Unicorn, the Czech Republic's biggest IT company, is targeting the UK as it expands into major IT outsourcing markets in Europe and the USA.
The Czechs will be represented exclusively in the UK by a new company, GXM Ltd. Headed by Managing Director Trevor Loker; GXM has opened London offices at No.1 Poultry in the City to offer Unicorn's extensive experience with financial sector organisations such as Societe General, ABN AMRO Bank and others including Tesco, Coca Cola and Orange.
"Unicorn has never delivered a project late and has always completed within budget. We believe that's going to be very appealing to a UK market which has been dogged by delays and overruns to major IT projects," says Loker. "We put a lot of hard work into planning and job specification in the early stages and that really pays off in the long-term because we can deliver a very high level of confidence and certainty to our customers.
"We've developed a management and pricing structure specifically for the UK market which will make us highly competitive given the quality of work we are able to deliver. The technical ability of our operatives is superb, they are recruited from the top 5% of Czech IT graduates, and the company has a very strong commitment to ongoing training and development. They are all excellent English speakers and we believe they have a stronger cultural fit with the UK than organisations from outside Europe."
Prague-based Unicorn believes that its track record of always delivering on time and within budget will be a winning combination in a UK market grappling with IT staff shortages, high costs and the underperformance of many existing outsourcing contracts.
Says CEO and founder Vladimir Kovar – "We believe the UK market has not yet realised the full benefits of IT outsourcing and is that because most contracts fail to strike the right balance between quality and cost. The quality of our analysis, processes and delivery is very high and we have demonstrated it through our success with many leading European companies over the past 15 years."
In the UK GXM will draw on the extensive IT Graduate recruitment and training programme operated by Unicorn in the Czech Republic. Since its inception in 1990 Unicorn has invested heavily in the technical and personal development of its staff and been rewarded with high levels of retained skills and staff retention.
"We operate a sophisticated training academy in Prague that turns out highly skilled IT operatives who are fluent in English, highly skilled and low cost compared to their British counterparts," says Kovar.