French giant Atos growing its Bulgarian business

One of the reasons for Atos' consistent growth in recent years is that even after a project is completed, the relationship between the company and its clients does not end. It continues for years, which guarantees more business in the future.

"A project does have a beginning and an end, but the relationship with the customers continues after it. Customers have needs, we talk about what they want to achieve as a business result of the project. We want to optimize client companies. We go through all the installation processes, configuring those systems, testing them, training the people who will work with them. Only then do we start using the systems. We often continue to work with customers to support them, so our partnership lasts for years," says Hristov.

Atos' long journey in Bulgaria

The history of the company in Bulgaria is complicated. Today's Atos division in the country used to be owned by the Germany's Siemens IT Services, which entered Bulgaria back in the 90s. Atos was created in 1997 as a result of the merger of two French companies - Axime and Silgos. In 2000, it merged with another company, Origin, which in turn was also the result of a merger - between Dutch BSO and the communications and processors unit of Philips. This is how Atos Origin appeared, which in 2002 also bought part of the consulting business of accounting firm KPMG.

Bulgaria came into the picture in 2011, when Atos Origin bought the IT unit of Germany's Siemens for 850 million euro. The deal was more of an acquisition than a merger, although Siemens got 15% of the overall company, which now goes by the Atos name. Thus, in 2011, after all the metamorphoses and mergers, Atos emerged as one of the software giants of Europe, and with the last deal, it also acquired a Bulgarian office. At the end of 2011, the two local companies employed a total of about 500 people, and the revenues were about a third of what they are today.

Atos Bulgaria's office

Photographer: Tsvetelina Belutova

"We have been here for more than 20 years, mainly in digital services, implementation of enterprise solutions and a lot of things in terms of cloud services, digitalization of workplaces, big data analysis. Many companies focus on the fact that Bulgaria was a very good destination where you could find good labor at great prices, but our focus was and still is a bit different. We believe that there are many good specialists in Bulgaria, and we have a base able to develop more such specialists, not take advantage of the local price conditions," says Hristov, who has been executive director of Atos Bulgaria Competence Center since the end of 2018.

Currently, the business is divided as follows: Atos Bulgaria Competence Center has about 550 employees who deal with end customers - mostly large industrial companies that want to digitalize. The other company, Atos IT Solutions and Services, has about 1,000 employees, according to Hristov, and 80% of them work for internal services and solutions used by Atos in Europe, the US and Asia.

Hristov says that although the companies are formally separate, there is no real separation of Atos' businesses in Bulgaria. "We have a pretty close relationship. Our colleagues provide services for the global Atos, but at the same time they also provide services for us. We collaborate quite well and work together," he says.

From Bulgaria to the world

Today, in Bulgaria Atos develops and delivers services to the whole world - starting from the obvious examples with Bulgaria and Europe, to the USA, South America, Taiwan, Singapore and others. Hristov says that projects for the local market account for 30% of the business of the Bulgarian unit. He gives the example of Profilink, a manufacturer of PVC windows, that last year transferred a huge part of its business processes to the cloud and implemented practices from the so-called Industry 4.0, where production is digitized and automated.

While there were no problems with gaining foreign projects in 2021, the case in 2022 is different. Atos has a sizeable team in Russia and numerous projects in Ukraine. This opens up two separate issues that hinder this year's plans.

The solution to the first problem was radical - Atos closed its office in Russia and ceased all business in the country, parting with a large team. When the departure was announced in April, the exact number of employees was not announced, but in his conversation with the Capital Weekly Hristo Hristov indicated that there were over 400 people there only in the team that deals with corporate applications.

The solution to the Ukrainian problem is pending, which is already paying off. "The war in Ukraine has affected some of the clients we work with there. We resumed providing our services there again recently, restoring them for the companies that had stopped working at the beginning of the war. Those are mainly from the food industry," says Hristov.

His expectations for Bulgarian businesses despite the war are optimistic. "In terms of results, we are on track to repeat and improve last year's results such as growth in turnover, profits. Maybe we will exceed a 12-13% growth rate. In terms of the number of employees, we want to grow by more than 10-15%, about 200 people a year in the coming years," he says. In 2022, Atos has already applied for an additional presence in Bulgaria by opening a cyber security center, which should number 300 people in a few years.

The problem for all IT companies - the lack of personnel, is primarily solved by taking people from universities or other places and subsequently training them. "The market is quite limited, but we have built a process through which we try to attract young people who have completed or are completing their education and train them," says Hristov. "We create our people, we create good conditions for them to stay with us, and that's how we solve this problem. We train all kinds of profiles that we need - such as implementation consultants, programmers, people who deal with data analysis and artificial intelligence. Usually such a program takes between three and six months, but the investment in both time and money is well worth it," he concludes.