For the company, rebranding should come as a breath of fresh air to promote further expansion. It is already putting some major business plans into practice to the west of the Czech border and with the European Commission, and is also placing its bets on cybersecurity, among other things. After all, the rising number of attacks has already forced almost everyone to open their eyes and take steps to improve the security of their systems and networks.

What will the outside world, meaning your clients, gain from rebranding?

For clients, this means that they will be doing business with one brand, one company. It will be one legible, transparent and clearly structured brand. It might not seem like it from the outside, but more of our entities are to be found in pretty much all of our larger Czech corporate clients, such as large banks, telecommunications companies or industrial enterprises. They will now find it easier to work with us. We expect to see an even greater effect with foreign clients and, for example, with the European Commission. There, the need for one strong and transparent partner is even greater. 

The first company in the group, Autocont, was already established back in 1990. It’s probably not easy to change one’s identity after so many years.

It's a bit of a painful process for all of us; there's a lot of nostalgia there. But I think we’re all aware that we need to draw a line under the past and step into a new era. That’s what both life and business are all about. Aricoma will give everyone greater power and the ability to enter into contracts with larger clients.

With all this, are you talking about some new or different type of contracts and challenges?

That’s mainly true of the foreign markets, where we expect the rebranding process to put even more wind in our sails. Unlike the Czech Republic or Slovakia, our name is not that well known out there yet, and our goal is to change that. Growth won't be that rapid, but we’re already seen as a challenger, and we want to emphasise and build on that. In the last year alone, we’ve managed to strengthen our position in Belgium, with the European Commission, and we’ve made progress in other countries as well. So far, these have mainly been orders for regional and central state administration and industry. It’s not that we are working on the same projects abroad as in the Czech Republic. Cybersecurity is seeing a significant boom, for instance.

Is it doing well because you're good at it, or because it’s more of a topical issue now?

Both. We think we’re really good at cybersecurity and so we’re in demand in the market as the number of threats and actual attacks are increasing. The entire segment is growing and will certainly continue to do so for some time, and companies have already learned to take a more comprehensive approach to threats. It starts with good defence against hacker attacks; this forms the basis of every bank, telecommunications company or any entity that manages some sort of infrastructure. We carry out a lot of penetration tests, where we take on the role of ethical white hat hackers and try to break into a company. We often succeed, and this is extremely valuable information for our customers - it's like how a child learns; you feel the greatest motivation to take action when you experience the consequences for yourself. Because if, let’s say, you have a manufacturing company and someone encodes the software for your production line, you can't produce anything, while at the same time you’ve got a contractual commitment to your customers; it's a scary situation, and can sometimes be a fatal blow. These stories don't get published that much, but there really are a lot of them.

Can you give an estimation of how many successful attacks there are that we don’t hear about?

I’d say that a hundredth of the incidents are made public, almost nothing, but I have no data to prove this. An acquaintance of mine from the police once told me that if I knew what went on in the street, I’d never set foot in it again. I have a similar analogy for cyberspace - if people knew what went on there, they’d throw their laptop on the ground, trample it to pieces and go back to using paper. That’s why we consider training people to be a very promising area in cybersecurity. So that they know how to behave, are more immune to things such as phishing and ever more sophisticated attacks in general, as not everything can be kept secure by the company's infrastructure. It’s also about people.

Yet companies pay huge sums for you to test and set up security for them. Aren’t they disillusioned when something happens anyway?

It’s crucial to come to terms with the fact that it’s not possible to prevent everything, and we never will be able to. When we perform all the possible tests and set companies up properly, the result is that we really do significantly reduce the likelihood of a successful attack. But there is no such thing as zero risk. It might be possible to completely rule out attacks if the development of technology was brought to a total halt. After all, even if you hold a fire drill every other week, you can't guarantee that a fire won't break out. But you can ensure that when one does start, you’ll put it out faster and the damage will be limited.

Let's move on to another major topic, contracts for the European Commission. A year ago, you said you "had your foot in the door" there. Any further progress there?

Now I'd say we've got half our body across the threshold. We worked guerilla-style on the first contracts we won there. Now, we already have a professional team in place, which is a very credible partner for our colleagues from the Commission. It’s an international team; we’ve managed to employ colleagues who have experience with the Commission, and we plan to continue this trend, as it’s a highly knowledge-based matter. Not only in terms of the technologies, but also the processes. The Commission is a huge body, transparent yet highly complex, and we need the know-how to make the most of the opportunities. I personally am glad that software development, for instance, is also going well for us, with us supplying the development capacities of dozens of people. 

What have you learned from the contracts for the European Commission?

From a business point of view, the European Commission is very organised, pragmatic, with a transparent and fair way of awarding public contracts. I don't want to offend anyone and I know one can’t generalise, but it shows far more courage in choosing the absolute best suppliers for contracts. In our country, I’m sorry to say, we see that they very often "compete for the price", in the worst possible way. The result of this is what they call the price per "man-day", which leads to various dumping approaches and certainly does not enable them to select the best partners who will do the best work on the contract. In general, I’d very much like to see the state administration retrospectively evaluating the specific price of specific projects with regard to the original assignment.

How does the European Commission do things better?

It’s more pragmatic and transparent. I am especially saddened by the reputation the IT sector has acquired in connection with government business. I think this is most unfair. For example, we often hear that some government-related clients have a "vendor lock-in" situation, meaning that the same companies have been operating there for a long time and the state can’t get rid of them. Yet the companies aren’t to blame for this, the client is. I’d like to help dispel this myth, as we need to be frank about it: we haven't done much in the last ten years in terms of digitising public administration or making it cheaper. And I’m not talking about one specific government, but about many of the previous ones, too.

You’re trying to talk about problems with contracting authorities in state administration. How, specifically?

We often point out how important it is to bring about the digital transformation of the Czech state in order to save costs and be competitive with other countries. We are only achieving this by taking tiny steps at a time, as it's really not about information technology; in particular, the transformation requires properly drafted and simplified legislation and the related processes. I’d recommend that everyone ask their politicians not only how many laws they’ve passed, but especially how many they have repealed. Because our society is becoming more complex, and this is unnecessary and dangerous. We have to make things simpler. In general, true digital state administration is not only about the electronic identity card that is currently being put in place (which is perfectly fine); it is more characterised by the fact that people can easily manage their state-related affairs from the comfort of their home, quickly and ideally cheaply.

Do you mean cheap as involving a small number of people?

Yes, ideally. Why do you introduce information technology into businesses? To make production cheaper, more efficient, more flexible towards customers. It should work the same way with state administration, it’s just that few people realise this. Entrepreneurs know that if they don’t make their company more efficient, it won’t survive, but the state has far greater inertia. I still believe in a state that is efficient, digital and citizen-friendly. It’ll take a long time, but I believe that we’ll get there one day. Because it's essential, and I'm afraid we're going to see some very unpleasant consequences before too long.