Revenue growth in the crisis

The past year was filled with confusion and reticence about the IT sector, including the ERP solutions market. Many companies were on the edge of survival and most of them reported decrease in their businesses in one or another aspect. Fortunately, Intelligent Systems successfully used the opportunities of the unstable economic situation in the ERP business and scored a 12% revenue growth compared to the very successful year 2008.

Beside the revenue growth, Intelligent Systems had a successful year as a whole. The company, a proven leader among all Microsoft Dynamics partners in Bulgaria, scored the highest turnover at Microsoft. Intelligent Systems continue to fulfill its product portfolio, while focusing on the vertical add-ons to ERP systems. The company attracted many new customers and now has over 100 completed projects in leading companies from different business sectors. Willing to offer its customers first-quality services, the company hired more employees and formed separate teams, each specialized in the deployment and support of the various solutions. A key step in the company’s development in 2009 are the implementations in companies in other European countries – during the last year the company released projects in Romania and Croatia, and in 2010 will be released Serbian, Hungarian, Ukrainian projects. A big success for Intelligent Systems is the fact that, according to an official Microsoft research, the company has the highest rate of customer satisfaction among all Central and Eastern European partners of the software giant.

“We can definitely say that 2009 was a successful year for our company. Despite the negative forecasts and the great deal of pessimism among suppliers and customers and the turbulence in almost all sectors, we were flexible enough to adapt to the situation. This growth is great for us but we will continue to reveal our potential and we will set even higher goals. Already a proven leader among all Bulgarian ERP implementators, Intelligent Systems will be soon on the European market along with the biggest companies in the sector”, said Boyan Martinov, Sales Manager, Intelligent Systems Bulgaria.

In 2009, Intelligent Systems paid special attention to its existing customers in order to help them in these critical times. New features were developed and implemented in many of the companies, which help them respond quickly and accurately to the market. At the same time, Intelligent Systems considers the difficulties that companies face today, and tries to facilitate the new customers by proposing very attractive offers and flexible payment schemes.

The forecasts for 2010 are rather optimistic. AMR Research says that after a 4 % decrease in the global ERP investments in 2009, this year, the market will return to its 2008 level and in 2011 it will score 9% increase. The companies will continue to rely on ERP systems as an instrument to optimize the company’s business processes, reduce costs and generate higher revenues. The more and more popular SaaS /Software as a Service/ will continue to be actively promoted, but the Bulgarian market is still not familiar with the capabilities of this business model and its market share in the country will remain small. In 2010 the interest in business intelligence and CRM solutions will continue to increase. However, greater attention will be paid on small and medium companies, whose segment stayed outside the scope of the ERP providers until now. The ERP companies will reveal many new vertical applications, as the customers now want them to have proven expertise in their business area.

“For the first month of 2010 we have 30% increase compared to January 2009 and we will put all our efforts to keep it throughout the whole year. Despite the doubts of numerous experts, we believe that 2010 will be a successful year both for Intelligent Systems, and the ERP market as a whole”, said Boyan Martinov.