Swiss-Singaporean software company Acronis will inaugurate an office in Romania’s capital Bucharest by the middle of 2020 and plans to open a sales office in Turkey, Ivan Doudin, regional sales director Balkans and Turkey, told SeeNews.
Acronis expects the overhaul of its office in Romania to be completed in April-May but delays caused by travel restrictions due to the novel coronavirus disease (CVOID-19) pandemic are likely, Doudin told SeeNews in a recent interview.
The company registered Acronis Romania as a legal entity in November of last year. The Romanian unit currently employs 12 people working out of leased premises in Bucharest.
Depending on the local market and the available talent pool, Acronis intends to hire up to 100 experts in its Romanian office by the end of this year, Doudin said.
The planned office in Turkey will serve sales and representative functions, employing four or five people.
In September, Acronis received a $147 million (131.7 million euro) investment round from New York-headquartered banking, securities and investment management firm Goldman Sachs. The investment round set the valuation of Acronis at over $1.0 billion and enabled the company to expand its engineering teams in Singapore, where the company was founded, along with Bulgaria and the US state of Arizona as well as invest in acquisitions and development of new products.
The company is rapidly expanding its team in Bulgaria and plans to increase the headcount at its research and development (R&D) centre in Sofia, a core one for the company, to 1,000 by the end of 2022 from around 300 at present, CEO Sergei Beloussov told SeeNews in an interview last month.
Percentage-wise the search for research and development (R&D) engineers is higher, but customer support specialists and inside sales specialists are also needed, Doudin said.
After the successful implementation of the company’s hiring plans a half of Acronis’ global headcount will be based in Bulgaria.
As far as new acquisitions are concerned, Acronis is always looking for opportunities, Doudin said.
“Part of investment we received from Goldman Sachs will go to acquisition of companies, another part – to development of new products. We are on a constant lookout for companies which can be a good fit to us, and if we find such – yes, we will plan an acquisition,” Doudin said.
Acronis has set its sight on a possible acquisition in Southeast Europe (SEE), Beloussov said in March, adding that he could not reveal any details yet.
Acronis describes its business strategy not only in Bulgaria but in the whole region as “expansion, growth and perfectly supported customers”, according to Doudin.
“We are very much focused on growth – the plan is for 50% growth in revenue this year and a further 50% next year,” the regional manager said.
In order to do so, the company has to provide a perfect customer support, Doudin explained.
“We pay great attention to detail – everything that is being done and the speed of doing it.”
Acronis expects to grow its revenue from operations in the Balkans and Turkey by 61% in 2020 – a plan which still has not been changed despite the COVID-19 crisis. However, Acronis acknowledges the severity of the current situation and believes that with 50% or even 40% growth this year it will manage to meet its aggregate target for 2020-2021, Doudin said.
“In any case, we must double the business within two years,” he said.
Acronis sees opportunities for its business arising from the COVID-19 pandemic – a lot of companies are working from home now and home networks are not well protected which may lead to increased demand for Acronis’ services. For the time being, Acronis’ has not noticed a rise in demand as companies are still trying to adapt to the new working conditions, Doudin said.
Acronis, founded in 2003, is active in cyber protection and hybrid cloud storage technology. Enhanced by AI-based Active Protection technology, blockchain-based authentication and hybrid-cloud architecture, Acronis protects all data in any environment, including physical, virtual, cloud, mobile workloads and applications.
