The prize for best innovation was awarded to the OKIN BPS Company. Within a very short period this company managed to establish and commence operation of one of the biggest cloud centres in the world, which currently administers 27,000 physical servers belonging to companies worldwide and employs over 150 cloud specialists.
“OKIN Cloud is a company-wide project and represents a completely new commercial direction for the company,“ Dan Smith, Managing Director of OKIN BPS explains the company’s plans and adds: “The speed with which we managed to realise this project is of particular significance. We managed to find and employ the relevant experts and start to provide cloud services to customers worldwide within several months.“ The primary motivation for realisation of this project was the need to be a more flexible partner to our clients. The OKIN BPS Company’s traditional fields of activities included support of a sales network, provision of customer and technical support and frequently also design, implementation and maintenance of the network infrastructure. “With regard to the fact that cloud services are a significant trend in IT, it was logical that we also decided to expand our capacities and abilities in this direction,“ Dan Smith commented.
Inspiration and success
“The inspiration for the project came from two sources,“ Smith remembers, “In a competition similar to the biblical David and Goliath, OKIN BPS won an RFP (Request for proposal) against several very large and wellknown providers.“ Approach, trust and perseverance appeared to be a more important “initiator” of success than just size or the renown of a brand. This fact made the management of OKIN BPS come to the conclusion that the world is ceasing to perceive borders and the cloud is a phenomenon, which will demolish the last remainders of these borders. And that even a small, less known company, may easily succeed in this unrestricted space.
“The other source of inspiration was our people. Their abilities, understanding of technologies and their interest in continuing their education. We knew that we would be able to rely on them and that they would appreciate our efforts to prepare a new career path for them. However, the faith that our HR team would be capable of finding new high-quality human resources, in spite of the current difficult situation on the job market, also played an important role,“ Smith commented.
HR and marketing, hand in hand
Of course, not everything was easy. At the time the project team was still small, people from OKIN BPS encountered the problem of convincing the market that they would be capable of completing the project successfully. That a large team based primarily on cloud services, would actually be created in Ostrava. This is why the company’s management acquired reinforcements – the team manager and several other colleagues, who provided a number of new ideas and were capable of finalising the project. Recruitment activities were subsequently reviewed and were linked with marketing, as a result of which the project was successfully realised according to the original plan.
The future belongs to the cloud
Not only our customers appreciate successful realisation of this not uncomplicated project. Our employees also consider it a success. Thanks to this they understand that the company’s management considers their future. It is clear that new and modern technologies will accompany OKIN BPS and its people in future decades and will determine what and who the company is and will be. The entire project is therefore also open to education, training and a number of career opportunities for employees.
“In my opinion the biggest commercial effect is the fact that we have people with the relevant abilities in our team and that OKIN BPS is a relevant partner to its customers,” Dan Smith concludes. “Non-commercial effects include the pride in managing to realise something so big, from the initial concept to successful operation. And this is an advantage not only now, but also in the future – it is an asset for us, our people and our customers.
