Founded in 2011, AutSoft Zrt. is a company with a strong university background and is engaged in custom software development, product and service develop- ment, user experience optimisation, education and research and development, among other things. The latter is not so surprising, as the company was founded by the staff of the BME Department of Automation and Applied Informatics, in a model where the University is also an owner. When the legal background changed, BME left the company.

“What sets us apart from our competitors is our unique knowledge base and technological focus. Over the past ten years, we have built our team from the best students and researchers of this excellent department, with a strong focus on the implementation and commercialisation of innovative ideas that emerge during university education”, said Dóra Cseresnyés, CEO, who joined AutSoft at the end of 2019 and, since 1 April 2020, has been leading the company, which boasts several product concepts and two proprietary products. InfoHUB is a native mobile application that offers communities and organisations a new communication channel through dynamic and instant content sharing, while SensorHUB is an Industry 4.0 production optimisation platform for tablets and factory displays, capable of measuring the productivity of production lines and the production machines on them and displaying the listed data in real time.

According to Dóra Cseresnyés, the key to success is outstand- ing technological knowledge. The company’s employees have specific competences in 3D, AR, VR, Data Science, artificial intelligence, and are able to implement almost any digitalisa- tion solution, be it Mobile, Java, or .NET based, or modern web frameworks, in the financial, healthcare, logistics or industrial sector.

“When a customer comes to us with a problem, we can pro- vide a unique and complete solution, and sometimes we even have to hold developers back from developing a Jaguar if the customer wants a good Skoda”, noted the CEO, who said 2020 was a challenging year, though AutSoft and its employees took the obstacles very well. In IT, the transition to a home office  was not a problem and, in the few months after the coronavi- rus hit, staff performance increased significantly, with everyone trying to make the most of the situation, and this drove the company forward.

“Some people say the winners of the pandemic are the IT companies, but I always reject that. The winner of the digital- isation boom brought about by the pandemic is society as a whole. The IT sector has indeed been less affected by the crisis than other branches. In the first half of the year, we were able to continue the projects we had already started, and although we experienced some slowdown among our customers in the second half of the year, this was only temporary. The reason is simple: while digitisation used to be a competitive advantage for companies, by the end of the pandemic it had practically become a condition for staying in the market”, said Dóra Cseresnyés, adding that last year they achieved 26% growth, which is very good, but she stressed that 2020 was not easy for them either.

Over the past ten years, the company has grown organically, using its own capital, and has taken advantage of R&D funding opportunities, but is also open to external funding for the future. According to the CEO, AutSoft can be attractive to potential investors in many ways, as the company’s unique op- erations are complemented by skilled management. In 2018, they started to lay the foundations of a large company model, when they transformed from a limited liability company into a private company limited by shares. Today they employ the best in the profession.

However, she cited the transformation of the company as one of the biggest challenges of the past decade. While manage- ment was aware that this step was essential for a successful future, continued and dynamic growth required rigorous and decisive action.

“Even now, some colleagues who have been with us for a long time may nostalgically recall the days when we were a small, close-knit company”, she says, but she believes

transformation was essential for a sustainable growth strategy. Dóra Cseresnyés said that Covid’s appearance was more of an opportunity, and that focusing on strengths is what drives a company forward, and now everyone needed to do their best. At first, they thought teleworking would not last, expecting 2-3 months, but then it became clear that they needed to adapt  to hybrid working. It is important, however, to maintain the power of personal and collaborative work in brainstorming and innovation.

Asked what she would be happy with as CEO in the next few years, she said the short-term goal was to maintain the growth rate. They expect a 20%-25% growth for this year. Their medi- um-term goal is to expand their own product range and enter the international market.

“We are a medium-sized company that is capable of satisfying the software needs of large multinational companies to a high standard. The Hungarian market is small for this company size and capacity, so we think we need to go abroad. We see a greater need and demand for technological excellence, es- pecially in Western Europe, and there is an openness to more innovative solutions rather than simpler ones, even if they cost more to implement”, the CEO explained, adding that this is included in the next 3-year plan. They are open to different forms of collaboration in order to strengthen and stabilise their international presence.

“We’re proud of our organic growth, but it isn’t our goal to operate like this in the next ten years”, she added.