Hello, Zeljko. Is this your first time in Moldova?

Yes, this is my first visit to your lovely country and I am happy to finally arrive here. Moldova is Span’s 9^th international office, and we just started operating here so I'm sure I will get to know Moldova very well soon.

Span is present in countries like the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. You have over 1200 global clients all over the world. Isn't the Moldovan market too small for the next step of your expansion?

Span's story began more than 28 years ago in Croatia. Here you have a population of little less than 3 million people, whereas we have around 4 million. We are similar countries in terms of size and our development path over the past decades, although maybe not at same stage currently. According to our estimates, Moldova has great potential both as a market and a source of professionals. By opening an office in Moldova Span confirmed its strategic focus on Eastern European and Central Asian markets. Currently, there are over 550 experts working at Span and we hope that by the end of this year, their number will significantly increase due to the contribution of the Moldovan and other regional offices .

What are the main solutions and services that Span provides?

Our service portfolio is divided into five main pillars. First of all, I would like to mention such services as software asset management and licensing. The first step we take to get to know new clients is define customers' journey, so we evaluate what software and solutions customers are  already using and advise them how to optimize on  resources and investment. We provide the client with all of our experience to help manage, monitor and control the day-to-day use of software in their organization.

This is a necessary and important consultancy. Though, what is the core of Span's business?

Cloud services and cybersecurity, including, of course, cloud security itself. Today, cloud technology is the backbone of any business. And we transform the business goals of our clients from ideas into a viable plan for cloud adoption and create a strategy for the future development of the IT environment. Moving to the cloud is not the final goal, but only the beginning of a fundamentally different level of organization of your business. Working in the cloud allows one to organize the execution of any business scenario optimally.  With our end-to-end services and people expertise, your business will prosper in the cloud. Also, we create an ongoing cloud partnership, unlocking your company’s full potential for agility and innovation.

You have already listed three areas out of five.

The fourth one is business solutions development. We rely on a range of platforms provided by our strategic partner Microsoft, and our software products such as Eiryn, Span PDP, Span DNS C&A. Our experience allows us to choose and offer our clients the optimal solution strategy in terms of both performance and security, as well as cost. And the fifth area is our customer support services. Over 200 people in our customer support centers in Zagreb and Kyiv work to ensure provide wide range of proactive and reactive operations services to ensure customer’s business continuity and uptime of their services. Very often our customers are even not aware of different events and incidents since we proactively monitor and resolve the situation ensuring agreed SLA. Our wide range of managed services covers all infrastructure, security, cloud and user experience needs.

Which of these solutions will you provide to the Moldovan market? 

Our plan is to gradually introduce our entire portfolio to this market, depending on the reaction of market itself. We will start with the analysis and evaluation of the infrastructure and software solutions currently used by our potential customers. Our task is to earn the trust of customers, and that's why our strategy is based on the policy of small steps and earning trust. We never force the provision of services until the customer is prepared for them and until we guarantee in every new market the proper quality of service provision. We strive for what can be called Lifetime Management. So that when a customer starts working with us, they stay with us forever. This has always been the case in our 28+ year history of our company.

Are you focusing on certain business sectors? 

Our portfolio of solutions and services is rather horizontal than industry specific, not excluding that we have some very specific industry expertise in some cases. Today it is no longer possible to say that cloud solutions are the prerogative of international companies or tech companies. Year by year, they are becoming an integrated part of a wide variety of businesses and industries. Therefore Span solutions will suit a bank as well as a chain of cafes or petrol stations, taking into consideration limits of regulated industries where that is the case. We are ready to work with any client who seeks innovative solutions in the organization of their business.

Nevertheless, I know that you are already negotiating with your first clients in Moldova. With what sphere will Span start in our country?

I assume it will be two banking institutions, but I cannot disclose customers' names yet. The transfer of trust is an important part of our strategy and the trust of our first clients is fundamentally important for us because they are the ones who, one way or another, give the first feedback to the new market, and best marketing and recommendations we can get are through word of mouth. 

During our conversation today, you mentioned that Span is a Microsoft partner that is trusted around the world. Tell us more about the partnership between Span and Microsoft.  

You know, when Isaac Newton was asked what helped him make his great discoveries, he said that he could see so far because he stood on the shoulders of giants. From the very beginning of Span, we focused on becoming the leading expert in implementing Microsoft technology and then growing together by standing on “the shoulders of the giant”. Nowadays, we have become a “small IT giant” following our initially drafted strategy to be focused and invest in expertise and excellence of our employees. This decision was made back in the 1990s, and we have never regretted our choice of our strategy. We are not the "advocates" of Microsoft, we are the "advocates" of the client, Span is an employee and client-centric company, it is the client who is at the center of our interests. But when Microsoft solutions suit our clients, they can be sure of the highest level of our expertise. I will not list all the certifications, competences, specializations and awards that Span has obtained from Microsoft, I will just say that we are now prioritized partner on our markets thanks to our investment in expertise and continuous good cooperation with Microsoft as our strategic technology partner which results in Microsoft now recommending us, and this is the highest assessment of our achievements in terms of Microsoft expertise. At the end, I just want to emphasize, that although we are mostly known for our Microsoft expertise, we have technological partnerships with most leading global technology vendors such as HPE, SAP, Symantec, Fortinet, Cisco, Dynatrace etc., since when you are delivering turn-key solutions, most often you need to combine several solutions or technologies.

What will be the focus of Span during the first year of operation on the Moldovan market?

Besides customer related activities, we will definitely seek the opportunity to attract high quality IT specialists from Moldovan market. We will be investing a lot of effort to make sure that the level of expertise of our team in Moldova is the same as that of the leading Span specialists. As for the clients, we want to use all the advantages of being an Eastern European company that works with the most advanced technologies of the Western market and on the western markets. Our "background" significantly helps us to find common ground in Central and Eastern European countries, such as Croatia, Ukraine or Slovenia, and to bring the latest technological innovations to these markets. 

Thank you, Željko, for sharing Span’s plans for the Moldovan market with us. We wish you good luck!

Pavel Zingan