“This year’s first quarter was probably the fiercest test that the Romanian business environment has been confronted with. Most companies adopted a strategy of caution to overcome the challenges of the current period, and this has led to the postponement of some investments, especially on Romania’s medium-sized enterprise segment,” said Ioana Pana, Partner Manager of SAP Romania, the local subsidiary of the world’s largest business software producer. Eugen Schwab Chesaru, Managing Director for Central and Eastern Europe of the Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC) research and strategic consultancy for the software and IT service industry, said that in the first three months of 2009 the market registered the weakest evolution in the past 10 years in terms of both revenues and the number and value of newly signed contracts.
“Paradoxically, the biggest disappointment comes from the area where, logically, hope should have come: the public sector,” Chesaru added. Horatiu Berdila, Chief Executive Officer of Romsys, a major player on the IT service market, said that the decline registered on the bank client segment was below 10 percent, similar to the drop in the utility sector. Projects initiated in previous years were the main support pillar of the industry, generating activity especially in the maintenance service area. Zemi Apfelbaum, CEO of Wizrom Software, said that Enterprise Resource Planning and Customer Relationship Management solutions were most affected.
