SLOVAK-on Valley: Opportunities in IT

IT in Slovakia is worth about $600 million a year, with annual growth rates estimated at 10%. The Australian Government believes that the greatest local market opportunities are in innovative small enterprise solutions and CRM products, e-banking and e-commerce products, e-government applications, e-health, though even greater opportunities exist in establishing local software development organizations. Slovakia’s solid engineering education system produced outstanding individuals in IT fields.

One of the local stars, already a global star, is ESET, the fastest growing and largest earner in Slovakia’s IT industry and by far the largest sale generator per employee. ESET consistently ranks among the fastest growing companies in Central & Eastern Europe, and it seems it is ready to keep its solid growth for the foreseeable future. In 2004 the company grew by 934%, in 2005, 1100%, in 2006, 1721% and in 2007, 1354%.

AV-Comparatives considers ESET’s NOD32 to be the best Anti- virus application in the global market in 2006 and 2007. The talent must be there and as Mr. Miroslav Trnka, General Manager of ESET mentioned, it is not difficult to find IT people but it is challenging to find the top talents in specific fields because there are only a few people in the world with such in-depth understanding of the issues. Clearly, ESET has been successful in utilizing their local talents.

SAP, HP, Dell, Lenovo, Microsoft, Oracle, Siemens, and IBM have already identified the opportunities and established their solid presence in Slovakia. Enormous opportunities exist not only for the large software or IT houses but also for the small entrepreneurs and startups developing new applications for businesses and individuals. VRM (Virtual Reality Media) in Trencin, Slovakia produces simulation technology - Flight Simulators, Vehicles Simulators, Air Defense simulators, and other systems that provide amazing and very realistic experiences. Thus they serve as an excellent training system for defense and civil transportation entities. As these examples demonstrate, Slovakia offers great people, outstanding talents, and is a hotbed for IT businesses. For those reasons great opportunities exists for both large and small companies. Those with strong people skills can benefit largely from moving development and IT related services to Slovakia