Acquisition of Zilker Technology Brings EY Team 60 IT Experts in Serbia – Leaders Reveal Which New Services Clients Can Count On

With the acquisition of Zilker Technology, the EY company has expanded its team by 60 IT experts in Serbia and over 350 globally. We talked to Dusan Tomic, Head of Advisory and Transactions of EY in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, and Snjezana Bukelic, Senior Manager for Business Consulting at EY in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, about the importance of this acquisition for both teams, new services that EY will offer to its clients and potentials in the local market.

(Photo: EY/ Photo Studio Nikolašević)

Dusan Tomic: Since the crisis started we have been investing in our people and our team

– This is the first major investment of EY in Serbia and I am very proud that we did this in the moments of great economic uncertainty. We believe that responses to the crisis should be decisive, brave and motivating to our team. We are a rare example of a consulting company in these areas that hasn't laid off people or cut salaries since the beginning of the Covid-19 epidemic. On the contrary, we have been investing in our people and our team all this time. Our team at the Business Consulting Department has more than 100 professionals at the moment in Belgrade alone.

The idea behind this acquisition is a response to the needs of our clients and the market. The clients expect innovative and integrated solutions from us, not partial services and products. The times when all the consultants did was to produce hundreds of pages of a report in paper form, after which the client did the job of implementing our advice on their own or with other consultants, are over. Clients today expect integral solutions, most often packaged in the form of modern technological tools or accompanied by them. That is why, for years now, EY has been investing in people and teams that are capable of delivering integral and modern solutions for the current needs and problems, keeping up with the latest technologies – Dusan Tomic says.

What will the support of Zilker's team mean for the operations so far?

– Zilker brings innovations, agility, knowledge of modern technological solutions, and EY brings business knowledge, quality standards, organization, the market. That is a great combination that will encourage us to go even further into the big and complex transformative projects with our clients. We always need to be two to three steps ahead of our clients and the market in order to make our offer current. I believe that, with this acquisition, we have equipped ourselves to meet such challenges.

In what way will you expand your service portfolio?

– By combining technological and business knowledge, we aim to offer our clients integral solutions in the field of online user experience, both B2B and B2C, that is, in the fields which have become especially important during the Covid-19 period. That includes e-commerce, order management, integration of heterogeneous systems, web content management, web marketing, cloud solutions, development of mobile apps and/or a wide range of web-based digital apps etc.

Our services will not be oriented to Serbia and the Balkans exclusively, but to a much wider geographic area, considering the large international experience of EY and Zilker, especially in North America and Europe.

(Photo: EY)

Snjezana Bukelic: Together, Zilker and EY teams will offer the market a unique ability of integration of business technologies into a whole

– Zilker is a very technically and technologically oriented company, and EY is oriented to harmonizing the operations and the technology for its clients, so we are sure that the skills and the experiences of the Zilker team will complement the EY offer in multiple ways. In the long term, we expect our, now common, clients to benefit in multiple ways from this integration, because it gives us an opportunity to be a leading partner in the market in launching and implementing projects of transformation of business and technological solutions for our clients.

We have also recognized the deep matching of the business priorities and company culture, which we both foster. Since our first meeting, it has been obvious that both companies recognize the importance of the employees being happy and motivated. We wanted to find a company that fosters a true team spirit and atmosphere of family relations, the way we at Zilker believe is the best, and that is what we've found at EY. The most exciting part of this acquisition is the accelerated growth that it will enable not just for the company but for each individual as well. As a large organization, EY is an excellent environment which offers a multitude of various ways to make progress in a career, the possibility of diversification and acquiring new and advanced knowledge and skills.

Which new services can the current EY clients expect?

– Zilker Technology has joined EY in the USA, Serbia and India, helping increase EY's global capabilities in the fields of e-commerce, digital technologies and cloud. Together, the teams of Zilker and EY will offer the market a unique ability of integrating business technologies into a whole, all to the end of improving the experience of end-users and fortifying the brand's identity.

Zilker Technology is a consulting company which helps clients get business value from their technology-related investments. We create and deliver to our clients specific solutions based on various, globally recognized and recommended vendor platforms (IBM, HCL, Magento, Adobe...). Our practice is oriented to a wide range of general, but also very specific, custom-designed solutions in the fields of e-commerce, order management, integration of heterogeneous systems, web content management, web marketing, cloud solutions, development of mobile apps and/or a wide range of web-based digital apps etc. Zilker has experience working with clients from various industries, energy, insurance and healthcare, retail and wholesale... We develop their web pages, mobile apps, maintain their production systems, we are their integrators and trusted partners.

We are truly excited to get together, pool together the various experiences and, together with our colleagues from EY, deliver project to our clients which will bring added value to their businesses and transform them without a doubt. We are convinced in our success and that is why we want to participate together in the process of transformation of our clients and create a better business environment!

What is the expertise of Zilker's team? Which services do you specialize in?

– As a partner with years of experience in working with some of the leading world companies from various fields (finance, retail, state institutions, technological companies), with over 10,000+ projects in our portfolio, we specialize in the preparation of digital solutions.

We are a team of 350+ professionals, spread across the world, which have mastered skills from all phases of the SDLC process, including business analysts, UI/UX designers, solution architects, developers of various profiles (Java, PHP, JavaScript), cloud, DevOps and infrastructure engineers and administrators, testers (functional and performance testing). In Belgrade, there are 60+ of us, with over 500 years of relevant IT experience. Strategic partnerships have been and remain very important to Zilker's growth.

The multidisciplinary approach, with professional excellence, is what makes us special, and it is also our formula of success!

What is the potential in the local market?

– E-commerce is flourishing everywhere in the world, with great sales figures in the market, making a progress compared to traditional commerce. An increasing number of people, both potential entrepreneurs and those that already operate in the market, and an increasing number of companies are thinking about how to join this development trend, which has been present for a long time in the world and is increasingly present here too.

According to the results of a survey of electronic commerce, carried out with the help of the Ministry of Trade of Serbia and USAID, the volume of e-commerce in Serbia is growing with each year. Last year, it amounted to USD 317 million, and this year it is expected to be at USD 354 million. The expected rate of the growth of e-commerce is 9.6%, and the value of e-trade in 2023 could reach USD 510 million. Of all the companies in Serbia that sell products and services, nearly three quarters offer online sales. Considering that everyday users of the internet make up two thirds of the populace of Serbia, it is more than clear that there's considerable potential for Serbian companies to increase their presence in local, regional and global markets. On the other hand, launching an e-commerce business requires a lot of knowledge and skills – from IT knowledge, cloud, integration, through economy, marketing, to being familiar with the legislative process. All entrepreneurs, individuals or companies that are entering this area may find the knowledge required to be more than they can master in a reasonable time period, and the launching of a website could therefore be a challenge that they are not able to meet adequately at the moment.

That is why we are here, the global EY family with our team of experienced IT experts in all fields, to help individuals an companies to master those challenges as quickly as possible and to present themselves to the local, regional and global e-commerce market!

Ernst & Young d.o.o. Beograd

EY

Zilker Technology

Dušan Tomić

Snježana Bukelić

acquisition

business consulting

IT company

Covid 19

coronavirus

integrated solutions

online user experience

eCommerce

order management

integration of heterogeneous systems

web content management

web marketing

cloud solutions

development of mobile apps

IBM

HCL

Magento

Adobe

energy

insurance

healthcare

retail

wholesale

internet sales

online sales