An interview with Jakub Głąb and Łukasz Kawulok, Vice Presidents of the Board at VSoft.
The interview was conducted by the editorial team of Puls Biznesu as part of the publication of the “Gazele Biznesu” ranking, in which VSoft is a laureate.
You have been creating IT solutions for the financial sector for over 27 years. In which areas do you support your clients?
JG: The financial sector is undoubtedly our strongest suit; everything started with finances. In this area, we implement the most projects and possess the most significant business and technical competencies. The financial sector also drives the development of technology, especially when working with major institutions. Debt collection, the broadly understood credit, scoring, rating, as well as insurance – these are the areas where we support our clients.
ŁK: We also have solutions for financial settlements, taxes, real estate, communication with external databases, and various-sized dedicated systems solving specific customer needs.
Which of your offered solutions are the most popular?
JG: Most of our systems are dedicated solutions created with a specific client and their needs in mind. Therefore, it’s easier to highlight the distinguishing features that clients pay attention to rather than pointing to specific systems. Over nearly three decades of delivering dedicated solutions for the financial sector, we have built several products that give us a competitive edge. These products were created based on technological and business knowledge – our company’s and our clients’. As a result, they are not detached from market realities and always respond to current business trends. One popular intangible product is our knowledge of building business and technological processes, e.g., in the integration or data migration area.
ŁK: It’s worth mentioning that we also provide clients with substantive support services, such as analytical work or consultations, both in business matters, like organizing business processes, and technical matters, concerning the choice of solution architecture. Therefore, it’s not straightforward to answer which solution or service is the most popular. Sometimes one, sometimes another, and often a combination of several solutions help achieve the final business goal. Our know-how and expertise gained from years of cooperation with the financial industry are certainly distinctive.
Among your clients are the largest Polish financial institutions, such as PKO Bank Polski S.A., PKO Leasing S.A., Alior Bank S.A., PeUF Sp. z o. o., Bank Ochrony Środowiska S.A., VeloBank S.A., BMW Financial Services, DNB Bank Polska S.A., Nest Bank S.A., Kasa Stefczyka, mBank S.A., Związek Banków Polskich, Biuro Informacji Kredytowej, and others. How did you earn their recognition?
JG: We always emphasize: people and experience. We have excellent programmers, analytical teams, and architects. We specialize in finance, and the projects we undertake allow us to develop extensively. We’ve learned to create products, and implement dedicated deployments, from small to truly large-scale, in many aspects: the number of business processes, data volume, or users.
Speed of action – that’s another characteristic that describes us well. We are “process-oriented,” meaning we have well-organized internal processes in almost every area of the company, allowing us to react quickly to customer needs.
Always, in addition to technological know-how, we provide clients with current business knowledge. We have completed many complex projects, all ending successfully. We gladly share our knowledge and engage in FinTech ecosystems.
After so many years of the company’s existence, references often open doors to new projects for us. We adhere to best practices in communication with clients and project implementation. Thanks to this, the contracts we sign last for many years, and we can boast a good reputation.
ŁK: I think what distinguishes us the most is precisely this long-term cooperation with clients, such as the mentioned 27 years with PKO. Clients appreciate such care and assistance in achieving their goals, leading to decisions on further collaborations – especially since large systems require continuous development in both technological and business terms. The culmination of these activities is framework agreements – a prepaid arrangement for programming work that ensures stability for us and provides clients with highly qualified “production capabilities” practically on demand.
What do clients value most in their relationship with a company like VSoft?
JG: For our clients, it’s important that we understand their problems and the specifics of the sector. Therefore, when building relationships, we strive to be perceived not only as software providers but primarily as business partners. We listen to our clients and care about good, mutual relationships. Internal and external communication is incredibly important to us. In most projects, we work closely with client teams for many months, even years. The client boundary often blurs; we work together and have one goal – mutual satisfaction.
ŁK: One of the mechanisms for building partner relationships is undoubtedly Financial Business Meetings. These are meetings organized by us, and attended by experts representing various institutions. Participants share experiences from similar operational activities conducted daily in their organizations. For example, the last meeting focused on implementing the BIK communication standard in the 4.0 format. In addition to us and representatives of BIK (Credit Information Bureau), specialists from banks participated, asking questions and learning about possible approaches to implementing this topic. Similar meetings have previously covered debt collection, credit, tax, and security topics. The intimacy of these meetings means that participants are more willing to share observations, concerns, and experiences. At the same time, there is a quick reflection on how we can help each other, by improving processes.
You have been growing organically, recording over 10% growth since the company’s inception, but you keep it under control. What is the business strategy behind this?
ŁK: Continuous stable development is more important than dynamic growth. We focus on continuous learning, discovering new things, and innovations. The value of the company is built by the people working in it. We are constantly looking for interesting technological and business solutions, we have internal initiatives, and we have implemented a development process through the so-called idea exchange, where anyone can submit a project that undergoes verification and a decision on implementation.
JG: Exactly – we don’t act impulsively; we make decisions thoughtfully and manage the company with discipline and transparency. The VSoft Board has a common vision, communicates cyclically, and plans further steps. The goals we set for ourselves and our employees are measurable and achievable, but also ambitious. We emphasize quality, which helps us conduct business both internally and externally. There is no room for doing something “just like that.” Each commitment is taken seriously, and we have processes and mechanisms built for it, which make things much easier. Of course, business development is certainly made possible by people, our associates and employees, whom we are fortunate to have.
In today’s world, cybersecurity is extremely important, especially in the financial services sector. How do you address this issue?
JG: Each of our systems meets specific security criteria. We provide solutions for the financial industry, and it’s obvious that they must meet high-security requirements. Our teams constantly monitor what is happening in this area in the market. We also use external companies, giving them our solutions for testing. If any vulnerabilities appear, we eliminate them, of course.
ŁK: There are many good practices in this area – from choosing technology to details of their implementation, from static code analysis mechanisms to dynamic penetration testing – we apply them all. Clients often have additional specific requirements. As we mentioned, we place a strong emphasis on the quality of our solutions, and security is an element of quality.
Successes in the Polish market must spark an appetite for more. What are VSoft’s plans for the future? Does it involve expansion?
ŁK: From a business perspective, the goal for the coming years is indeed to go global. Our directions include further development of business in the Software Solutions area – dedicated projects and products, as well as in the low-code platform VSoft archITekt – not only locally, in Poland but also abroad. Our targets are the UAE, USA, Africa, and, of course, Europe. In VSoft, we have found an effective operating model and know how to compete with companies in the Polish market; now it’s time to conquer new markets.
JG: From a technological perspective, we want to focus on the development of modern technologies, including AI, and further development of the mentioned low-code platform. In this area, we strongly rely on knowledge and experience exchanged with clients but also with students from technical universities, such as AGH.
Soon, most financial institutions will be subject to non-financial reporting obligations. Banking is going green; are you participating in this process?
We definitely support this direction in all three ESG areas. In the company, we have implemented activities related to energy efficiency, and pro-ecological initiatives in various aspects, as well as in the social and internal order areas.
Our systems implemented in banks enable the financing of entities and investments related to increasing electromobility, infrastructure modernization, purchase of energy-efficient machines, renewable energy installations, and building term modernization. Additionally, we offer solutions in various models, including in the Cloud, and as confirmed, it has a direct impact, e.g., on reducing CO2 emissions. We propose solutions to clients that can help them become greener, limit, for example, business trips, and support the transformation of the economy, while also introducing environmentally friendly actions into their own business. This year, we will be even more involved in this topic, which you will undoubtedly notice on our social media channels and website.
