Wroclaw’s Software Houses Are Making a Statement in IT Outsourcing

I felt a great disturbance in the Force as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced - Obi-Wan Kenobi

That’s disruption right there. It’s leaving a mark on every single industry. And if you want to grow your business, you’ll need to embrace change and drive innovation.

IT Outsourcing is no exception.

Wroclaw IT outsourcing companies are turning their backs to old-school ways of doing business.

Come with me on a journey of agony and ecstasy, a journey where we’ll meet the businesses that want to write the future of IT outsourcing.

Wroclaw’s Assets for a New Era of Growth

First, let’s see what makes Wroclaw so sexy in the eyes of IT investors?

• Income tax exemptions: regional public aid is granted for supporting new investments and new jobs creation
• Nationwide leader in R&D centers: companies that are developing here Atos, BNY Mellon, Credit Suisse, HP, Nokia Solutions, SII, and Volvo
• Local talent pool: Wroclaw University of Science and Technology offers students 50+ programs. 45k+ students enrolled in technical subjects in 2015, according to PWC report.

• Wroclaw is the most attractive Polish city for relocation, as seen by native Polish employees, especially top specialists and managers. The criteria for this top referred to the aspect of the cities, career opportunities, employer activities, employer-institutions relationships.

• Lots of business and tech events (startup weekends, conferences etc)
• 60+ tech meetup groups, with members ranging from 100 to 1600+

Wroclaw's Software Houses

According to Stratistics, the IT Outsourcing market is expected to reach $481 billion by 2022.

The growth is fueled by new business models and new technologies: cloud computing, VR, AI, blockchain.

In our growth saga, we’ll try to figure out how Wroclaw software houses are moving a needle in IT outsourcing and if they have adapted their software solutions to the new market demands. Also, we’ll unfold their marketing strategies and analyze their employer branding.

Monterail - Delivering Meaningful Software

Website: https://www.monterail.com/

No. employees: 80+

Revenue: 3M+ (Owler estimations)

Technologies: Vue.js, Ruby on Rails, NodeJS, React, AngularJS,

Services: web development, custom software development, mobile app development, product design, IoT development

Verticals: business, healthcare, financial

Key clients: Merck, Solarflare, Cooleaf, Loyco, Gutwin, Tailored, University of Wroclaw, Xchanging, Teambook, WFC, Innovestment

Offices: Wroclaw (HQ)

Reviews: 4.8 - Clutch (13 reviews), 4.7 - Glassdoor (11 reviews)

Co-founders: Szymon Boniecki and Bartosz Rega

Featured two times in Deloitte’s CEE Tech Fast 50 in 2017 and 2016, Monterail is among Wroclaw ’s most dynamic software houses.

In our next blog post of the current series, we’ll go beyond the introduction, we’ll unfold the marketing secrets behind Monterail’s growth and understand how employer branding is built.

We’ll go deep intro content strategies, social media and community engagement.

But, until then, you can take a peek inside Monterail’s company culture here:

Droids on Roids - World-class Software House

Website: https://www.thedroidsonroids.com/

No. employees: 40+

Technologies: Android, iOS, Node.js, Ruby on Rails, React, MongoDB, Vue.js, Express.js

Services: mobile app development, web development, product design

Verticals: entertainment, business, consumer products and services

Key clients: Giphy, Oh Mi Bod, Skybuds, Loop, Electric Objects, LiveChat, Złote Wyprzedaże, Disney, Nestle, Unilever

Offices: Wroclaw (HQ), London, San Francisco

Reviews: 4.8 - Clutch (20 reviews)

CEO: Wojtek Szwajkiewicz

The company brags with being recognized by Forbes Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies from Poland. Droids On Roids is ranked in 5th place for Poland and 2nd for the Lower Silesia region, in the category “Income between 5-50 mln PLN”.

Their income has increased by 761% over the last 5 years (according to the same Forbes magazine) and they shook hands with big clients such as Nestle, Unilever or Disney.

They organize bootcamps and meetups and strive to build their employer brand.

They invest heavily in content, that’s why their monthly website traffic is around 75k (according to Similar Web), not bad for a B2B, right?

Tooploox - We Build Great Products

Website:https://www.tooploox.com

No. employees: 100+

Revenue: EUR 3M+ (2016, via Financial Times)

Technologies: Android, iOS, Python, React, C++

Services: AI, data science, blockchain, IoT, mobile app development, web development, product design

Verticals: education, tourism, health, e-commerce

Key clients: TEDx, Homebook, Happy Cow, Domodi

Offices: Wroclaw (HQ), Warsaw, Gdansk, Berlin

Reviews: 4.8 - Clutch (3 reviews), 4.6 - Glassdoor (23 reviews)

Co-founders: Pawel Solyga and Damian Walczak

Tooploox ranked 4th in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 CEE in 2017 with an impressive 2827% revenue growth.

With a 67% increase in employees in the last 2 years, the company has big plans. Looking at their open job positions Tooploox is embracing the AI future.

This is just a hint of our in depth-analysis, following this blog post. We’ll tackle employee branding, content and social media strategies, and try to figure out what lies behind their inspiring growth.

Furthermore, here’s an interview featuring Tooploox, Droidsonroids and Monterail’s founders/CEOs where you’ll understand their culture and what made these Wroclaw software houses grow.

Divante - eCommerce Software House

Website: https://divante.com

No. employees: 150+

Technologies: Magento, Angular, MongoDB, Node.js, Hadoop, Symfony 2, Progressive Web Apps, Modern JS, Vue.js, React

Services: B2B Commerce, eCommerce, Mobile, UX Design, Magento developers, Magento consulting, Magento hosting, Pimcore development, OroCommerce development, Frontend development

Verticals: automotive, energy, financial services, e-commerce, telekom

Key clients: Continental, ING Bank, Tchibo, Intersport, Santander, Knauf, T-Mobile

Offices: Wroclaw (HQ)

Reviews: 4.6 - Clutch (10 reviews), 4 - Glassdoor (1 review)

CEO: Tom Karwatka

So, let me repeat this once more: Continental, ING Bank, Tchibo, Intersport, Santander, Knauf, T-Mobile. Can you feel the envy?

With premium clients, monthly website traffic over 45k, and revenue growing a minimum of about 30% year on year, Divante is an inspiration.

It also got featured in Deloitte’s Fast 500 EMEA in 2017, with four-year revenue growth of 259%.

In our next blog post, we will look into reverse engineering Divante’s marketing and employer branding.

We’ll dive into how traffic acquisition and conversion rate optimization are managed.

If you want to learn more about how Divante managed to hack the enterprise sales process, you can watch Tom Karwatka speaking at the Web summit 2017:

Summing Up

Wrocław is a city which is becoming increasingly entrepreneurial. It started to evolve over time towards business based on specialized knowledge. The next step to be taken, based on PWC’s report, is an innovation-based economy.

Wrocław’s innovative potential is primarily the high-quality human capital as well as world class business representatives.

Wrocław’s specialization is primarily IT services, so there’s no surprise that companies like Monterail, Droids on Roids, Tooploox, and Divante have risen to Deloitte and Clutch tops.

Spoiler Alert!

Before going ahead with reading the rest of our Wroclaw software houses series, let me unfold some of my findings:

1. Don’t underestimate the power of open source. Take Divante for example, with its Open Loyalty and Vue Storefront it managed to impress Facebook and Whatsapp.
2. Long form content matters: case studies (Droids on Roids), research papers (Tooploox), reports (The State of Vue.js by Monterail), ebooks (Divante). Blog posts are merely for the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey, but you need to move the potential buyer down the funnel. And long-form content can do just that and establish you as a trustworthy and knowledgeable partner.
3. Choose your weapon, pick a niche. Tooploox goes with AI, Divante with e-commerce, Monterail established itself as the Vue.js guru.
4. Build your employer branding through social media channels and community involvement (Divante, Monterail, Tooploox, Droids on Roids)
5. Not enough talent pool? build it the goddamn pool: offer fellowships (like Tooploox), host workshops, hackathons (Divante), meetups or even hold your own conference (like Monterail’s Vue Conference)
6. Haven’t found a tech-skilled content writer, have your developers team involved in content writing! Monterail, the Droids on Roids, Tooploox and Divante are doing it.
7. Tools and marketing automation. Be it Hubspot (Monterail), Pipedrive (Tooploox), Hotjar(Tooploox) automation and marketing tools can save you time and money
8. Have a content marketing strategy: from content creation to promotion, be consistent and test a lot. Just check Monterail’s campaign on Vue.js, they’ve totally nailed it.

Now, let’s don't forget Wroclaw software houses are not alone. There's fierce competition arising from other Polish cities with potential for IT innovation: Poznan, Krakow, Warsaw are on the list too. 

Check their story in our amazing ebook: The Growth Marketing Secrets of Top European Software Houses - Poland Edition 2019.