Softline opens office in Romania, expects USD 500,000 turnover

Moscow-based Softline International has opened an office in Romania, this being the first country in the European Union where the company has established a presence.

The office in Romania was officially opened on June 7 and is located in Muntenia Business Center. Currently, the Softline Romania team counts 4 employees, but up to five more will be employed by the end of the year.

In itially, Softline has proposed to focus on software license reselling, this being the first step in the strategy of the company as it establishes footprint on a new market. In this position, Softline will be mainly targeting small businesses. Starting with next year, Softline will also be adding new business segments such as consultancy, IT auditing, outsourcing and education.

“For now, we can only afford to start as a certified reseller but in time we will also be able to become competitors of system integrators and also offer software consultancy. Obviously, we will not sell hardware but here we can always start alliances,” said Radu Crahmaliuc, Regional Director of Softline Romania (in picture).

The bulk of sales are deemed to come from Microsoft products (35-50 percent), being followed by security software (around 30 percent) and thirdly, virtualization and business applications, according to Ivan Klimov, Business Development Director in Softline Group.

“We are aware that we are showing up later on a market that is already mature,” said Crahmaliuc. However, he said there are several good reasons for which Softline decided to open an office in Romania. Firstly, there is big potential on this market due to small businesses which represent 95 percent of the total number of companies and more than 67 percent of the economic potential. Also, Romania may serve as a bridge for expansion in other countries and the software and services sector has not been as hard hit by the recession as in other countries. Moreover, driving factors in this decision to open up an office in Romania were also the availability of EU structural funds and the anticipated de-frost of the IT projects in the public sector.