History
Proact was founded in 1994, when the Open Network Environment business area was acquired from StorageTek. Below is a summary of the most important events over the last three years.
2009
Also 2009 was a record year for Proact – in spite of the uncertainty as to how the financial markets would develop and the general financial downturn. The company’s turnover and also its profit before tax grew by 20 % to SEK 1 253 million and SEK 60 million respectively, which is the company’s best result ever. According to independent research company IDC the markets where Proact is active contracted by 1 %. In other words, with its growth Proact reinforced its position and gained market shares. The public sector has during 2009 become the company’s biggest market.
Over the year Proact started its own finance company Proact Finance. The company offers to the market financing solutions incorporating everything Proact has to offer, which includes both systems (hardware and software) and services (consultancy, support, operation and “Storage-on-demand”). Proact has acquired the client base and existing support contracts from Orchestra Nordic in Denmark.
Recruitment of new staff is an important factor for continuing growth. In spite of the general financial downturn over the year 38 new employees have been taken on.
Business in the Netherlands is showing a positive result already in its second year of trading 2009. The earnings performance in Estonia and Latvia has been affected over the entire year by the exceptionally low levels of economic activity in these countries.
2008
... was a record year for Proact. For the first time in the company’s history, annual turnover exceeded SEK 1 billion – an increase of 21 per cent on 2007! We also saw record profits that year, with a profit before tax in excess of SEK 50 million. Sweden and Finland demonstrated the biggest improvement in profits. The subsidiaries in the Netherlands and Estonia, newly established over the year, both showed positive results over the fourth quarter. The acquisition of Xperion in Norway had an effect by broadening the company’s range and increasing its customer base.
Recruitment of new staff is an important factor for continuing growth, and over the year 81 new employees were taken on.
Uncertainty on the financial markets in the latter part of 2008 had only a limited effect on the company’s operations. Clients’ purchasing behaviour had changed; from having been driven by investments in new technology in order to handle greater complexity and increasing storage volumes, to focusing mainly on opportunities to reduce costs.
2007
2007 was characterised by growth and profitability. Most of the group countries demonstrated improvements in results and the company was well equipped to face 2008. Work on further structuring and streamlining of the company freed up in-house staff, which improved the ways in which we approached the market.
At the end of the year, a decision was made to start up business in the Netherlands via a newly established subsidiary.
Recruitment of new staff is an important factor for continuing growth, and over the year 53 new employees were taken on. The company’s turnover amounted to SEK 865 million.