The Exadel office in Vilnius currently employs 17 specialists, mostly JAVA and JAVA Script programmers; by the end of the year that figure should be 20-25 employees. Further expansion is planned for 2015, with the company expecting to have a team of 50–60 by the end of next year. And the company’s rapid expansion in Lithuania is not restricted to Vilnius. 3 specialists have already started working in the firm’s new office in the sea-port city of Klaipėda, with an imminent increase planned that will bring that figure up to 15-20. Meanwhile, another new office will open in Kaunas, Lithuanian’s second city, where another 20-30 jobs are expected to be created.
According to Dmitrijus Beraščanskis, the Managing Director of Exadel Lithuania, this rapid expansion in Lithuania was facilitated not only by the wealth of local IT specialists available, but also by support from local public authorities. “As soon as we started our operations in Vilnius, we received a lot of very positive attention from public institutions, such as Invest Lithuania. It was a clear message to shareholders of the company that Lithuania is serious about attracting investment and that here we will find reliable partners.”
Exadel has two major lines of business. Technology innovation services, where advanced business solutions are developed for our customers based on leading edge technologies, and Appery.io, a cloud-based platform (mobile PaaS) for enterprise mobilization. Appery.io has established an industry-leading position by allowing rapid mobile app creation. It is widely used across the world and has more than 200,000 registered users.
The company, which employs 850 people in the US, Canada, Germany, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, now plans not only to increase its staff in Lithuania, but also to expand its functions. “The stronger the team we have in Lithuania” explains Mr Bereščanskis, “the more projects we will be able to implement from here.” He adds that the company’s future plans include a relocation of high added-value research activities to Lithuania, as well as closer cooperation with local educational institutions. “We are trying to establish relations with Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Kaunas University of Technology and Vilnius University. In other branches, for example, in Belarus, where Exadel has a team of 400 people, an area of special focus is the training of young specialists: the company organises practical training for groups of more than 100 students on a regular basis, and about a quarter of them are later offered jobs. I hope that a similar system will be put in place in Lithuania”.
Currently Exadel’s marketing and analytics teams are based in the USA, where the company sells 85% of its services, while project managers are located in larger branches. Some members of the Vilnius office regularly attend training programmes in the USA. “At any one time the company is working on about 100 different projects, therefore we offer our staff the opportunity to work part of the time within one project, and then within another. It follows then that where a project is implemented in cooperation with colleagues from the USA, our Lithuanian employees are sent to do practical traineeship sessions where they can also share experience”, says Mr Bereščanskis. Exadel’s list of clients includes marketplace giants such as Bank of America, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Google, Facebook, Hitachi, Samsung, eBay, BMW, Sears, HP, McKesson, and Red Hat.
According to Justinas Pagirys, Director of the Investment Development Department of the foreign investment development agency Invest Lithuania, Exadel’s expansion in Lithuania highlights the value global companies place on top quality local talent. “For companies like Exadel, their ability to do business, and to grow and develop, is directly dependent on their ability to find highly qualified specialists. Companies like these are looking to enter markets where they see talented, dynamic people and an environment conducive to business, both of which Lithuania offers. Exadel’s expansion is also significant in that they are one of the first investors from the IT sector setting up in Klaipėda. This decision will undoubtedly open up new opportunities for programmers residing in Klaipėda. Furthermore, it will draw the attention of other IT companies to the potential and talent the seaport city has to offer, especially as competition there is currently relatively moderate.“
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