Invitech Looking to Grow on Accelerating Digital Transformation
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a short-term spike in demand for additional bandwidth and security services, but in the long run it will likely have a much more meaningful impact on the adaptation of digital transformation, Gerald Grace, CEO of Invitech ICT Services Ltd., tells the Budapest Business Journal.
“We see digital transformation accelerating because of COVID. Our customers are integrating digital technology into more areas of their business. Their motivations include accelerating revenue growth, improved efficiency and security,” Grace says in an exclusive interview, conducted, appropriately enough for an ICT company, via a video conference call.
Invitech’s business is built around two pillars, an Infrastructure Business Unit, responsible for development and management of datacenter, fiber and radio communication assets and serving the so-called “carrier customers” (domestic and international service providers who use Invitech’s services to serve their own end users); and an Enterprise Services Business Unit, which serves corporate customers, adding technology and knowhow on top of owned infrastructure to deliver complex bundled ICT managed service solutions.
“We provide our customers the building blocks that enable their digital transformation; communications infrastructure, technology and skilled ICT staff. We are very positive about the future because we see many opportunities to help our customers in the coming months and years,” says Grace
He does not expect the number of clients to grow significantly (he says Invitech has relationships going back years with most), but he does think they will invest more. He points out that not all businesses have been as hard hit as tourism and hospitality; the automakers, for example, which initially closed down operations, have now largely bounced back. Many of the larger companies in Hungary are also well capitalized, the CEO argues, meaning they have the money to invest into their digital transformation.
“They are using this opportunity to move along faster, and that is where we see benefit from the lift they are going to give us in terms of the increased demand for managed telecommunication and ICT services,” Grace explains. Does that also point to a potential problem for Hungary, in seeing the digital divide between SMEs and larger players, already an area of concern, further widen?
“I think it potentially does, and the government is aware of this. They need to work, and I think they are, to make sure this gap does not widen. Large corporates in Hungary are frequently involved in export; they are competing against others who are further along the [digital transformation] journey than they are and obviously that is another reason why they are willing to move faster.”
The SMEs themselves are not a direct concern of Invitech, given its focus is on large and mid-size corporations. “Of our 5,500 customers, the largest 1,000 make up more than half of our business,” Grace, the company’s CFO before he took on the CEO’s role, explains. But there is an indirect impact: Hungary’s SMEs need to be able to serve the larger companies, and without the digital transformation of the former as well as the latter, they could lose competitiveness.