Klemen Štular, CEO of Nil Group - Prospects in African market

Source: eKapija Tuesday, 23.03.2010. 15:54
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(Klemen Štular)

Although the global economic crisis affected almost all segments of the market, including information-communication technologies, Slovenian Nil Group, one of the leaders in that area, sees its business results in 2009 as one of the best in its history. The CEO of Nil Group, Klemen Štular, speaks in the interview for eKapija about the Group's new companies, appearance in South African market and the importance of Serbia.

- If we compare our method of work with others, in spite of the recession, last year was very positive for us. The main issues in 2009 were the crisis, decline in operations and sales, but, luckily, year 2008 was exceptionally good year for our company. Since we are quite conservative in business sense and that we mainly work with our own money, and not the money taken from banks, our financial situation in early 2009 was extremely good, so that we decided to invest money. That is why year 2009 will be remembered in Nil as the year in which we invested more than in any other year in 20-year-long history of the Group.

In addition to opening new companies in Serbia and South African Republic, you have also invested in launching new services?

- We are already working on implementation of so-called "cloud computing". Namely, we have launched Flip It service, which is intended for small and mid-sized enterprises. The company that contacts us gets all resources from us (both hardware and software) and all accompanying services (management of these resources, their maintenance and "back-uping"). We are now able to do all the job for you as our potential associate. You open a new office - you need normal working conditions for 5 employees, and we bring you all - telephones, computers, Internet access, and all you need to do is to sit and work. The company only needs to pay monthly fee for use, which means that no initial investments are required. Within the framework of that project, we have also opened a new company in Slovenia - Virtu.

One of the "jokers" for the following period is Hyper Center. In which way the launching of that service can help companies?

- The purpose of the service is to collect all resources that typical companies have in their data centers, of which level of use is mainly low, and to connect them. The basic aim is that the resources in data centers be consolidated and connected, and then that whole should be logically and virtually divided into smaller servers. In that way, companies will make savings by cutting their investments in equipment. Energy consumption is also reduced, the service is cheaper and more reliable, so that is represents a kind of "green technology".

Nil Group was founded in 1989 in Ljubljana. After that, the group opened companies in the USA, Austria and Croatia. Last year, in April, you opened company Nil Data Communications in Belgrade. How important is Serbian market to the Group?

- Very important. We who invest in Serbia see your market as the one that is expected to grow in the future. Maybe the growth did not happen in 2009, as we expected, but that is the situation when you know for sure that something is going to happen and then you only wait for that moment.

Serbia is bigger than Slovenia and it is close to that country, which makes our operations much easier than in South Africa where we started business at the same time.

Are you satisfied with your business results in African continent?

- That company was opened in April 2009 and almost the whole amount of investments was returned by the end of the year. What is characteristic is that the competition in African market is quite tough. Nigeria alone has about 120-150m citizens, which is an enormous number when compared to our population, and that represents a big opportunity for work in that market. Therefore, our Managing Director in Africa is of the opinion that the next company should be opened in Nigeria.

How is Nil Group positioned in Slovenian IT sector?

- Nil Group operates more in the communications sector. So far, we have not been present in the sector of servers and big computers, so that, if we compare ourselves with HP and IBM, which have must broader portfolio, then we are still very small. However, our market share in the communications sector amounts to 20-30%. The new services that we mentioned will be our means to increase our total share in IT industry.

What will be the focus of Nil's operations in the following period?

- Introduction of new technologies, expansion of our portfolio and influence in the area of communications in IT. Nil is going to be a more significant player not only in the field of communications, but also in the area of IT.

What is the next market that Nil Group plans to enter?

- We are currently negotiating on entering Turkey. Before we opened the company in South African Republic, we planned to simultaneously open companies in Dubai and Saudi Arabia, but the agreements were not realized. However, the idea of Dubai still exists...

J.Đ.

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