2007

IBS and Borlas Consulting Group announced friendly merger in mid-April. In October IBS and Borlas Consulting Group announced completion of the merger and formation of IBS, the consolidated company. The consolidated company included all current business segments of IBS, including IBS DataFort and IBS Platformix, and companies of Borlas Consulting Group. Practices dealing with Oracle business applications and other Oracle technologies were brought together under the IBS Borlas brand. The merger resulted in a company that is unique in its financial, human and technology strengths and has become the absolute leader among Russian providers of IT services, with 7 per cent of the IT services market and over 20 per cent of the business applications segment (IDC data). The company has the largest consulting team in the Russian IT market, which includes over 400 consultants and designers specialising in SAP solutions and over 500 consultants and designers specialising in Oracle solutions.

Consulting was one of the main points of growth for IBS in 2007. An increasing number of projects are expected to deliver on the objectives for the customers in areas where IT and management merge. Human resources management is one of the areas that are in the greatest demand. IBS carried out a number of major pre-configured HR management solution implementation projects in the finance industry, including projects for Rosbank, Trust Bank, Troika Dialog, etc.

More big vertically and horizontally integrated holding companies became IBS customers. Projects implemented in 2007 included projects for Lukoil Overseas, OGK-1, HydroOGK, Ural Steel, ALRO (the Romanian Group), Prodimex Group, UNIMILK Group, etc.

IBS Master’s Degree Programme, an unparalleled IBS initiative to provide training for young professionals, was launched at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in the autumn with 42 students enrolled. The Master’s Degree Programme provides specialised IT training in areas of specialisation that are in the greatest demand.

In 2007 IBS established a unit focusing on services for education institutions. The new unit brought together specialised consulting services and IT solutions of IBS for education institutions. IBS customer base currently includes a number of higher education institutions including G.V. Plekhanov Russian Academy of Economics, the Higher School of Economics, Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO), Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics (TUSUR), Tomsk Polytechnic University, I.M. Sechenov Moscow Medical Academy, etc.

The Russia IT Services 2007-2011 Forecast and 2006 Vendor Shares report prepared in 2007 by IDC and LINEX confirmed IBS leadership in the Russian IT services market. IBS commands leading positions in business applications implementation consulting, systems integration, IT outsourcing and IT consulting. The research firms assigned IBS and Borlas the grade that indicates the highest degree of consistency between the IT services revenue estimate and the declared IT services revenue.

IBS received the Finans (Finance) magazine award in the Top IT Consultant category for its achievements in 2007. In addition, IBS was named Public Sector Services Partner of the Year in Russia and the CIS by Cisco, Reseller Partner of the Year in Eastern Europe by Cognos, HP Software Business Partner of the Year in Russia and received a number of other partner awards and top partnership levels.