OREANDA-NEWS. April 27, 2011. CROC’s total revenue increased by 32% to reach USD 832 million in 2010 (based on average exchange rate) while its number of employees averaged 1,783 over the year.

CROC retained its leading position in the Russian IT services market and its key systems integration segment (according to IDC) in 2010. CROC is listed as one of Russia’s Top 200 Private Companies by FORBES Magazine and as one of the 500 Largest Russian Companies by Finance Magazine. In addition, CROC was recognized as being the fourth largest consulting company in Russia by Expert Rating Agency (2011) and the nation’s fifth largest IT company according to both Expert Rating Agency (2010) and RIA Analytics 2011.

In 2010, CROC implemented more than 1,866 projects, including 680 sizable implementations for corporate customers such as financial and credit institutions, public organizations, transportation and logistics enterprises, retail chains, telecom companies, and energy and industry market players. In addition, there was an increase in the number of projects for geographically distributed retail chains, industrial enterprises, and telecommunications and transportation players. Overall, there was a trend towards more extensive projects, with some 59% of CROC’s revenue coming from federal projects and the remaining 41% coming from regional projects throughout Russia, primarily in the Central, Volga, Siberian, Urals, Far-Eastern, and Southern Federal Districts.

Boris Bobrovnikov, CROC Director General, says, “Today these are the business people who estimate the efficiency of large-scale implementations in IT. This is the primary trend of recent times. IT projects are evaluated in terms of the added value they provide in performing certain business tasks and how long it will take to receive a return on investment.”

The trend towards business efficiency is fueling demand for business applications, with financial management solution revenues surging by 74% in 2010, and BI and storage system revenues increasing by 42%. These solutions are traditionally employed by finance, telecom and retail businesses, and are also being adopted on a step-by-step basis by industrial enterprises—especially those involved in the production of fast-moving consumer goods. Indeed, Synergia now runs a new planning system, and Kimberly Clark’s sales analysis system unifies over 100 product directories and approximately 1,000 stock items. CROC’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) division recorded an impressive nearly eight-fold increase in 2010 and implemented GIS projects for the World Data Center of Russia’s Federal R&D Hydro-Meteorological Institute and another solution for one of Russia’s largest retailers.

Companies are also looking to increase efficiency by reducing business travel expenses and ensuring the availability of accurate and up-to-date information—a fact that is highlighted by a 78% rise in demand for video conferencing, audio-and-video solutions, and conference room deployments. Indeed, CROC’s audio and video business line recorded more than a three-fold increase in 2010. The design and deployment of an AV infrastructure comprising both hardware and software for the Situation Center of a large holding in Russia was CROC’s most noteworthy audio and video implementation in 2010. Furthermore, the Auchan retail chain and Shtokman Development AG now also run video conferencing systems developed by CROC.

As a result of customers' focus on improvement in sales efficiency and service quality, CROC’s Contact Center division recorded a two-fold increase in sales in 2010, with Workforce Management being one of the division’s most popular solutions.

A growing number of customers are focusing on centralizing control over their engineering infrastructure, with CROC’s Engineering Control (Dispatching) business doubling in size in 2010 and its Physical Security division recording growth of over 145%. The landmark project in this area was the creation of one of the largest data centers in Russia. The center has a floor space of 6,000 sq m; it provides 100% redundancy of all engineering subsystems within the Volga Branch of the Megafon telecom provider and was the first Russian site to be certified as a Tier III multilevel data center. Another notable engineering project in terms of its size was the implementation of a full-scale power-supply system within both 20 and 30 story buildings well as a four-story parking lot at the World Trade Center’s new site in Moscow.

In addition, there is also a trend towards IT as a service — a model which offers customers more efficiency and flexibility. Indeed, there was an impressive seven-fold increase in the data center outsourcing business line in 2010. Many customers opted for CROC’s outsourcing data center to host or collocate both their principal and backup IT services. Demand for cloud computing solutions is also increasing, with CROC creating a cloud-based IT infrastructure for a Multifunctional Center of the Kostroma Regional Government, as well as another service provider that offers inventory analysis services to its customers via CROC’s cloud.

The same trend is fueling interest in financial programs which CROC implements jointly with financial divisions of leading IT vendors in order to help customers differentiate themselves and introduce new products and services to the market while minimizing impact on turnover. For instance, a major Russian bank recently purchased hardware servers, storage systems, and workplace equipment through the vendor’s leasing organization.

As a result of increased focus on improved corporate business process transparency and management, the demand for BPM systems, software development, and electronic document management systems (EDMS) increased by 27% in 2010. Furthermore, document management integration with mobile devices and information portals became increasingly relevant. For example, CROC implemented a unique project in the Perm Territory based on the integration of EDMS with an information resource that collects complaints from citizens. As a result, all complaints are now automatically registered in the EDMS and forwarded to the responsible persons; the implementation was awarded the Best Shared Information Management Solution at the All-Russian contest in 2010. Enterprises are looking to cut costs and improve systems performance. For example, financial institutions like Raiffeisenbank are focusing on optimizing their data channels. This activity resulted in CROC’s Data Transfer Systems division recording growth of 35% in 2010. In addition, CROC also carried out a large-scale transaction performance management implementation within a major bank.

Furthermore, the trend towards optimization has helped to increase demand for desktop and server virtualization solutions, application delivery controllers, mobile device lifecycle management products, and open source-based solutions.

In 2010, CROC recorded a 53% increase in revenue from Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) for energy and industrial enterprises. The company designed a drilling platform eco-monitoring system for a major geological exploration company to monitor oil leaks, and also created a Thermal Energy Technological Information Collection Center in the Territorial Generating Company No. 6 (TGK-6).

The fact that the market returned to pre-crisis trends fueled pent-up demand for hardware in 2010, with data storage systems revenue increasing by 50% and the revenue share of computing systems business in CROC's total revenue reaching 32%. In addition, CROC implemented new generation Power7 servers in TRUST National Bank, one of the first such implementations in Russia, and created main and backup dealing centers in a number of major financial institutions.

Cooperation with vendors is traditionally highly important for CROC. Indeed, in 2010 the company formed partnerships with 18 new vendors, including Netapp, HiTec, 1C, Zabbix, Zscaler, and Verint Systems Inc. Key vendors still see CROC as their top-level partner and the company was recognized as IBM Platinum Business Partner in Russia in 2010 (awards: Best IBM Partner in Technical Support Services Promotion in Russia, Remarkable Success in IBM System Storage Promotion in Russia, and IBM Software Sales Leader), Cisco Enterprise Partner of the Year 2010 in Russia and CIS, and Cisco Systems Service Partner of the Year 2010. CROC has again been recognized as EMC Platinum Partner by Business Volume and CROC's Solution Center was voted as the Best EMC Solution Center in Central Europe for the second year in a row. Furthermore, CROC is an HP Gold Partner (awards: Largest HP Networking Project in the Enterprise Sector, Promotion of HP Blade Systems and Software Tools), and Microsoft Gold Partner in six categories under their new program. In addition, CROC confirmed its Platinum Business Partner authorizations with Oracle (11 specializations and the largest market coverage), Avaya, Polycom, and Symantec.