SoftServe

SoftServe, Inc., founded in 1993 in Lviv, Ukraine, is a technology company specializing in consultancy services and software development. SoftServe provides services in the fields of Big data, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing, DevOps, E-Commerce, Security, Experience Design, and Healthcare.[4] With its United States headquarters in Austin, Texas and European headquarters in Lviv, Ukraine, the company employs more than 9,000 people in offices internationally as of 2020.[5][6] It is one of the largest software developers in Eastern Europe[7] and the largest outsourcing and outstaffing IT company in Ukraine.[8][9]

SoftServe, Inc.
TypePrivate Corporation
IndustryConsulting services & Software development
Founded1993
FounderTaras Kytsmey & Oleh Denys
Headquarters
Europe — Lviv, Ukraine
US — Austin, Texas
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
  • Christopher Baker (CEO)
    • Harry Proper (President)
    • Alex Chubay (CTO)
    • Andriy Stytsyuk (CFO)
    • Yaroslav Lyubinets (Chairman of the Board)
    • Taras Kytsmey (Member of the Board, Co Founder)
    • Oleh Denys (Member of the Board, Co Founder)
    [1]
Number of employees
9000+
Websitewww.softserveinc.com
Footnotes / references
[2][3]

History
SoftServe headquarters in Lviv (2015)

SoftServe was founded in 1993 in Lviv, Ukraine. Started by two post-graduate students of Lviv Polytechnic,[10] it began as a software development company with headquarters in Lviv.[7] The company was initially supported by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Incubator Center and its first known client was General Electric.[11] The company opened its first office in the United States in 2000.[4] SoftServe was instrumental in building Microsoft Bird's Eye service in 2004.[4] It used the same concept that was later used by Google for its Google Street View. For its work on the project, SoftServe was invited to speak at Microsoft's annual conference where it was used as an example of business applications that could be built by technology corporations.[4]

In 2006, SoftServe founded SoftServe University. It became the company's corporate training program for improving developers and retraining specialists.[12] Based in Ukraine, it also offers international IT Professional certificates to employees who complete the program. With the launch of SoftServe University, the company became the first to establish a corporate university in Ukraine.[13][12] In 2008, SoftServe also founded Lviv Business School at Ukrainian Catholic University.[14]

SoftServe opened its United States headquarters in Fort Myers, Florida in 2008 and began holding an annual conference.[15] By 2012, SoftServe was one of the largest IT outsourcing companies in Ukraine with 2,189 employees, third only to EPAM Systems and Luxoft.[16]

In 2014 SoftServe moved its United States headquarters from Florida to One Congress Plaza, in Austin, Texas[17] (The company had previously operated an office out of Austin since 2013 and officially moved its headquarters to One Congress Plaza in 2014.[18]) The same year SoftServe opened offices in London, Amsterdam, Sofia, Wroclaw, and Stockholm.[19] The same year its employee base climbed to 3,900 employees[15]Also in 2014, the company acquired Amsterdam-based tech services firm Initium Consulting Group BV.[20][21] (Founded in 2012 and served mainly healthcare and private equity industries.)[17] SoftServe also acquired European IT company UGE UkrGermanEnterprise GmbH.

In 2015 SoftServe opened a new European headquarters in Lviv, Ukraine.[22] It also organized an event in San Francisco, California along with IT professionals from Ukraine and members of the Ukraine consulate to address concerns about the country's operations in light of the geo-political situation in Ukraine.[23] The same year the company named Chris Baker as the new CEO, taking over the role from Co Founder Taras Kytsmey.

In January 2017, SoftServe acquired Wroclaw-based Coders Center, for between $1.5 million and $3 million.[24]

In September 2020, the company was targeted by a ransomware attack, in response SoftServe shut down many of their internal systems to try and stop the spread of the virus. SoftServe says there is no evidence that the virus spread to customers systems, and most of SoftServes internal systems were back online in a few hours to a few days. The hack resulted in bits of unfinished customer source code, and other information being shared on the internet. The individual who claims to be behind the hack, 'Freedomf0x', also published fragmented personal information of about 200 individual, but whether this information is linked to SoftServe employees is unclear.[25][26] The attack targeted the company by exploiting the Windows tool Rainmeter. In response to the breach SoftServe partnered with multiple cyber and data security firms, and instituted new security policies.[27]

SoftServe executives open new offices in Kharkiv

Growth

Around 2013 the company began large-scale growth. It opened new offices in the United States, Poland, London, Amsterdam, Sofia, and, Stockholm[28] and began a still running (as of 2020) greater-than 20% per year growth streak. About the same time it reached $100 million in yearly revenue.[29] In the following years SoftServe also purchased Initium Consulting Group BV and UGE UkrGermanEnterprise GmbH. Chris Baker was named the company's new CEO as growth continued as the company opened more offices in the United States and Europe. In In 2018 the company revenue was estimated to have surpassed the $250 million mark.[30] By the end of 2020, despite the global pandemic, the company grew by at least 20%, reaching an estimated $450 million in revenue. The company is targeting a yearly revenue of $1 billion by 2025.[31]

Products, Services and Partnerships

SoftServe is a software application development company as well as consulting firm. Its services include software optimization, software as a service, cloud computing, mobile, UI/UX, analytics, and security. It provides its services mainly in the healthcare, retail, and technology. One of the "SoftServe Business System" divisions also releases its own products, which are specially designed for Ukraine in order to find new technological solutions in IT. SoftServe has continuing partnerships with: Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Salesforce, Apigee, and other organizations.[32]

Awards and Recognition

Since 2004, SoftServe has been a member of the Microsoft Partner Ecosystem and was a finalist for the global Microsoft Partner of the Year in both 2006 and 2007. The company was recognized for the same award in 2008 and 2009 in Eastern Europe.[33][34] SoftServe has continued to receive recognition from Microsoft, including by Microsoft Ukraine in 2012 for Partner of the Year, for Innovation in Business Analytics.[35]

The company has won additional awards throughout the industries, including being named to the Global Outsourcing 100 list in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, and 2015.[36][37] In 2010 SoftServe was named as Ukraine's Best Employer by Hewitt Associates and in 2011 named as Best Employer in Eastern Europe.[38] In 2019, SoftServe ranked seventh out of more than 130 Western European companies in the Clutch software development category.[39]

See also

References
  1. "Softserve Board of Directors". Retrieved 2020-05-05.
  2. "SoftServe откри официално развойния си център в София (SoftServe officially opened its research center in Sofia)" (in Bulgarian). Computer World. 29 September 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  3. "Management Team". SoftServe official website. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  4. Судольский, Роман (10 October 2012). "SoftServe. Как работает крупнейший украинский аутсорсер (SoftServe. How the largest Ukrainian outsourcer works)". Forbes (in Russian). Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  5. "About us". Retrieved 7 February 2017.
  6. "Программисты выходят на биржу (Programmers go to the stock market)". Forbes (in Russian). 7 June 2013. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  7. Forostyna, Oksana (26 June 2007). "Ukrainian Trade Schools Struggle to Adapt". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  8. Мишко, Сергей (13 October 2014). "Директор SoftServe: "Спрос на IT-профессионалов остается высоким" (Director of SoftServe - Demand for IT professionals remains high)". Forbes (in Russian). Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  9. "SoftServe: Планираме да наемем 1000 души до 2018 в България (SoftServe: We plan to hire 1,000 people in 2018 in Bulgaria)" (in Bulgarian). Economy Bulgaria. 14 March 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  10. Hawkins, Lori (26 June 2014). "Offshore tech company moves headquarters from Florida to Austin". American Statesman. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  11. Olearchyk, Roman (24 May 2000). "Tapping into Ukraines' virtual workforce". Kyiv Post. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  12. Hydzik, James (24 October 2012). "The rise and rise of Ukraine IT" (PDF). Ukrainian Dialogue. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  13. Arapetyan, Anton (28 December 2009). "Unique Models of Corporative Training and HR Development". Social Science Research Network. SSRN 1528922.
  14. Bender, Yuri (31 January 2010). "Lviv aims for ethics and expertise". Financial Times. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  15. "Ukraine unrest hits Fort Myers firm". Florida News. Archived from the original on 23 February 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  16. Куцый, Валерий (9 November 2012). "Украина имеет все шансы превратиться из IT-колонии в метрополию (Ukraine has all chances to become IT-colony of the metropolis)". Forbes (in Russian). Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  17. Calnan, Christopher (27 June 2014). "Florida tech services company relocates HQ to Austin". Austin Business Journal. Retrieved 27 January 2015.
  18. Calnan, Christopher (4 July 2014). "SoftServe CEO to hire hundreds". Austin Business Journal. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  19. "SoftServe Opens New Development Centers in Poland". Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  20. Primack, Dan (26 June 2014). "Deals of the day: Wickr raises $30 million". Fortune. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  21. "SoftServe поглъща две европейски компании (SoftServe absorbs two European companies)" (in Bulgarian). Tech News. 19 September 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  22. "SoftServe разширява присъствието си в Европа (SoftServe expands its presence in Europe)" (in Bulgarian). Computerworld. 19 September 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  23. King, Rachel (24 July 2014). "Consulate Pitches Ukraine as Outsourcing Destination in Spite of Conflict". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  24. "UBJ AM News: Jan. 20, 2017". Retrieved 2017-09-28.
  25. Abrams, Lawrence (10 September 2020). "SoftServe hit by ransomware, Windows customization tool exploited". Bleeping Computer. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
  26. "SoftServe data breach". ain.ua. 17 September 2020. Retrieved 17 November 2020.
  27. "SoftServe hit by ransomware, Windows customization tool exploited". BleepingComputer. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  28. "Softserve opens development centres in Poland". ITEuropa. 2014-09-16. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  29. www.softserveinc.com https://www.softserveinc.com/en-us. Retrieved 2020-12-29. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  30. "SoftServe Targets $1bn as it Tackles Innovation Challenge". Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  31. "SoftServe to top 20% growth in 2020 | PAC – a teknowlogy company". www.sitsi.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  32. "Our Partners". www.softserveinc.com. Retrieved 2020-12-29.
  33. "Microsoft Recognizes SoftServe, as Partner of the Year". Bloomberg (press release). 23 July 2009. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  34. "Microsoft Recognizes SoftServe, Inc., as Partner of the Year 2009 in Central and Eastern Europe". Computer Weekly News. 6 August 2009. Archived from the original on 29 March 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  35. "SoftServe Again Achieves Multiple Competencies in the Microsoft Partner Network". IT Outsourcing News. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  36. "2015 GO 100 Alpha Listing". Iaop.org. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
  37. "Awards". SoftServe Inc. official website. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  38. "Achievements of Ukrainian IT Outsourcing Market Players". Ukrainian High-Tech Initiative. Retrieved 28 January 2015.
  39. Agency, Volta. "IT Ukraine Association - Clutch". itukraine.org.ua. Retrieved 2020-01-24.

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