining new clients. We are happy to have finalised many successful projects and gotten many worthy references, which should drive development and strengthen Sii’s position as an IT services provider for Nordic countries. Although we had many successes, we still have to work on Sii brand recognisability in Scandinavia. Our goal is to promote the benefits from outsourcing IT projects to Poland, a part of that being participation in prestigious IT conferences taking place in Denmark and Sweden, as well as organising our very first event in Scandinavia – Mobilise Your Business Conference. During the event, which will take place on April 19th in Copenhagen, experts from Sii and Microsoft will talk about creating cross-platform mobile applications using Xamarin, and Microsoft Cognitive Services and AI. As far as our offer is concerned, we are preparing to address the challenges, which our clients may be facing once the mentioned GDPR regulations are introduced. In theory it should encourage discussion on how and where IT projects are outsourced.
The article prepared by: Zuzanna Siondalska
