People nowadays read online newspapers, write E-mails, pay bills online and try to protect their systems from computer viruses. Thus, we have somehow unnoticeably entered “The Matrix” and have long ago started to live in the virtual space. The IT industry which is the fastest developing business worldwide is behind all that.

The IT industry is the most stable sector of the Bulgarian economy at present which has remained untouched by the world economic crisis. It continues to grow by more than 10% on an annual basis, because it is mainly export-oriented. 2014 brings more optimism for the companies in the sector, because the interest towards Bulgarian IT products abroad is growing. New powerful companies continue to enter Bulgaria and the investments in the sector double each year. These trends will continue in 2014 as well. The main problem this field currently faces is the lack of highly-qualified experts. “We continue to follow plans made at the end of the 80’s when a certain number of engineers, economists and accountants had to be trained at the Universities”, says Yulian Maslyankov, Managing Director of an international IT company. “Currently the business does not need so many accountants for instance, it lacks It experts.”

With regard to the growth in our sector, it is mainly due to the fact that the It industry is export-oriented.

“Our company, which is part of the IT sector, registered revenue of EUR 2.5 million in 2013, of which under EUR 500 thousand on the local market. The rest of the revenue is due to trade with EU contractors”, says Yulian Maslyankov. “The IT industry seriously lacks resources, mainly human. This problem does not exist in Bulgaria only, it is a world problem. All countries are short of highly qualified experts who have to serve the growing needs of this industry and the ones of its clients. The main problem stems from the fact that the range of the clients of the IT industry is very wide-from corporate clients to ordinary people who use mobile phones. The shortage of a highly-qualified personnel leads to higher demand, respectively higher prices and profits. This is happening all across the globe at present.”

Why Bulgarian IT companies are so popular on the world market?

“This is due to several reasons. Firstly, this is due to the fact that we are part of the EU which lessens the administrative burden and makes payments, financial reports and invoicing much easier. Secondly, if speaking of the European market, we are very close to all European countries and provide good business opportunities for the outsourcing industry, because of the small time difference with the European countries. Last, but not least comes the price”

How IT industry plans to combat cyber crimes?

“This is a huge problem for our sector which is yet to become bigger”, contends Yulian Masliankov. “Many of the IT users do not realize this threat and never question the security of their personal data. I am positive that the companies will double the money spent on cyber security in the future. I expect serious development of the mobile applications for personal data security, password protection, etc, because people spend more and more time in the virtual space.”

A research of the European Commission made at the end of 2013 shows that the number of people who leave Facebook in order to protect their personal data is growing. Confidence turned out to be the biggest problem in the virtual space.

“This problem does not exist in the social networks only”, Mr Maslyankov adds. “When I recently bought an Android device, I got seriously worried when it started to show my exact location and advice me what should I do in this very moment, when I had to go to work, etc. This is why I turned off all services linked with location, etc, in order to protect my private life from Google. I would not forecast a serious withdrawal from the social networks, but I can surely say that each one of us will think twice before sharing or publishing something on the Internet”, concludes Yulian Maslyankov.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov