Zeljko Tomic, director general of OSA Racunarski Inzenjering - New markets, new challenges

(Zeljko Tomic)

OSA Racunarski Inzenjering, one of the leading IT companies in Serbia, has recently significantly increased its presence in the Adriatic region. OSA has been a distributor of Autodesk products for the territories of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia for many years, and that world's leading manufacturer of CAD software entrusted the Belgrade-based company in April 2011 with the distribution of products in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, and Albania as well.

In order to be as close to partners in Croatia and Slovenia as possible, OSA has recently founded companies in Zagreb and Ljubljana.

In an interview for eKapija, Zeljko Tomic, director general of OSA Racunarski Inzenjering, speaks about challenges in new markets and plans for the future.

Zeljko Tomic assesses that there are more than 10,000 users of Autodesk software in the Adriatic region at the moment. Aside from OSE as the distributor, they are taken care of by 32 resellers, 10 development partners and 10 authorized training centers.

Comparing our country with other countries in the region, Tomic stresses that Serbia has the biggest potential for the growth of the number of users and the use of Autodesk software.

- Serbia ranks first in the number of companies, engineers and citizens, and it has the least saturated market.

eKapija: How did you become a distributor of Autodesk software for the whole Adriatic region?

- Autodesk used to have three distributors on that territory. OSA was covering Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia, Zagreb-based Recro was the distributor for Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, whereas Avtera from Ljubljana was distributing products on the territory of Slovenia. Early this year Autodesk decided to appoint another distributor for the whole Adriatic region (former Yugoslavia and Albania). When we won that job, Autodesk asked us to expand the team to support the entire operation and numerous retail channel partners. Also, we had to open affiliates in Croatia and Slovenia because of the seriousness and size of the new market.

eKapija: What are your first impressions in Croatia and Slovenia?

- We founded OSA Softver in Croatia and put it in operation on May 1st, whereas OSA Sistemi in Slovenia is in operation as of September 1st. It was relatively easy to set up these companies. The people who worked for the previous distributor in Croatia now work for us, and we have hired new staff in Slovenia.

eKapija: What challenges are ahead of you?

- For start, it is necessary that partners in new markets accept us so we could achieve the desired goals. That especially applies to Slovenia, which is part of the European Union. It is well known that the EU members can buy software from any distributor within the union. We must offer the highest possible quality of services to Slovenian partners to keep them. That is why we have expanded the team comprising managers from the areas of mechanical engineering, architecture and marketing, people engaged in intellectual property protection and fight against piracy, and we have also strengthened our logistics division. Since March 2011, we have employed 7 people for new projects, and OSA group now has 40 employees.

eKapija: How big revenue do you expect from the Autodesk software sales in 2012?

- We plan to register a revenue of EUR 5.7 million from the Autodesk software sales in 2012, which would represent a 16% growth when compared to 2011. We plan to generate that revenue from new licenses and subscriptions, subscription renewals, upgrades, etc.

eKapija: What is the current situation in Croatia, Slovenia, and Albania?

- Each of these countries is specific. The piracy rate in Albania is at 105%. We talked about the establishment of a retail channel and possible partnerships in that market. Our first task in that country is to work on the protection of intellectual property so we could be able to start selling products in few years. We have a good cooperation with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which, together with the U.S. Embassy, lobbies for the establishment of legal norms for the protection of copyrights in Albania. Slovenia is a small market where the need for Autodesk software is satisfied to a great extent. The piracy rate is very low, the lowest in the region. The product sales in new market segments and the improvement and maintenance of existing licenses are significant in that country. It should also be stressed that the price of Autodesk software is different in each country. Prices are the highest in Slovenia and the lowest in Serbia.

eKapija: Which concrete actions do you plan to take?

- Our advantage lies in the fact that Autodesk represents the standard for CAD software in all fields of engineering. The entire generations of engineers were trained to use that software so that it does not need to be specially promoted unless some new versions are released. We will launch a campaign in September, during which we are going to visit all major cities in the region and present the latest solutions.

eKapija: What innovations does Autodesk announce for the following period?

- Autodesk is the world's leading manufacturer of software for design and creation of digital contents in the fields of architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, public utilities, telecommunications, media and entertainment, and it launches new products every year. The number of users of Autodesk software is the best proof of their satisfaction. There are over 10 million users of that program around the world.

- OSA is a pioneer in the development of Document Management System (DMS) in Serbia. We are constantly working on the development of our document flow tracking and management software - UniDocs, as well as on the expansion of the retail channel in our country and surroundings. We have achieved certain good results in Kazakhstan, Romania, and Bulgaria. Unfortunately, our work on the retail channel expansion runs parallel to the global economic crisis, of which second wave is expected to hit us by the year's end. That is why we expect better results once the crisis is over. I hope we will succeed in offering our software to the demanding market of Western Europe.