The local subsidiary of Oracle, the world's leading business software developer, has rented additional office space besides the two locations it already operates in, so as to be able to cope with the increase in the number of employees to 800 people, once having opened its 11th services and support centre in Bucharest.
"Oracle Romania's team increased from 600 to 800 people as a result of the opening of a new services and support centre for financial and accounting operations inside the corporation (Global Finance Support)," said Stefan Cojanu, managing director of Oracle Romania and the vice-president of the American company for the Eastern European region and the Commonwealth of Independent States. The officials of the American company had said Bucharest was one of the main support centres in the EMEA (European, Middle East and Africa) region at the time Oracle Romania had reached 600 employees.
"This is a completely unexpected development," said Stefan Cojocaru. "The selection of the people started in January and now the support centre is fully operational," he added.
The Romanians working at the Global Finance Support centre are subordinated to Safra Catz, president and chief financial officer of Oracle, who came in Romania this year. Asked how much the number of employees of Oracle in Romania would grow, she said at the time that there might be "thousands" of people. The 200 employees in this centre provide support services for internal financial operations, such as contract signing, expense accounts etc.
The pressure on the IT skills segment of the labour market is becoming increasingly higher, as major companies like HP, IBM and Genpact have been talking about expansion of this business. The most recent announcement came from HP, which announced it could hire more than 1,200 people by the end of next year, so that the number of employees in its support centre in Bucharest would exceed 2,000.
Oracle Romania's turnover almost doubled to 19.5 million euros last year from 9.8 million euros in 2004, according to the data published by the company in the Official Gazette. The company posted three times higher profit in 2005 compared with 2004, 4 million euros from 1.3 million euros.
Oracle is one of the main players on the domestic business software market. It has implemented large projects in the financial-banking and telecom sectors.
An IDC survey shows Oracle Romania was the third-largest player in terms of revenues on the domestic business software market, after SAP and Siveco Romania last year.
"We really outpaced the market last year," Stefan Cojanu said. He would not provide additional details about the financial results of the company last year, or estimates about this year's turnover and number of employees.
The new services and support centre, the 11th Oracle Romania opened, will operate in the class A office building Forum III, close to the Marriott Hotel in Bucharest. Oracle rented half of the total office space available in the Forum III building.
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