Greek SI targets UK in international expansion drive

Uni Systems says Greek economic crisis left it with little choice but to restructure the business towards an international model

One of Greece's largest systems integators, Uni Systems, is considering setting up a UK office as it reduces its exposure to home market.

Founded in 1964, the Athens-based firm claims to be the first-ever Greek-owned IT company established in Greece. Uni Systems offers mainly systems integration, datacentre and infrastructure solutions to the financial, enterprise and public sectors.

An established name in Greece, Uni Systems drew up a ten-year plan to grow international sales in 2010 as a result of diminishing opportunities in its home market. Speaking to Channelnomics Europe, managing director of Uni Systems Yiannis Loumakis said that by 2020 the firm will be looking to generate half of its revenues internationally.

The company's international business mainly comes through European contracts, but Uni Systems also has business abroad in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and former Soviet states.

"This year our revenue was €82m. 80 per cent is in services and the other 20 per cent is through selling licences and hardware," said Loumakis.

"We started eight years ago with zero international business; now it is 30 per cent of our total revenue. This year we did around €20m in the EU and, based on projects we won last year, we are going up to €27m to €30m this year, which is a large increase.

"We have a ten-year plan that leads up to 2020. The plan is to mitigate the risk and to have more than 50 per cent of the revenue coming from international business. Right now we are seven or eight years into the plan and we have achieved 30 per cent."

With a large chunk of Uni Systems' business going through the Greek banking sector, and with public sector budgets shrivelling up, Loumakis explained that Uni Systems had little choice but to restructure the business towards a more international model.

"There is no other way for us; we have to be successful [internationally]," he said. "Eight years ago the company was 100 per cent based in the Greek market. The economic crisis hit us hard. The banking sector almost went bankrupt in Greece, which was an important sector for us, and the public sector suffered some significant budget cuts. Because we were a large company in Greece, we had to take our chances abroad."

Uni Systems already has an outpost in Belgium and opened another office in Luxemburg towards the end of last year. According to Loumakis, Uni Systems employs around 100 employees between both offices.

Loumakis said that further European expansion is planned to support large four-year contracts that the firm has won through large-scale projects coming from the EU.

"We are competing with all the largest guys like Accenture, Unisys, Atos, all of the big guys in Europe," he said.

"We won some long-term projects lasting for four years in the EU. We are a small company compared with some of the others but we are focused and we have a great management and presales team and good people such as systems engineers and software engineers," he said.

"Usually we do the majority of business through the banking sector where we focus on both vertical and horizontal solutions. We have our own products and work with international technology vendors like Oracle, Microsoft and SAP. We have a mixed offering, both our own IP software and international platforms depending on what the customer wants."

Loumakis said that he intends to open three more offices, in Finland, the UK and France, over the next two years.

"What we are planning right now is further expansion by opening new offices. One target will be Finland because we have three or four big projects there. Also in France and the UK. I think in the next two years we will open them," he said. "In the UK we have very large customers and a very large-scale project worth €70m for the next four years."

He said that around 30 people will be employed in the UK, while the French and Finnish office will each be manned by around 20 staff.

"We have a very rapid expansion plan; now we have to manage that success. If you have a rapid expansion the whole thing can collapse if you are not careful. We are restructuring the business to focus on more international activity, including more personnel like contract managers, sales people, back office personnel, in order to achieve this," he said.