In 1994, following first-hand experience of working for the state and employment as an electrical engineer for several companies, Sorin Baltag decided it was time he did something on his own. This is how the Romanian company Genesys Software was born. Baltag was 34 at the time and very enthusiastic.
Looking back he says he would not be able to start all over now, as he no longer has the energy he had back then. "Romanian IT market has grown extremely narrow and competition is much more professional," he estimates.
"We started by developing Unix applications, Progress databases and financial credit applications, " Baltag recalls. "But one year later, that is 1995, we realised we needed to develop a capital to allow us to grow, so that we decided to expand to distribution."
The first partners contacted were software, networking and UPS (uninterrupted power supplies) companies. This is when the first idea of a strategy for the company emerged: attracting clients that did not necessarily have to be world's number one. "We bet on companies no one had yet battled for in Romania," he says.
"We wanted to take the less travelled road and focus on fewer companies, to be able to provide the best services."
The first partners were National Instruments, SCO Unix, Progress and FTP Software, followed by Allied Telesyn and Best Power.
Baltag now thinks "his gut feeling proved right," because he turned these companies barely present in Romania into well-known names. For instance, he explains, Allied Telesyn is now successfully competing with 3Com, Nortel or D-Link products on the domestic market, all thanks to Genesys.
"Allied Telesyn appreciated us having placed it on one of the top places in Romania," Baltag says. "At the same time, we may say we managed to sell better than their other dealers in Russia, Poland and Hungary."
Meanwhile, apart from distribution and software development departments, Genesys expanded to outsourcing for companies based in Switzerland or France.
It also provides training courses, taught by its own employees, one of the company resources Baltag likes to brag about. "We are 40 people, more than 90% of which hold a college degree," he says, adding that the number of employees practically doubled year by year, from the four it started out with in 1994.
In the company's arithmetic, distribution accounts for the highest weight, that is 75% of turnover, while services account for about 20%, with another 5% for outsourcing.
"We're planning on having two separate companies in less than five years, one dealing in distribution and the other in system integration," Baltag says.
At present, the company's distribution network includes more than 300 partners, while its most important clients are: Banc Post, Arctic Gaesti, The Ministry of Education, Tarom, Demir Bank, Alpha Bank, Kraft Jacobs Suchard, military units and telecommunications operators.
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