‘Outstanding’ ITSH Moving in and Moving On

Adel Al-Saleh

“We’ve not only moved, we’ve moved forward,” Slooten told a packed press conference in the offices. “ITSH has developed enormously in the more than ten years of its history: it has not only grown but is carrying out increasingly complex and ever higher added value tasks as a member of the Deutsche Telekom group,” he stressed.

ITSH describes itself as the biggest ICT service provider in Hungary, employing more than 4,600 people at its four bases in Budapest, Debrecen, Pécs and Szeged, and 2,200 in Budapest alone. In answer to a question from Debrecen TV, Slooten said the company had moved offices in Budapest because: “We are growing and we needed more room; the lease on the old office was coming to an end and we could not expand there. This is also a more modern office, better suited to the requirements of an IT company.”

Just how much that is true is illustrated by just one of the facts and figures ITSH put out to mark the move. The new building has 840 km of FTP cable networked throughout the building; laid end to end, that’s enough to stretch between Budapest and Rome.  

The involvement of Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of T-Systems International, in the official inauguration of the new HQ, is testament to how important ITSH has become to the international business and its nearshoring philosophy.  

Outstanding Role

“Our corporate group can be successful when we place our clients at the center of attention,” Al-Saleh said told the gathered digniataries. “We are continuing to strengthen our nearshore activities, and in this we are giving an outstanding role to ITSH as one of the key strategic enterprises of the Telekom group.”

Speaking to the Budapest Business Journal after the main event, Al-Saleh was asked about the significance of the investment in the new HQ. “The strategy for T-Systems is that we have an ambition to create a global workforce with the right distribution for delivery of services; that requires the right costs and the right skills and the right geographic fit, all of which we find in Hungary,” he said

“We have been investing In Hungary for ten years. As part of that delivery strategy it is very important. Up to now we have been concentrating on scaling; now we are moving to the next level, moving up the value chain, doing more work complex in this location, more end-to-end delivery. That requires developing more competences as the staff take ownership of more work,” he told the BBJ.

“If you look at skills we have at ITSH, there was initially a lot of specific entry level engineering work. The staff has proved itself able to handle some tasks very well – software, security, networks – and many of the skills have been developed so that it can take on more complex work today, and tomorrow can move to handling work end-to-end from Hungary without any other outside involvement.”

Erik Slooten

Developing Leaders

Slooten explained that taking on end-to-end tasks requires different skill sets from when you deal with just specific parts of a process. “We are now looking to develop the leadership skills of many of our staff,” he said.

And where does ITSH fit into T-Systems long-term plans? “We are looking at developing centers of excellence that are able to offer something unique, that are leaders in the world for the company; that is our vision. Erik and his team are developing now what that might be for Hungary. Already they do important work here in IT development, security and data protection and cloud. I am sure there will be an opportunity to create more here in the next couple of years.

ITSH’s offices at the Mill Park East building have been designed in accordance with so-called alternative workspace strategy (AWS) principles. In this flexi seat system, ITSH employees can book workstations and take advantage of functional spaces such as video-conferencing rooms, telephone-conferencing booths and chill-out rooms. A green communal space and open-air gym have been established in the building’s 2,200-sqm garden. The structure of the office has been awarded LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building certification.

The company says on its website that it is “continuously growing” and has job vacancies in all four of its bases. “Pursuant to our company’s philosophy, we not only offer a job, we also provide an opportunity for our future employees to gain professional experience and test their knowledge, while working in a multicultural environment. Therefore we are waiting for candidates who like challenges and their work is an important part of their lives.”

ITSH HQ in Numbers

•    17,345 sqm total floor area
•    2,371 workstations
•    400 parking spaces
•    840 km of FTP cable networked throughout the building
•    94 meeting rooms
•    20 telephone-conference booths
•    3 video-conference rooms
•    2 TelePresence rooms