The Top 10 IT vendors serving the government sector in Central and Eastern Europe's Visegrad Group (V4), consisting of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, account for over half of total government IT spending in the region. According to a study by IT market research company IDC released in December, the top vendors in the government sector were: Asseco, Atos, BIW Koncept, HP, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Telefonica O2 Business Solutions and T-Systems.“With more than $2.2 billion in government spending in play in 2011 and $2.35 billion forecast for 2012, the stakes are high in the V4 government sector," says Mark Yates, research analyst for IDC Government Insights. "While winning contracts through tenders depends on making a compelling case, it also depends heavily on reputation and branding, and vendors that stay top-of-mind through concerted promotions and outreach have a significant edge."The three leading vendors – Asseco, HP and IBM – accounted for more than half of the revenue from the top 10 and more than a quarter of total IT spending in the government sector. According to IDC examination - Asseco proved formidable competitor to global players, particularly in our home country market.IDC expects competition for contracts to intensify as budgets get cut, the eurozone crisis continues, and recession threatens the Western half of the continent. IDC also believes an independent, high-level assessment of the key players is essential to vendors looking to maintain (or even expand) market share in the government sector. Top IT Vendors in the Government Sector in Central Europe alerts IT vendors to the competitive environment in the government sector in the four core Central European markets of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. It ranks the top 10 IT vendors serving the government sector by revenue, examines their positions (strengths, weaknesses, etc.), and offers insight into how to further develop the sector.About IDC
International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. IDC helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based decisions on technology purchases and business strategy. More than 1,000 IDC analysts provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For more than 47 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help our clients achieve their key business objectives. IDC is a subsidiary of IDG, the world's leading technology media, research, and events company. You can learn more about IDC by visiting www.idc.com.

AUMS-CRM is a software solution dedicated to the power industry, delivering all the key functionalities required to properly handle the processes of selling and billing electricity to consumers. It was developed by integrating the Asseco Utilities Management Solutions with Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The solution features a modern billing system and an array of functionality to support professional and comprehensive customer service. Owing to its flexibility and open architecture, AUMS-CRM allows for easy integration with other systems as well as for adding new functions without disruption to ongoing business processes.
“Our cooperation was necessary in order to create a comprehensive offering for power companies because no single supplier possessed a technology that would satisfy all the essential needs and requirements of the industry. Therefore, Microsoft embarked on a partnership with Asseco, which has a well-established leading position in the market of IT solutions for the utilities sector. The rationale behind such cooperation seems pretty clear given that almost 60 percent of all electricity bills in Poland are generated from the proprietary billing systems implemented by Asseco. Owing to the above and a truly open approach, Asseco and Microsoft decided to integrate their IT solutions in order to provide the suppliers of electricity with an integral technology tailored to their needs,” said Jarosław Szymaniuk, Director of Sales to Industry & Utilities Sectors at the Polish division of Microsoft.Customer service has become more important than ever in the power industry. Liberalization of the energy supply market allows the customers to change their electricity providers thereby creating an arena for competitive activities. Hence the success of power firms is increasingly conditioned by their innovative approach to the sale of electricity in a competitive environment. Their effectiveness depends, to a large extent, on the ability to offer and promote new products and services, attract new customers, as well as to build customer loyalty. Furthermore, electricity sellers will have to face the problem of deregulated prices for retail customers. Operating in a competitive free market, just as other industrial companies, they will be subject to evaluation by consumers, who demonstrate increasing awareness in choosing their suppliers.

Such competitive environment requires electricity providers to implement new processes in their organizations, which may be facilitated by innovative information technology solutions. The integrated AUMS-CRM solution supports the customer service and billing processes, while adapting both to the seller's individual product policies and non-standard settlement methods, in particular in the domains of:
- Sales and Customer Retention;
- Billing and Receivables;
- Customer Service;
- Offering Management.
The CRM and AUMS systems have been integrated at the file level of customers, contracts, products, implementation of processes and workflows, taking account of the steps and actions in both the systems, providing complete information on the actual status of operations performed.“Asseco has got vast experience in building and deploying customer service systems for the utilities sector. Aiming to leverage on our know-how, we quickly decided to responded to this new market demand and support the power suppliers by offering them a dedicated solution that combines comprehensive end-customer services with our state-of-the-art billing software,” said Tomasz Bendlewski, Director of Power and Gas Industry Division at Asseco Poland. “We needed to select an optimal CRM solution. Having analyzed the market alternatives, being convinced by positive customer references and a high assessment by Gartner analytical company, and taking into account the ease of integration, we chose Microsoft technology. While developing the AUMS-CRM solution we benefited from synergies between Microsoft’s fully configurable Dynamics CRM system and Asseco’s proprietary billing system, which is rooted in the realities of the Polish law, industry regulations as well as in the local business context. In our opinion, the integration of both the solutions gives AUMS-CRM a major competitive advantage over other systems of this class available in the market,” he added.Given the role played and challenges to be faced by a seller on the power supply market, it is absolutely critical to gather and manage information on customers. In order to provide a comprehensive customer service, one needs to have full knowledge of the client, which cannot be dispersed. So far the main source of customer information were billing systems that, apart from handling the client settlements and financial operations, were also used to support the customer service processes. In the new business conditions, effective acquisition and retention of customers has become the foremost challenge for the energy sector. Therefore, neither CRM nor billing systems should be operated in isolation from each other. Owing to their integration within the AUMS-CRM solution, an employee obtains a complete image of the client being served.The solution supplied by Asseco Poland brings together the functions of a system for handling and analysis of events involved in customer relationships (CRM) and a domain management system (AUMS). Being furnished with a multitude of interfaces, the solution is able to exchange information with other domain systems and the entire IT environment, and thus can be seamlessly integrated into the corporate architecture of any modern power supply company.

On Friday, 20 January, OTAGO IT Services Ltd., a subsidiary of the Asseco Group, concluded a contract with the Municipal Office of Gdańsk for construction of the Gdańsk Education Platform.For the first time in Poland, information technology employed for education purposes covers such a wide range of functionality and is implemented on such a large scale. The Gdańsk Education Platform will facilitate communication among offices, schools, teachers, pupils and their parents, as well as it will support the management and operations of educational establishments in all teaching, administrative, and financial areas. The project worth nearly PLN 16 million will be carried out by a consortium of three companies which have been selected in a tendering procedure. Completion of the project has been scheduled for the end of January 2013.Acting as a member of the consortium, OTAGO will be responsible, among others, for the delivery and implementation of an integrated IT system to support budgeting and financial management at educational institutions. The company is going to deploy its proprietary OTAGO solution based on a central database. The system will be used by both the administrating body and employees of all 191 educational establishments. The OTAGO's planning and budgetary analysis system will provide a set of innovative electronic tools to facilitate organizational and financial planning, as well as to enable gathering and analysis of the organizational and financial data. Furthermore, the system will be used to maintain the accounts and draw up budgets for all the educational institutions managed by the city.The Municipal Office of Gdańsk has been a client of OTAGO for many years. The OTAGO system has been developed and operated at the Municipal Office since the 1990s and nowadays it supports almost all spheres of its activities. By implementing the system into further areas of city management, the Municipal Office aims towards the construction of a central municipal system, which will cover subsequent processes in the future and lay a necessary foundation for development of the envisaged common services centre.OTAGO is a company responsible for coordination of the Asseco Group sales within the local government market. The company operates with a purpose to provide possibly the broadest and most comprehensive offer to that segment of the market. Last year OTAGO decided to expand its portfolio with education management software, which would be complementary to its integrated municipal management system. Hence, the company concluded an agreement to purchase an organized part of the enterprise of Cracow-based Silvermedia, embodying a number of state-of-the-art solutions designed to support management processes in education. In addition, OTAGO took over a team of highly qualified employees, including software designers, developers and implementation engineers, who were the power base for the acquired solutions.As noted by Jarosław Jastrzębski, OTAGO's CEO, it is just owing to the takeover of a portion Silvermedia's business and incorporation of their education management tools into the company's flagship system that OTAGO was able to successfully participate in the tender for the Gdańsk Education Platform, and now can think positively about a return on this investment.

Payments for parking, traveling by public transportation, entrance to museums and fees at offices – all of these and much more will be available for settlement with the Silesian Public Services Card (SPSC). Poland's largest project to launch a city payment card has been initiated. The project implementation has been assigned to the consortium of BRE Bank and Asseco Poland.The Municipal Transport Union of the Upper Silesian Industrial Region, responsible for public transportation services in Silesia, has signed a contract with the consortium of BRE Bank and Asseco Poland, the winners of a tender worth nearly PLN 190 million. The introduction of the Silesian Public Services Card shall take 16 months, during which the first 400 thousand cards will be issued out of the total 700 thousand cards in target.BRE Bank, acting within the consortium, will be responsible for the production and personalization of cards, preparation of the SPSC settlement system, clearing of settlements among the parties involved in the system, and handling of payments made in public places where the cards will be used.This is a very important project for us and the first one carried out on such a large scale in Poland. It will be implemented over a wide area and in a very short time. It also requires the cooperation of many entities -says Przemysław Gdański, Member of the Management Board of BRE Bank responsible for corporate banking. The introduction of SPSC will make life easier for the inhabitants of Silesia. We believe they are going to appreciate the project benefits quickly - he adds.Asseco Poland will implement a modern fee collection system in all vehicles managed by the Municipal Transport Union, and is going to install 109 multifunctional ticket vending machines, 232 parking fee machines, and create a network of 1200 points designed to accept and recharge the cards. The entire SPSC settlement system will be managed by state-of-the-art software installed on huge computing power servers located in two data processing centers. Asseco Poland will also create a web portal available for the system users.Asseco decided to participate in the Silesian Public Services Card project and this was a good decision. We have an opportunity to implement a solution that is very innovative and unique in Europe. We strongly believe that our success in Silesia will allow us to implement similar projects also for other cities in Poland. Together with BRE Bank, we have adequate working capacity and knowledge to bring a higher level of technology into the municipal services provided in Poland. Silesia has been preparing for this project for several years, and our consortium will do everything required to introduce a new quality of life for the region's inhabitants as soon as possible - says Wojciech Woźniak, Vice President of Asseco Poland.

The SPSC system is the largest project of this kind in Poland. It will enable the urban agglomeration residents to make payments with the card when using public transportation or parking lots, as well as when visiting museums or municipal offices. The card payments will be accepted in the total of 120 public utility centers situated in 21 municipalities across the province. In addition to the electronic purse (e-money instrument), the card will be also utilized as the holder's ID and electronic signature carrier.Introduction of the card is a great convenience for the residents of Silesia. It will allow an easy way to benefit from municipal services, and carry an electronic ticket. By analysing various information, including the amount of payments collected in individual vehicles, we will be able to effectively adapt our transportation services to the actual needs of passengers - says Roman Urbańczyk, Chairman of the Management Board of the Municipal Transport Union.The total cost of the Card project implementation and maintenance till 2018 is estimated at PLN 190 million. Whereas, a substantial part of the project financing will be provided by the European Regional Development Fund.The Silesian Public Services Card is yet another innovative solution implemented by the corporate banking division of BRE Bank. Recently, the Cracow City Card project has been launched also in collaboration with BRE Bank. Previously, the bank has successfully marketed the Sports Fan Cards in Kielce and Szczecin, and Open’er Festival Cards, just to mention a few. In October 2011, BRE Bank issued its pre-paid card number 100 thousand. This service has been already used by more than 400 companies.

Asseco Poland S.A. continues to cooperate with the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARiMR) by providing the maintenance and development of the Agency's Information System (AIS). The Company and HP Poland have concluded a subcontractor agreement worth PLN 33.9 million net.
The contract covers the Agency's Information System that includes the Integrated Administration and Control System, known as IACS, for handling of EU subsidies to farmers. It is one of the most complex systems within the Polish administration, being operated by nearly 6.5 thousand users who generate 12 million documents a year. The system has been developed by Asseco Poland S.A. during over a dozen years of collaboration with ARiMR. An important part of the IACS system is the application for identification and registration of livestock (IRZ) which is critical for the process of veterinary checks on animals.
Under this contract Asseco Poland S.A. will be also maintaining multiple other applications built for the Agency. These shall include, among others, the system for management of subsidies granted under the Rural Development Programme, as well as the platform that enables sharing of data collected by ARiMR with other institutions and allows farmers to submit their subsidy applications over the Internet.
"The systems developed by Asseco Poland S.A. make it possible for ARiMR to fulfil its obligations of a payment agency, which are strictly controlled while any negligence could even result in the withdrawal of EU aid. Therefore, ensuring a properly operating information system is of fundamental importance to this institution. By assigning this task to a company with an appropriate team of professionals, ARMA is able to focus on its business priorities," says Witold Malina, Managing Director of the Agriculture Division at Asseco Poland S.A.
The contract shall be carried out by a team of 120 specialists of Asseco Poland S.A. till the end of 2012.

Asseco Poland S.A. signed an agreement with the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMWM) to develop and implement the IT System for Quality Control of Hydrological and Meteorological Measurements and Hydrological Forecasts, expand the Customer Service System, as well as to create and implement the Central Historical Database. The contract value exceeds the amount of PLN 25 million (gross).Implementation of the system will enable centralization of all the key data generated by individual function systems used at IMWM, also providing for the unification of access and better storage security of such data. The system also aims to improve the quality of hydrological forecasts prepared and to streamline the distribution of products developed for IMWM's customers. The system will be built on a centralized architecture, matching the latest standards of service-oriented architecture (SOA) and using the enterprise service bus (ESB).Under this project Asseco Poland will furthermore supply the necessary hardware infrastructure, install third-party software, conduct a pre-deployment analysis, implement five modules of the system, and provide appropriate user training."We feel honoured that IMWM, acting in accordance with the World Bank procedures, has chosen our company to implement such a mission-critical system. Floods, which occur more and more frequently in our country, have emphasized the need for using an efficient and reliable system capable of processing the data on actual water levels and rainfall forecasts. Implementation of the new system will significantly enhance the quality of hydrological forecasting, and improve the distribution of information to adequate state services, local authorities, other public organizations as well as to the public. This is our first large size project for IMWM and we hope it will bring a lot of satisfaction to our client, thereby triggering further long-term cooperation within the supply and maintenance of customer-tailored systems," says Witold Malina, Managing Director of the Agriculture Division at Asseco Poland S.A.The planned project duration is one and a half years (the contract also provides for a three-year warranty period).