The size of the Russian IT market has surpassed pre-crisis figures, but its growth, once the fastest in the domestic economy, has slowed. Having lost momentum and undergone therapeutic starvation, the Russian IT business has become more mature and intelligent. "Money" represents the tenth rating of Russian IT companies - based on the results of 2012.

IGOR PICHUGIN

Crisis route

After the crisis, the Russian IT market recovered faster than the research company IDC Russia predicted. The market volume slightly exceeded the pre-crisis level already in 2011. And in 2012 it grew even more - according to preliminary estimates from IDC, by 3.9% (in dollar terms).

In pre-crisis times, the IT market knew different figures - it grew much faster than Russian GDP, but now the figures are comparable. However, some market players call the IDC estimate too conservative. “Our assessment of market growth is more optimistic: two to three times higher than that of IDC,” says Georgy Gens, president of the LANIT group.

And yet, all market players are talking about the weak growth of the Russian IT market in 2012. As industry analysts have noted, its dynamics correlate well with world oil prices: after prices stopped in 2011, the growth of the IT market began to slowly fade. And in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria last year, the IT market generally decreased by 5% to 10.5%. It all depends on which coordinate system to attach to. As Krok CEO Boris Bobrovnikov says, the IT market occupies such a small share of Russian GDP that it will grow even with the emerging stagnation.

Speaking about the consequences of forced starvation for the market, heads of large Russian IT companies note that the market has become more mature. One of the signs of maturity is the consolidation of IT companies. Thus, the young company Maykor took full advantage of the current market situation, which in 2012 actively bought up smaller companies operating in the IT outsourcing market. Maykor acquired seven companies, increasing its revenue in 2012 by 87.5%. The newcomer to our rating also agreed to acquire the large outsourcing company Rosservice. This deal will undoubtedly help in the development of the outsourcing holding, which has gained great momentum.

Some large IT companies, on the contrary, refused to participate in the rating, although they were its regular participants. The R-Style holding referred to the ongoing restructuring. Optima refused without explanation. The Merlion holding, which invariably led the ratings by a wide margin, refused due to the transition to another weight category. Although last year Merlion acquired another batch of IT companies (T-Parts, Aksima, Digital Machines, DNA), management no longer wants to position it as an IT company (in particular, Merlion sells a lot of household appliances equipment and mobile gadgets). Therefore, as of this year, Merlion no longer participates in IT ratings - only in the ratings of the largest Russian companies.

It is interesting to compare the revenue generated by the company with the indicators not only of the previous year, but also of the pre-crisis period. Were companies able to escape from the crisis hole and confidently move forward or did they stall in this funnel?

Along this path, two distinct trajectories can be seen. Companies such as EPAM Systems, CFT, FORS, and the small Neolant managed to increase revenue four to five times compared to 2007 (see Table 1). NVision Group, which last year included Sitronics Information Technologies and Sitronics Telecommunications Solutions, performed especially strongly. Due to this merger, as well as due to organic growth, the company's revenue has almost tripled over the past year, and eight times compared to 2007. The opposite sign (stagnation) trajectory is demonstrated by the Compulink group, RDTeh, INEC, which now generate less revenue than in 2007.

Innovation as a trend

The structure of the Russian IT market continues to transform in favor of intellectual business. The fastest growing market segments in 2012 were the development and implementation of various classes of applications and infrastructure software, IT services, in particular outsourcing.

The structure of the IT market will be determined by technological trends that have emerged in the last two to three years: virtualization, mobile technologies, social networks, big data analytics. Sergei Matsotsky from IBS believes that these innovative technologies will change the IT market dramatically. And since in Russia, in his opinion, the predicted changes will occur, as usual, slowly, IBS is focusing on Western markets. However, in some market segments, previous business models are no longer working in Russia. Igor Borovikov from the Softline Trade company, which specializes in software resale, notes a change in the approach to software licensing. The current system of relations between manufacturers, partners and clients is dramatically influenced by the “cloud” trend.

IDC Russia analysts predict the strongest growth (20-25% or more) in the sectors of mobile devices and applications for them, business intelligence software, security software, and cloud services. Moderate growth (10-15%) will be observed in most segments of the software market, in the market for network storage products and in some segments of the IT services market. In particular, we can expect that the outsourcing segment will increase by at least 16% in 2013. Weak growth or no growth at all awaits the market for the supply of PCs, servers and printing devices.

Thus, the business of supplying computer equipment, which is popular in Russia, is increasingly receding into the background, giving way to the forefront of smart IT business, which is profitable to deal with for corporate and private clients. Forced moderation became a habit among them, and this benefited the entire market. Anton Sushkevich from NVision Group says: “Previously, there was enough available funds, and many companies willingly invested them in fashionable IT solutions, considering it a matter of prestige. Now the principle “count seven times, implement once” operates on the market. “He thinks only about the impact, about the maximum efficiency of the projects being implemented. And that’s right: such caution is the best prevention against a new crisis.”

How the rating was compiled

Companies are ranked by a dimensionless index that characterizes the scale of their business. 90% of it is determined by the revenue that companies received in 2012. But not only. The total number of employees, client diversification of the business (the value corresponding to the number of clients per productive specialist) and the presence of a branch network also contribute to the index. The index is calculated using the formula:

Index(i) = 0.9 x Ai/Amax + 0.05 x Bi/Bmax + 0.025 x (Ci/Bi')/(C/B')max + 0.025 x Di/Dmax,

where Ai is the company’s revenue for the reporting period; Bi is the total staff, Bi' is the number of productive specialists; Ci is the number of contracts for the reporting period; Di is the number of branches and subsidiaries. All values are normalized to the maximum value for the group.

The rating is compiled in three categories in accordance with the income structure of IT companies. When comparing software developers, we took into account income not only from the sale of licenses (boxes), but also from IT services related to the implementation and support of their products. When comparing system integrators, their income from project supplies of equipment and software was taken into account. In the distributor category, only the first three terms of the formula were used when calculating the index.

A characteristic of business efficiency is the value corresponding to revenue per productive specialist (specific revenue). It was determined both relative to the maximum and relative to the average value based on the database of rating participants. Using business performance indicators, you can build charts where the vertical axis shows the values of the index characterizing the scale of the company’s business, and the horizontal axis shows its efficiency relative to the category average. Such diagrams clearly show how efficiently the companies participating in the rating operate.

The result of the hungry calculation