Sorin Cosmescu has reduced working hours on Fridays without decreasing productivity. He also considers that most of the time, great ideas belong to people in their 20s, so youngsters should receive all the support they need. He also believes that there should be an agreement between Romanian IT companies so that they can increase their market reach and boost their credibility on an international level. This is an exclusive interview with Sorin Cosmescu, EXE Software CEO.

EXE Software is a Romanian company with more than 15 years of experience, specializing in full cycle development and performing enterprise solutions. The company has a portfolio of more than 150 projects.

Sorin Cosmescu is one of three shareholders of the enterprise, along with Gabriel Cosmescu and Razvan Udrea.

Wall-Street.ro: What will be the main challenges for EXE Software in 2017-2018? How will these be different from previous years?

Sorin Cosmescu: Unlike previous years, we will focus on promoting our image, products and services intensively. We are working hard to build the company’s public profile, which should support our experience particularly on an international level: we build reliable web and mobile solutions, and we offer complete Business Intelligence services.

At the same time, we want to promote our products as well. For example, we have a field data collection mobile app that several companies in Romania already use, and we are planning to start external promotion.

Moreover, we plan to extend our team to support plans related to promoting and selling our products and services. Up to this point, team growth came in order to meet increased demand from clients, but this time we want to be prepared for new challenges even before they appear.

W-S.ro: Since you mentioned the team, how many employees does the company have? How do they work and what are the challenges in terms of human resources?

SC: At the moment, EXE represents a group of 75 people. The majority of our employees work in the support, development and business consultancy areas. The employment plan for the upcoming year sees vacancies in departments such as technical support, business analysis, marketing, sales, and, of course, software development. As far as the challenges are concerned, the biggest one consists of finding the right people, not only from a technical point of view but also in terms of compatibility with our values and atmosphere.

W-S.ro: What would you change about the Romanian market, right now, if you could?

SC: In my opinion, Romania already has the foundations to become a landmark in the programming area in terms of professional development, but there is still room for improvement. I would invest massively in education. I would give the necessary resources to high school students who want to gain IT knowledge. I would favor changing curriculum. In the university environment, I would extend the number of places in dedicated college departments, and I would encourage partnerships between universities and companies so that students can learn specific technologies directly from experts.

Most of the time, great ideas belong to people in their 20s, so they need all the support they can get!

Then, given the fact that in Romania, there is no company truly representing the IT industry, an idea is encouraging an agreement between enterprises, so that, together, we can become a greater force on an international level. At the moment, each company works on its own, so there is room for improvement. In spite of this, there is one interesting fact I have noticed: although most of my college classmates have left the country, unlike previously, those who work in IT now are not interested in relocating anymore. And I think this is because they find what they need here, which is a good thing.

W-S.ro: And, from your experience, with EXE Software?

SC: From my experience at EXE Software, I would recommend that universities focus more on teamwork methodologies in order to prepare students for their upcoming jobs. In our company, we had to organize soft skills training, because even though the programmers were highly prepared, there was room for improvement in terms of teamwork. Another thing I would invest in, financially, even, is supporting the ideas of IT students.

Read the original article here.