Topics of this article: Voicu Oprean, AROBS, Healthcare software development, Cloud applications development
With over 20 years of experience, AROBS Transilvania Software is more than the usual software development company. Highly skilled professionals are mixed with extensive business knowledge, specialized in automotive engineering, Healthcare software development, Cloud applications development, and IoT. None of these would exist today if it weren’t for Voicu Oprean, Founder and CEO.
Read below an interview by Ovidiu Mâțan, founder of Today Software Magazine about the very beginnings of this industry in the birthplace of AROBS.
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Apart from the activity in AROBS you are also an investor. Can you speak about some of the start-ups or companies in which you have recently invested?
I would like to mention Soundmix — a software solution that launched a social network, where the fans of electronic music can watch together live streams from their favorite DJs and festivals. With Soundmix you may experiment live electronic music from DJs, festivals and night clubs, and you may discover unique and exclusive content.
There’s also Ebriza, that totally transforms what we know now as cashier, sales and management software: they can be accessed online, non-stop, from any device, and you can see in real-time the company’s activity, inventories, and sales. Moreover, Ebriza integrates businesses from HORECA, retail or services with their suppliers or service providers, applications for orders or booking by means of a marketplace open to all developers.
In addition to IT, I also invested in businesses dealing with bioproducts distribution, such as Managis Bio.
I am also a mentor and a coach for many start-ups, entrepreneurs in the business area. I am willing to meet anytime with entrepreneurs for interesting projects, in any field, but mainly in software.
What is your advice to someone willing to develop his/her own product/start-up?
Firstly, he or she should never stop learning. That’s what I also do, I have an EMBA from Wu Wien and I attend courses both at Harvard Business School and London Business School.
Secondly, he or she should continuously develop their technical and business skills. In this regard, I would suggest my winning formula to be applied in business:
[IQ + EQ + TQ + BQ] to CQ power
Where:
• IQ — fast learning;
• EQ — emotional intelligence;
• TQ — people are more important than technology;
• BQ — be quick;
• CQ — creativity.
Thirdly: Be persistent! This helped me in both my personal and my professional life. I am a 6-time finisher of IronMan international competitions (4 full and 2 half). I failed during my first attempt to finishing Ironman.
Professionally, I am equally persistent. I encourage all entrepreneurs to go ahead full-speed when they find an idea, something that works when things happen as they should.
What do you think of the opportunities to obtain an investment in Romania?
There are investment funds, accelerators, hubs, incubators, European projects, and private investors. All these can help a business grow.
At the same time, banks are increasingly open to the entrepreneurship, and this was inconceivable ten years ago.
How do you see the Romanian IT market, especially in Cluj, five years from now?
Public discussions deal with many prognoses and several statistical data. I would highlight some data from the survey called Software & IT Services in Romania — 2018 Edition, commissioned by ANIS Romania. It shows that this industry will keep on growing by more than 14% per year and it will reach 6.880 billion euros in 2021. The total number of IT employees will reach 124,750 in 2021, and the survey estimates a per capita productivity of 55,150 euros.
In addition, over 70% of the software created in Romania is for the worldwide market. By 2021, this percentage will increase to 80%.
In conclusion, the market for software services and products will keep on growing, depending on our capacity to accelerate this growth and on the manner in which we will succeed in setting quality as the defining competitive advantage, compared to other competing markets in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Moldova and, furthermore, Asia and South America. We, at AROBS, consider ourselves European by birth and international by education. Beyond these words lays our culture, our vision on work and quality. It also depends on how we will specialize in the business lines and the technical expertise required on the market. And in this area of technical expertise we have found out that Ukraine is ahead of us because we often lack the critical mass of specialists in new technologies.
Read the first part of the interview HERE.
