African market gains prominence in ParaRede’s strategy for 2008

Sapo opens laboratory at the University of Aveiro

ParaRede maintains the business focus for 2008 in the five areas defined for the three-year period ending in 2009, at the end of which the company expects to have reduced the weight of the sale of third-party products to 20 percent, giving space to services.

THE outsourcing it is one of the areas of great focus in this strategy, which this year the company wants to reinforce, especially in the banking and insurance sectors with BPO services. The same type of offer the national technology wants to take to Angola, where the prospects for this year point to a global growth of the business in the order of 3 digits. The entry into this market ended up being anticipated through the acquisition of Sol-S and Solsuni, which already operated in the region in terms of infrastructure integration.

Pedro Rebelo Pinto, CEO of the company assumes, however, that in terms of outsourcing, the prospects in Africa are already more favorable with regard to outsourcing of people, with some business already in view. BPO is an objective but not yet mature.

THE outsourcing people management is a business area that ParaRede manages through NetPeople, a company that this year came under the control of Multipessoal (51 percent) and that in 2007 doubled in size, to 200 people placed in customers.

Other areas of great commitment by the company for the year that is now starting are the development of integration skills in the areas of RBM / BPM and IT Management, which is part of the relaunch of ParaRede IT Consulting; also foresees the strengthening of the position in the areas of business intelligence, SOA, Microsoft and Java.

Also with regard to international markets, ParaRede maintains its intention to reach Eastern Europe through the POS business (which in 2007 increased 16 percent). The next equipment to be launched in this area should also be marketed in that European region in the middle of the year.

ParaRede closed 2007 with a 419 percent increase in profits, to 1.6 million euros. Turnover stood at 58.4 million euros, up 13 percent thanks mainly to performance in the areas of outsourcing, multivendor support and infrastructure integration.

For this year, the company forecasts a 10 percent growth in turnover and an EBITDA margin of 6 to 7 percent.

The message from the CEO of ParaRede and the company’s results can be seen on YouTube.

Related News:

2008-01-23 – ParaRede in the world’s top POS vendors200200-01-31 – ParaRede wants to turn over 100 million euros in 2009