For Dendrio Solutions – the IT systems integration company within the Bittnet group – 2021 was a year in which certain developments initially felt in 2020 continued to be accentuated:
Although the sale process has a clear purpose in 2021 – either procurement procedures in which the Dendrio bid is officially declared the winner or projects budgeted and approved by private companies – some of these projects could not be implemented during the year, especially due to the significant extension of the delivery times of the hardware components (semiconductor crisis). If at the end of 2020 we were talking about a volume of RON 5 million in this situation, at the end of 2021 we have a volume of over RON 40 million in this category. Even in these conditions, the company managed to increase the gross margin generated by over 20% and keep the turnover close to that of 2020. We will keep monitoring this indicator carefully throughout 2022, given the persistence of the semiconductor crisis.
To offset the impact of the delay in equipment delivery, the Dendrio team focused on growing projects with a significant service component – an increase of over 22% compared to 2020. Projects with a significant consulting component (audit, technology architecture or technology adoption projects) have increased in volume compared to previous years when implementation services contributed an overwhelming rate to this figure.
The extension of projects to 2022 allows us to enter the new financial year with a consistent volume of projects awarded (“pipeline”) which will be distributed (depending on equipment deliveries) throughout the year.
From an operational perspective, during 2021 we have continued the strategic initiatives launched in 2020 and new initiatives have been launched:
At the level of the team dedicated to large accounts – in particular with the telecommunications operators but also with specialized partners, increasing by over 40% the volume generated by these partnerships.
Including at regional level – a new company in its large customer portfolio has decided to benefit from the expertise of Dendrio and the companies in Bittnet’s technology division for regional expansion. The project is all the more important as a transition has been made to cloud technology and managed services – IT Prepared, a company newly joined the Bittnet group, taking over the management and optimization of IT processes. We are convinced that in the future we will meet more and more companies located in Eastern Europe that will follow a similar expansion model.
Dedicated to medium and small companies. The implementation of a sales process based on “Buyer Journey” was initiated by the education division. Based on its experience, we started adapting this process for the technology division at the end of 2020. In 2021, the Sales Development Representatives team already had 4 colleagues and we aim to expand it further in 2022, but also to expand the processes of the entire Dendrio company. More than 600 companies were contacted merely during Q4, with a 11% (outbound), and 19% (inbound) conversion rate.
Launched at the end of 2020 – became operational in 2021, making Dendrio one of the first Cisco Gold Partner companies specializing in Customer Experience in Romania. More than 50 of Dendrio’s most important customers have been included in the satisfaction rating program – a mechanism by which we aim to better understand our customers’ expectations.
In the second half of 2021, the Project Management Office was created – at the level of the entire Bittnet group but with a significant impact on Dendrio’s delivery processes. There are 5 employees currently working in this department.
Last but not least, it is important to mention the increase in the number of projects delivered. In 2021 the number of delivered projects increased by over 11% compared to 2020, confirming that the operational platform but also the delivery processes of Dendrio are scalable.
The sale of the Computer Aided Design (CAD) division – an initiative that has generated an attractive financial return for shareholders but will lead in the short and medium term to an increase in Dendrio’s focus on projects that include a significant component of services.