Ziarul Financiar, 2022: Tremend in a column on regional growth, value added and policy

Opinion column by Sorin Pâslaru, Ziarul Financiar, January 2022, days after the announcement of the acquisition of Tremend by Publicis. Subject: regional wages in Romania and attracting investment. Thesis: foreign investment alone does not bring higher pay to the counties where it dominates. Tremend, co-founded by Ioan Cocan and me, is the example of a local company built on high value added. No words from me.

§Tremend as the example

The two founders, graduates of the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers at Politehnica Bucharest, sold the company they founded in Bucharest to the international advertising group Publicis. Tremend had 650 employees in 2021 and sold software platforms to retail and banking multinationals. 60% of revenue came from exports. Revenue grew a hundredfold in ten years, from RON 1.5 million to RON 150 million in 2021, with about 100 new hires every year. The plan under Publicis: 2,500 IT specialists in Romania.

Sorin Pâslaru’s explanation for how the two got to sit at the table with companies with revenues of tens of billions of euros: they brought high value added products, understood what the client wanted and delivered what the market wanted.

§A question for the government

Sorin Pâslaru asks in the headline whether any minister called Ioan Cocan and me to ask how to make a Tremend in Oradea, Botoșani and Constanța too. In the body he asks whether the prime minister or the labour minister called to congratulate us and ask what we needed to build ten more such companies. Did anyone ask the dean of the Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers what it would take to have “1,000 more Cocans and Hangans” („încă 1000 de Cocani şi Hangani”), not only in Bucharest but also in Giurgiu, Botoșani and Oradea? Conclusion, addressed to the government: bring investors or grow local companies.