The third edition of the Microsoft Summit (November 4-5, Palace of Parliament), the largest business and technology event organized by the American company’s Romanian subsidiary, brings to the attention of the participants to this year’s edition topics such as mobility and cloud.
Speakers at the event: Don Grantham – President Microsoft Central and Eastern Europe; Jean-Francois Fallacher – Orange Romania CEO; Kostas Loukas – Microsoft Romania CEO; Rob Khazzam – Uber Central Europe General Manager; Kraig Brockschmidt – Senior Content Developer at Microsoft United States and one of the programmers of the basic tools included in Windows; as well as 50 other specialists from Romania and abroad presented to the participants extremely interesting sessions of networking, debates, collaboration opportunities as well as a series of surprises. From the way in which we prepare the digital economy to an overview of technologies and actions that the global society and economy are ready to face in the following period.
Among the important news Microsoft Summit 2015 has already offered, is the one according to which the American giant, which now has 760 employees in Romania, plans to surpass the 1,000 employees threshold in two years’ time, according to Kostas Loukas, the head of the local subsidiary. In recent years the company’s number of employees has grown by almost 100 employees per year, Kostas Loukas said.
Microsoft opened its local subsidiary 18 years ago and currently has 760 employees. The number has grown in recent years: for instance at the end of 2011 it stood at 400 and at the end of 2012 at approximately 50, most of them employed within the global support centre.
The cloud domain holds an increasingly important share in the company’s turnover.
Microsoft operates in Romania through a system of 3,000 partners. Microsoft states that it helps 450 technology start-ups every year and donates software and cloud solutions worth an average of USD 1 M to Romanian NGOs.
Kostas Loukas became Microsoft Romania CEO in April 2013 and has been working for the company for ten years. Previously, he worked for big names such as Coca-Cola and P&G.
According to Finance Ministry data, Microsoft Romania registered a turnover of RON 194 M and a net profit of RON 20.1 M last year.
One of the summit’s main topics was “digitalizing society.” A process that will result in the digitalization of labour, against the backdrop of a different consumer behaviour, and in the next five years the changes will be significant considering that by the end of 2020 the whole Generation C (“connected”) will live in a preponderantly digital world – computer and mobile devices, cloud, internet of things, internet communication and social networks – and all aforementioned elements will become a second nature for “connected” persons, according to Microsoft experts.
“Each business needs to transform itself, periodically or continuously, in order to remain competitive and relevant in a dynamic market environment. Digital transformation is part of those business decisions that reflect not only the current need for adaptation but also the vision of an organization, the manner in which it relates to the future or to the environment. Paraphrasing P. Drucker, I can say that in 5 years’ time there will be 2 categories of managers: the ones who understand and apply the principles of digital economy and those unemployed,” Violeta Luca stated.
As part of a session taking place o the second day of the event, the Microsoft representative, alongside Aurelia Costache, Financial Services Industry Advisory Leader within EY Romania, will talk about how business models can be changed in a world in which digital technologies generate major changes on various markets. The session will tackle topics such as: how can IT technologies influence the companies’ market position and what are the competitive advantages that they can bring? Can operational excellence be attained without excellence in using IT, namely without sophisticated automation, information, analyses and algorithms?
The tackling of these topics at the Microsoft Summit comes against the backdrop in which, according to Microsoft experts, companies expect to raise their profitability and cost efficiency by up to 10 per cent through business digitalization initiatives, according to a McKinsey report published this year. The report analyzed 18 digital strategy, aptitudes and organizational culture practices in order to establish the digital maturity or Digital Quotient of a company.
The Microsoft Summit plans to offer its participants data on topic such as: the characteristics of company digitalization in the Romanian business sector; which are the main digitalization services and products through which Romanian companies can boost their profitability and maximize their results. The participants had the opportunity to interact with the new Microsoft technologies that were present at the special demo sections. Likewise, participants were able to test various Microsoft equipments and technologies. 11 sessions for business sector participants were organized at the event.
Another 17 sessions focusing on technology were dedicated to the participants that develop software apps. A number of 23 sessions were organized for IT specialists.