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News & Events News International Markets
:: International Markets
BNamericas spoke this week with the international markets director of Brazilian software developer CPqD, a non-profit company that nonetheless is aggressively pursuing expansion to foreign markets.
BNamericas: What is the history of CPqD?
Filho: We were the technology unit of [the former state telecoms monopoly] Telebras. When Telebras was privatized in 1998, the government decided to turn us into a private foundation. All our revenues are reinvested into the company, so we have no profits.
The decision was based on an article in Brazil's General Telecommunications Law, which said that the research and development unit of Telebras should be preserved and not privatized.
We are a services center, where the main portion of our revenues comes from software. We make business and operations support systems (BOSS) for telecoms companies. Some of our main solutions are for billing, customer care, and optical supervision. We want to help telcoms companies with their problems, which include cost reduction, making the companies more agile, and to automate processes.
Since 1990 we started making this type of software. We were created in 1976, when the focus was telecoms equipment, because Brazil didn't have much of a telecoms network back then. In 1998 we started to look at the IT market, but our research still had more of a telecoms angle. Our main goal back then was simply to maintain market share. We did that, but also started to expand to other sectors, such as utilities, petroleum and financial services. [Brazil's state oil company] Petrobras is a client of ours, for example.
We have also started to change our core business, [adjusting our research to fit with the new realities created by the] convergence of voice and data services.
BNamericas: What made you want to expand business outside Brazil?
Filho: In February 2000 we began to realize we had much more potential, and opened an office in the US, in Silicon Valley. Today that operation has seven or eight people. The following year we set up some operations elsewhere in Latin America, through a reseller network, to sell our software solutions. We have sold to Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia. In Europe we have sold to Portugal, Spain and Germany. In 2002 we expanded to Africa, to South Africa, as well as the [ex-Portuguese colonies] Mozambique and Angola. But our international revenues are still very small.
The focus for our non-Brazilian operations is still telecoms, because that is where we have more experience.
BNamericas: What is your annual revenue?
Filho: We published our last annual results in March this year, which was 188mn reais (about US$62mn today). In terms of net equity, we are growing 6% annually, on average.
BNamericas: Who are your competitors?
Filho: For billing systems, Mdox and Convergys, and Oracle, for workforce management.
BNamericas: What are your priorities for 2003?
Filho: We want to consolidate our distributor network in Europe, Africa and across Latin America. We have 10 distributors in Europe today. Our priority markets in Europe include Portugal, Spain and Germany, and in Latin America, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. In Africa, they are the Portuguese-language countries.
Consolidating this network requires training these channels in CPqD products, which are basically software, and more exactly, business and operations support systems. We want to develop our plan of action for each market jointly with our local distributors, to ensure that they are compatible with the respective potentials and demands of each market. And particularly, we want to boost our current number of distributors in Africa.
We also want to certify our software according to more rigid standards, like CMM. About half of our products already have level II.
[Editor's note: The capability maturity model (CMM) judges the maturity of the software processes of an organization, and identifies the key practices that are required to increase the maturity of these processes. CMM was developed by the software community with stewardship by the Software Engineering Institute.]
BNamericas: What is your strongest product?
Filho: We are Brazil's leader for business and operations support systems, beating out [e-business software providers] SAP and JD Edwards. We have about 20 different BOSS products, including billing, workforce management, IP management and optical supervision.
ABOUT THE COMPANY:
CPqD was the R&D unit of Brazil's former state telecoms system Telebras. When Telebras was broken up and privatized in 1998, CPqD was converted into a private not-for-profit foundation. The company manages 1,100 employees at its headquarters in Campinas one of Sao Paulo state's largest cities.
Fonte: News Business America - By Karen Keller
8/8/2003
BNamericas: What is the history of CPqD?
Filho: We were the technology unit of [the former state telecoms monopoly] Telebras. When Telebras was privatized in 1998, the government decided to turn us into a private foundation. All our revenues are reinvested into the company, so we have no profits.
The decision was based on an article in Brazil's General Telecommunications Law, which said that the research and development unit of Telebras should be preserved and not privatized.
We are a services center, where the main portion of our revenues comes from software. We make business and operations support systems (BOSS) for telecoms companies. Some of our main solutions are for billing, customer care, and optical supervision. We want to help telcoms companies with their problems, which include cost reduction, making the companies more agile, and to automate processes.
Since 1990 we started making this type of software. We were created in 1976, when the focus was telecoms equipment, because Brazil didn't have much of a telecoms network back then. In 1998 we started to look at the IT market, but our research still had more of a telecoms angle. Our main goal back then was simply to maintain market share. We did that, but also started to expand to other sectors, such as utilities, petroleum and financial services. [Brazil's state oil company] Petrobras is a client of ours, for example.
We have also started to change our core business, [adjusting our research to fit with the new realities created by the] convergence of voice and data services.
BNamericas: What made you want to expand business outside Brazil?
Filho: In February 2000 we began to realize we had much more potential, and opened an office in the US, in Silicon Valley. Today that operation has seven or eight people. The following year we set up some operations elsewhere in Latin America, through a reseller network, to sell our software solutions. We have sold to Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia. In Europe we have sold to Portugal, Spain and Germany. In 2002 we expanded to Africa, to South Africa, as well as the [ex-Portuguese colonies] Mozambique and Angola. But our international revenues are still very small.
The focus for our non-Brazilian operations is still telecoms, because that is where we have more experience.
BNamericas: What is your annual revenue?
Filho: We published our last annual results in March this year, which was 188mn reais (about US$62mn today). In terms of net equity, we are growing 6% annually, on average.
BNamericas: Who are your competitors?
Filho: For billing systems, Mdox and Convergys, and Oracle, for workforce management.
BNamericas: What are your priorities for 2003?
Filho: We want to consolidate our distributor network in Europe, Africa and across Latin America. We have 10 distributors in Europe today. Our priority markets in Europe include Portugal, Spain and Germany, and in Latin America, Mexico, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay. In Africa, they are the Portuguese-language countries.
Consolidating this network requires training these channels in CPqD products, which are basically software, and more exactly, business and operations support systems. We want to develop our plan of action for each market jointly with our local distributors, to ensure that they are compatible with the respective potentials and demands of each market. And particularly, we want to boost our current number of distributors in Africa.
We also want to certify our software according to more rigid standards, like CMM. About half of our products already have level II.
[Editor's note: The capability maturity model (CMM) judges the maturity of the software processes of an organization, and identifies the key practices that are required to increase the maturity of these processes. CMM was developed by the software community with stewardship by the Software Engineering Institute.]
BNamericas: What is your strongest product?
Filho: We are Brazil's leader for business and operations support systems, beating out [e-business software providers] SAP and JD Edwards. We have about 20 different BOSS products, including billing, workforce management, IP management and optical supervision.
ABOUT THE COMPANY:
CPqD was the R&D unit of Brazil's former state telecoms system Telebras. When Telebras was broken up and privatized in 1998, CPqD was converted into a private not-for-profit foundation. The company manages 1,100 employees at its headquarters in Campinas one of Sao Paulo state's largest cities.
Fonte: News Business America - By Karen Keller
8/8/2003
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- 10/02/2010 Paper from CPqD receives Award at International Event
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- 09/02/2010 CPqD addresses issues related to Knowledge-based Economy during event on Innovation and Technology for People with Disabilities
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