Interview with H.E. Mrs. Mariam Rakviashvili Ambassador of Georgia

To sum it up, we focus on large, multinational projects that we supply as turn-key solutions, managing the whole process of sale and delivery of required telecom equipment to designated locations, its installations, and critical infrastructure maintenance. In other words, we present a trusted single point of contact where customers can get more or less of any product or service, they need to make the most of their IT, at any place around the globe. We support IT networks of around 1,400 end customers spread over the whole portfolio of major industry segments, including manufacturing, retail, healthcare, media and entertainment, banking, and governmental and public sector organizations.

Well, after more than a decade, I can easily say that the changes I have experienced over the last two years are by far the most signifi cant since the very beginning of Neeco’s establishment. That includes market shifts, such as acceleration of new technologies and changes in customer demands, as well as necessary internal organization transformations supporting changed employee behaviour and their new work preferences. Since we are a global organization, we also need to keep recognizing regional diff erences on both the customers’ and employee sides. All these aspects result in a relatively high-complex environment where the ability to decide quickly and correctly is the key element to secure future success. No matter how large or stable the organization may be, wrong decisions on important crossroads can always lead to signifi cant issues that can take years to get sorted out, especially in such dynamic markets as IT and telecommunications are. On the other hand, even small and new organizations have a good chance to grow quickly during actual periods of large market transformations.

Described trends present signifi cant challenges for existing IT organizations that need to transform fast and adopt necessary capabilities. At the same time, I believe that it creates a great opportunity for young and smaller companies to grow organically, as they can have the necessary capabilities built already into their DNA. While no one can predict how the industry will change in the decades to come, it is clear that the next fi ve years will be transformative for telecommunications. Companies that will be quick to embrace those changes and adapt their strategies accordingly will come out as winners, while those that will be more reserved to take any action will lose their competitive advantage and will eventually be driven out of the market. From the standpoint of Neeco, I welcome such market changes. In a stable world, it`s rather diffi cult to break into the existing relationships, as there is no need to replace current partnerships and strategies. With market shifts and new challenges, new possibilities open up for agile organizations. At this moment, we see more opportunities than ever, as a direct result of new demands of clients that cannot be answered by incumbent suppliers and legacy ICT organizations.

Neeco has not been signifi cantly aff ected by the war, as we do not serve Russian customers, we only service international clients within the Russian territory. We fully support the decisions of the European Union and its allies, and we have promptly implemented all measures imposed. Within this framework, we continue to support our international clients, including their IT networks across Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine. However, we have suspended all new projects that are physically arranged within the regions given.

In general, I believe that the impacts on most global telecom companies today, are not so eminent. There may be some eff ects that potentially infl uence IT procurement strategies, such as specifi c IT vendors’ decision to suspend deliveries in and out of Russia (for example Ericsson) and sanctions raised against Russia. Overall, only time will show how much will international organizations invest into the IT networks of their Russian affi liates in the future. I cannot foresee any fast recoveries of IT demands across Russia after this unfortunate aggression of Russia.

On a Neeco ICT level, we are constantly innovating the way we provide services to our clients. One of the key primary areas of our current focus is the digital transformation of the supply chain. Recent shifts have made global equipment supplies extremely challenging, causing signifi cant administrative costs, and communication overheads. We are working on several upgrades of our internal digital ecosystem, so we can continue off ering great procurement visibility, predictability, cost-effi ciency, securing short IT equipment lead times, and seamless coordination of global projects for our clients.

One example of a new project recently being launched outside of the IT business is Neano Resort Bali, an extensive holiday destination that includes luxury accommodation, restaurants, wellness, and other enjoyable facilities. This new stage of the development comprises beautiful, modern investment vacation villas built at a prime coastal location in Eastern Bali. Neano Cliff Villas are spread across three hectares of picturesque cliff s with private restaurants, fi tness, helipad, and beach access.

Outside of work, I do enjoy sports, travelling, driving, and simply getting the most out of life. Personally, my favourite time of the year is winter when nature is painted with snow, and I can take advantage of the white magical paradise by hitting the slopes for skiing. Apart from these traits, I am a big advocate when it comes to overall general well-being. My standard daily routine is relatively strict and involves physical activities such as working out, running, and doing yoga. During the last two years, I began to regularly perform cold bathing, which has continued working well for me. In addition to all this, I have just recently incorporated Pranayama breathing exercises into my daily practices. The eff ects of mindful breathwork had come as a great surprise for me as I had never considered such activity as something that could create so many signifi cant benefi ts for the body and mind.

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SD-WAN stands for Software-Defi ned Wide Area Network and is currently one of the biggest trends in the enterprise IT segment. SD-WAN in a nutshell, is a WAN version of software-defi ned networking, a modern technology that decouples the management (‘control plane’) and data transmission (‘data plane’). As a result, IT networks can be confi gured and managed from central locations, leaving the edge devices performing better, simpler, and cost-effi ciently. The demand for SD-WAN is also creating a push as organizations have a huge reliance on the work-from-home initiative, due to the COVID-19 outbreak and its consequences. To facilitate remote working, organizations are looking for new networking solutions for better agility, higher capacity, and lower costs. While telecom players face the daunting task of scaling their networks to unimaginable sizes, SD-WAN comes off as a promising solution. Currently, the SD-WAN market is expected to grow from an actual USD 1.9 billion in 2020 to USD 8.4 billion by 2025, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 30% every year, which represents a signifi cant opportunity for not only the SD-WAN technology vendors but also for telecoms and system integrators that are able to incorporate SD-WAN as a service to their product portfolio.

Another huge trend today is Managed Services, also known at IT as a Service. As businesses rebuild in 2021, transformation and the ability to think diff erently are critical, and managed services are one of the leading initiatives to facilitate that. Managed services allow companies to source ICT equipment and solutions in a more modern and eff ective way compared to the traditional methods of owning and paying for the services. Instead, it allows utilizing of products in the form of services, while leaving the ownership to the 3rd party companies. The primary benefi ts of managed services are the fl exibility and cost benefi ts allowing you to choose the timetable of payments that will best suit your needs. Knowing exactly what your company will pay for IT monthly, can easily and accurately forecast your company’s annual IT spending. Moreover, it also reduces the administrative overhead and risks associated with the ownership of the equipment. With this inline, Neeco has benefi ted clients for years and has become one of the top global ICT service providers off ering clients managed services contracts. The number of requests from our clients to learn more about our managed services off ering has been rapidly increasing in the past years, and a large number of them have switched to this model to reap its varied benefi ts – from the increased effi ciency and the cut costs to the simplifi ed and more secure day-to-day, IT processes. The global pandemic only accelerated this shift, and some studies show that more than 38% of businesses outsourced at least half of their IT needs to managed service providers in 2021, a jump from 25% in 2020. Managed services share currently around 60% of Neeco’s overall revenues, and we expect it to reach 80% in the next 5 years.

Last but not least, we see tremendous pressure on global organizations to create truly modern procurement solutions to overcome many of the signifi cant operational and logistical challenges resulting from the pandemic, that minimize disruptions to standard IT commodity fl ows, and eff ectively manage the identifi ed risks. One of the key elements is to correctly structure local, regional, continental, and transcontinental sourcing as diff erent types of global procurement solutions. Crucial to that is full supply chain visibility. That includes both digitization and better supply chain management that enable strategic collaboration, agility, and support for a variety of sales, distribution and supply channels across daily operations. As businesses are still working through pandemic levels, the growing uncertainty, complexity, and customer demands call for stronger supply chain architecture that empowers businesses to deliver real-time, reliable, cost-effi cient, and more eff ective procurement visibility through pricing, planning, and execution. Another crucial element is smart inventory management. It enables to organize, manage, and control stock and its levels, minimizing the cost of holding the inventory while getting products into customers’ hands faster. At Neeco, we facilitate presumed rapid stock centres where we maintain adequate inventory levels, to avoid supply risks and make sure to deliver our services to the clients on time. Leveraging local and regional distribution centres to manage the demand helps to maintain the necessary infrastructure within the country to store, control and distribute products to customers without unnecessary delays.

Text: Martina Hošková and M. Zisso; Photo: Archive

You might know him from the screen. Lukáš Dolanský came to Česká televize, a public television broadcaster in the Czech Republic, in 2010 for the position of political correspondent. This was followed by becoming head of the domestic news desk, presenter of the Hydepark and Události komentáře programs, and, at the moment, Brussels correspondent. After almost fi ve years of reporting from the EU capital, he is able to look back and say: “I knew it would be a busy time. But no one could imagine how much.” Have his feelings about a dream job changed with growing experience? Is reporting from Brussels adventurous? And what will the future bring?

It was curiosity that made me what I am. The fi rst time I had a chance to write an article for a newspaper, I was sixteen. And I was amazed then. Thirty years later, the feeling is still the same. That feeling of gathering information, putting it all together with pictures into a story – and presenting it to the public. I started as a newspaper journalist.

Only after ten years of writing for MF Dnes and Lidové noviny, I switched to “visual news”. Now, I am lucky to be working for Česká televize and I still like to discover important issues around myself; I like to gather all the news - and I love to explain it to people watching TV.

The truth is that being a Brussels correspondent is not as adventurous as the work of some of my colleagues. However, apart from conducting interviews with many Brussels politicians, such as the presidents of the European Commission and European Parliament or secretary general of NATO, I also had the chance to report on many everyday stories. So, I really enjoyed fi lming the story about the creator of Belgium’s best pralines. Or a producer of Netherlands´ oysters. Or, I really loved fi lming a few precious moments in the winter, when all the channels in the Netherlands froze and all the Dutch started to skate on them.

Before I started work as a Brussels correspondent, I was mainly dealing with the Czech political scene. In more than twenty years of reporting, I covered quite a few general elections, presidential elections, and many political breakdowns, as well as dozens of political scandals. And looking back – some of them were quite strange.

Living in Brussels is diff erent. In my life, I had a chance to live in diff erent cities, including Prague, Munich, London, Philadelphia, and Dortmund. Brussels is nothing to be compared to. I did not get used to the city yet. But I was told, it takes time. So maybe, one day… Before I arrived here, I knew it would be a busy time. But no one could imagine how much. First, we had European Parliament elections and fear of the nationalists rising. Then, Brexit followed, and its never-ending talks about a divorce agreement. The next thing was Covid, and a very important role of Brussels in that matter. And now – the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

All EU countries fi nally realized what some of them were pointing out for a long time before. The Russian invasion of Ukraine just proved it. Yes, sadly enough, Putin made the EU great, and united, again. Maybe even more united than ever before. I hope that the EU has learnt its lessons from Covid as well as the current crisis with Russia. That all the “exit” ideas are gone now. However, I feel that more economic turbulences are still lying ahead.

It will be a very important moment for the Czech Republic. As I see it, the country holding the rotating presidency can present itself in a greater way. The country’s leaders can be seen in the Brussels spotlight and Czechia should use this opportunity. The presidency of the Czech Republic will also come during the very important times of the Russian war in Ukraine - from my perspective, this will be the dominating issue, and the role of the Czech Republic will be important not only because of the presidency but also because of its own closeness to Ukraine.

After almost fi ve years in Brussels, I have gotten an off er to move as a correspondent to London. I was really delighted by this opportunity, and now I am very excited. UK after Brexit is, in my eyes, a very interesting place to be reporting from. Besides my work, I am an urban cyclist, a strong coff ee lover, and a father of three. So, as you can imagine, there is not much free time left. However, I love to travel and explore, not only workwise, but also with my family.

Text: M. Zisso; Photo: Archive

The premiere of the Slovak-Czech co-production feature fi lm by director Zuzana Marianková and producer Wanda Adamík Hrycová took place at Cinema City, Slovanský dům, a few weeks ago.

My Czech is bad, and I was afraid I wouldn’t understand the movie, mentally preparing myself to play on my phone, but I didn’t have time for that. In reality, it was so well done that I was laughing for almost the entire duration of the fi lm – time fl ies when you’re having fun.

If you missed it at the cinema - don’t worry! It will be broadcast on TV Nova. Directed by: Zuzana Marianková Screenplay: Petr Jarchovský, Paolo Genovese and Paolo Costella (original screenplay) Camera: Peter Bencsík Music: Slavo Solovic Starring: Táňa Pauhofová, Klára Issová, Martin Hofmann, Tomáš Měcháček, Tomáš Maštalír, Petra Polnišová, Anna Kadeřávková, Sväťo Malachovský