We registered a 40% growth compared to 2010. Around 94% of the business came from the Western market, but there was a significant growth in the local market where iQuest has added 11 new clients, out of the 22 new clients added to our portfolio.

“Our turnover has grown by over 40% in 2011, well beyond what we expected at the beginning of last year. Furthermore, we have maintained a strategy focused on quality, something that is reflected in our client retention rate of around 90%. We have used this time to improve our know-how about our clients’ businesses in areas such as telecom, life science, financial services or mobile”, Cornelius Brody, iQuest CEO.

External clients in the telecom and life sciences industries make up the largest part of our business. Some of our international clients are companies such as Roche, Vodafone, Puma, Financial Times or Virgin Atlantic. One of the solutions we have delivered last year locally is “speak to me”, a text-to-speech application, aimed especially towards the public sector

“We are working with 15-20 large clients and we are growing together with them. When you are working with large international companies and you have a retention rate of almost 100%, you do not need large sales efforts, but you need to maintain an organisational culture which generates responsibility for success”, added Mr. Brody.

On a market level, internally as well as externally, more and more clients start to examine the concept of offshoring, taking the “total cost of ownership” (TCO) estimations into considerations, not just the daily or monthly costs.

“This TCO includes the entire communication effort, organisational aspects, requirement changes, repairs, costs which are not transparent at the time the offer is made and which can only be measured during a longer period of collaboration with a partner. Thus, we notice a large number of clients who are looking for long term partners, especially for complex projects who are also close from a cultural point of view.”

20% Growth and Over 100 New Employees in 2012

We are estimating a growth of 20% this year. This is a moderate assessment and the company could very well surpass these expectations.

“We had initially estimated a growth of around 20-25% for 2011 and we have finished the year with a business over 40% larger, and with a general advantage in all strategic segments. We always prefer to be cautious regarding predictions and then surpass them. Following the same principles, I expect a growth of 20% this year using the same market approach.”

The company will continue to invest in personnel training. Over 100 new employees will be hired nationally, in all the development centres in Romania, mostly in Cluj-Napoca but also the centres in Braşov and Sibiu. Currently our team has more than 400 employees.

“Ever since iQuest was founded the number of employees has constantly risen, with an annual rate of around 20% or 30%. The company is constantly searching for talent. This tendency will continue in 2012. We will concentrate on expanding our team in Sibiu, where we have begun in 2011 with 10 members, all of them part of the .Net department. We have also started to look for new employees in other departments.

We will continue to support extraordinary initiatives as part of our social responsibility programme. We will continue to collaborate with Habitat for Humanity and the Shoebox project. Also, this year, we have established a new partnership with ARCA.

We believe in and support passion and initiative. Both values are part of iQuest’s culture and the way in which we do things. We have tried to convey this way of thinking and acting in society since the beginning and the actions and projects we have supported until now have reflected this mindset. We are honoured to support the ARCA initiative within the Google Lunar X Prize competition. The innovation of the ARCA project represented by the IAR-111 supersonic aircraft is a reason for Romanians to be proud and proof that we can reach a high level of performance if we are passionate about our craft.