The Pearls of the Polish Economy ranking is prepared by the scientists from the Decision Analysis and Support Systems section of the Warsaw School of Economics. The condition for receiving the title of the Great Pearl was to achieve revenues exceeding PLN 1 billion. It was already the fifteenth edition of the Pearls of the Polish Economy Ranking.

In the first 9 months of 2017, the financial results of the Asseco Group were significantly affected by the sale of a stake in Formula Systems. On the one hand, the impact of this transaction resulted in an additional profit, which is reflected by a very good result on the level of net profit for shareholders, amounting to PLN 402 million in total. That marks an increase by as much as 79% on annual basis. On the other hand, due to the lack of the consolidation of Formula Systems in August and September this year, the results on the level of revenues and operating profit are accordingly lower, said Rafał Kozłowski, Vice President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland. If we had consolidated Formula Systems in this period as up until recently, sales would have been higher by almost PLN 900 million. After taking this amount into account, the Group's revenues would have amounted to PLN 6.28 billion after the first 9 months of this year. In this context, it is worth noting that at the beginning of October, as a result of signing an agreement with the second largest shareholder of Formula Systems, control over the company was regained and Asseco Poland will consolidate the results of this holding in the following quarters, he added.

Currently, foreign markets constitute a significant part of the Asseco Group's revenues - in the first three quarters of 2017, 80% of the Group's sales revenues were generated outside Poland. Growth of revenues was recorded in Central Europe (+11%), Western Europe (+8%) and South-Eastern Europe (+5%).The Group's revenues are very well diversified not only geographically but also by sectors: the general business sector accounted for 40% of sales, the financial sector for 39% and the public administration sector for 21%. The Asseco Group's business and development strategy is still based on the sale of proprietary IT solutions, which amounted to over PLN 4.3 billion in the past reporting period. This accounts for over 80% of total revenues.Asseco continues its cooperation with key customers and actively works for signing new projects. In November 2017, the order backlog amounted to over PLN 7.6 billion and was higher by 1% versus the corresponding period in the previous year.

Asseco Innovation Hub will be the venue for advanced research and development. Their goal will be to develop proprietary IT technologies and products for the energy, telecommunication, media, health care, banking, agriculture, business and public administration sectors, among others. In addition, the center will develop IT security projects.The research will focus on the most important trends in new technologies such as the Internet of Things, telemedicine, electromobility and smart power grids. Asseco Innovation Hub will also offer artificial intelligence solutions, including self-training systems based on the so-called machine learning. Thanks to advanced analysis of data collected in real time from various sources, the system will identify what users do and how to protect them from danger. Asseco is also planning to develop projects related to drone control systems. A team of the best specialists in the country, with extensive experience in software development, will be involved in their construction. In addition, Asseco Innovation Hub will continue to develop solutions for Big Data and CloudComputing.

Asseco Innovation Hub will be a modern R&D centre, which will enable us, a Polish company, to compete even more effectively in foreign markets. Thanks to the investment, approx. 400 new jobs will be created, and its implementation will translate into an increase in innovativeness of the whole region, said Adam Góral, President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland.

The solutions that will be researched at the Asseco Group's new centre in Rzeszów confirm that Poland is actively participating in the fourth industrial revolution. In turn, the ecosystem created by our government for the development of innovation, which includes, among other things, financial support instruments and solutions facilitating cooperation between science and business, allows for synergy between the scientific and technical background. This is extremely important from the point of view of the whole economy, said Deputy Minister of Development Adam Hamryszczak.

Podkarpacie is a region open to development. Here, we invest in modern technologies which determine the success and future of the Polish economy. We especially value companies that create research and prototype centers as well as laboratories. Such measures may result in creating permanent jobs, and this is very important for our economy. Asseco Poland has been constantly improving the quality of its services and investing in their development. Last year alone, it spent over PLN 130 million on research and development. This puts Asseco at the forefront of Polish companies in this field. It is great  that the company's leadership decided to make another important investment and planned to locate it in the Podkarpacie region. Thanks to such projects our region is becoming even more innovative, said Władysław Ortyl, Marshal of the Podkarpacie Voivodeship.

The Asseco Innovation Hub building will be merged with the existing head office of the Company at Olchowa Street in Rzeszów. It will have over 9,000 m2 of total area, 5 above-ground floors and one technical floor. On the ground floor level, in addition to office space for R&D activities, a representative part will be located with a hall and conference rooms. On the next floors there will be a complex of office spaces along with conference rooms, social rooms and the so-called creative rooms. On the last floor there will be a technical terrace and technical rooms.Under the Intelligent Development Operating Program for 2014-2020 Asseco has received more than PLN 26 million of funding from the Ministry of Development for the project implementation. The total value of the investment, which is planned to be completed in Q2 2020, is PLN 80,359,662.57.

The Asseco Group is present in over 50 countries worldwide, and the share of foreign markets in the Group's total revenues is over 80% and has been growing steadily. The establishment of Asseco International (AI) is an important step in the development of the Asseco Group's operations on international markets. After completing all the planned changes, the Group's operations will be divided into three main areas: Asseco Poland and the Polish market, Formula Systems and the Israeli market, and Asseco International and other foreign markets. AI will be headed by Jozef Klein, the President of Asseco Central Europe, who has been involved in the establishment and international development of the Group from the very beginning. The President of the Supervisory Board will be Adam Góral. 96.55% of AI's shares will be held by Asseco Poland, and 3.45% of the shares by the managers of Asseco Central Europe (ACE), who currently hold shares in ACE. The new company will be registered in Slovakia.

"In our Group, we have a proven development model of Formula Systems and we would like to repeat its success. We have established Asseco International because we have recognized that the current scale and potential of our international operations requires the creation of a dedicated team of experts, who will manage these operations on a daily basis. By establishing Asseco International, we would also like to separate our Polish operations from international business," said Adam Góral, President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland.

Following the establishment of the new organizational structure, Asseco Poland's managers will be fully focused on the domestic market, and the development of international companies will be handled by the management board of AI. The establishment of Asseco International is also a partial formalization of the operations of the existing Board of Directors of the Asseco Group, i. e. the group of presidents of the most important foreign companies in the Group. Jozef Klein, who has been the President of the Board of Directors so far, has been appointed the President of the Management Board of the new holding company and will guide further development of international operations. The Management Board of AI will also include: Przemysław Sęczkowski (the Vice President of the Management Board of Asseco Poland engaged in international operations of the Group), Marek Panek and Rafał Kozłowski. Also, the Presidents of foreign companies - Piotr Jeleński, Torben Falholt, Jose Antonio Pinilla and Daniel Araújo - will be engaged in AI's operations.

"So far, the presidents of individual companies have focused primarily on the development of their businesses. By joining our forces in Asseco International, we are able to implement a truly ambitious international project. In the future, we are also not ruling out a stock exchange debut of Asseco International on one of the Western European stock exchanges," added Adam Góral.

The registration of AI should take place within a few weeks. In subsequent stages, all shares of Asseco Poland held in Asseco Central Europe, Asseco SouthEastern Europe, Exictos, Asseco Western Europe, R-Style Softlab, Asseco Denmark, Peak Consulting, Asseco Lithuania, Asseco Georgia, Asseco Kazahstan and Asseco Software Nigeria will be transferred to AI. The whole process should be completed by the end of this year.

Nearly 250 of highly qualified CEIT specialists investigate technical and process innovations, industrial automation, structural and material engineering, and also the area of education. Research and development, which is the dominating factor of this company, is accompanied flexibly with practice. Its annual earnings amount to approx. EUR 22 mil.

“CEIT is a modern company that by its innovative approach, but mainly its solutions and products in the field of robotics and artificial intelligence, will enrich the Asseco group with new trends and competencies, which we would like to advance jointly to the international level. I believe that this great potential created by joining our companies will advance us significantly in the research and development area,” said Jozef Klein, CEO Asseco CE, on the occasion of signing the contract.

The CEIT group specializes in connecting physical industrial systems and intelligent cyber processes within the meaning of the Industry 4.0 concept earmarked as the industrial revolution number four. The objective is to ensure higher productivity and competitiveness of company’s customers through its solutions. “By entering into strategic partnership with Asseco Central Europe, CEIT has opened the space for broader application of its innovative potential on the international level, with the aim to grow faster on international markets. Joining the competencies of Asseco Central Europe and CEIT creates space for the synergy of new solutions and top innovations for the industry in the spirit of Industry 4.0,” expressed Branislav Mičieta, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of CEIT, on the occasion of signing this contract.

At present, KSI ZUS settles contributions equal to half of Poland's annual budget, and also exchanges data with a dozen or so state institutions, including the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, the Central Statistical Office (GUS), the National Health Fund (NFZ) and the National Bank of Poland (NBP). The system serves 25 million citizens, including insured persons, beneficiaries and payers. The IT solutions used in the system are able to easily handle the collection and processing of approx. 300 terabytes of data and 250,000 operations per second. This shows the scale, complexity and importance of the system for every Polish citizen.

I am proud that it is the Asseco team that has created such a key IT system for our country as KSI ZUS. It is one of those projects in the history of computerization of Poland, which confirms that Polish IT sector is able to operate at the highest global level. This is thanks to the work of Asseco's specialists, who take care of the retirement pensions of millions of Poles and are able to adapt the system to legal changes on time. In the case of such an important system, there is no room for errors or experimentation. Asseco is best prepared to deal with KSI ZUS and we have proven many times that we are a supplier that guarantees its stability and security, said Vice President of Asseco Poland Tadeusz Dyrga.

KSI ZUS is a system that does not need to be advertised. Not only the system, but also people who created it have never failed and we should remember about it. That is why I would like to thank our employees, as well as our technological partners for their efforts and contribution, thanks to which I can collect the award on their behalf, said Vice President of ZUS Krzysztof Dyki.

It is the largest nation-wide system, a symbol of Polish computerization in the sector of public solutions and a proof of high Polish intellectual capital in the new technology sector, he added.

The Computerworld's "IT Leader" competition has been organized for 21 years and has included over 1,000 companies and institutions from various sectors of the public administration sector. The competition is open to those entities which make effective use of innovative ICT solutions in their daily operations and serve as role models for other companies. The "IT Leader" title has become a valued distinction on the market, and the conference and the gala accompanying this event every year provide an opportunity for a substantial debate on the most important issues related to computerization of Poland.