GRANTEE SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW: ANETA ANTOVA PESEVA, PRESIDENT OF MASIT — ICT CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (MACEDONIAN ASSOCIATION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY)
Aneta Antova Peseva is an Entrepreneur, Innovator, Mentor and Philanthropist, Co-founder and co-owner and CEO of ULTRA Computing/Unet Group, Honorary Consul of Canada in North Macedonia, President of MASIT — ICT Chamber of Commerce (Macedonian Association of Information Technology), National Representative of International Inner Wheel and First District Chairman of District 255 Macedonia, Mentor for the Macedonian Mentoring Network and Invest for the Future program. She graduated in Electronic Engineering of Computer Science and Automation at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering — University Center for Mathematics and Technical Sciences — St. Cyril and Methodius — Skopje.
Since its establishment in 2000, the Chamber of Commerce for Information and Communication Technologies — MASIT represents the Macedonian ICT industry and promotes the ICT companies’ business interests to promote and develop the ICT industry and business environment. How did it all start? What is the real story behind MASIT?
Yes, we were founded in 2000, first as an IT Association. In 2007 we became the ICT chamber of commerce representing companies operating a wide range of ICT products and services in North Macedonia. Since its establishment, MASIT operates as a non-profit and voluntary institution and has provided its member companies with access to information, education, legal advice, cooperation, networking, and promotion at domestic, regional, and international levels in the ICT industry.
The main reason why MASIT was formed stemmed from the need to improve the market environment in which the ICT industry operates and develops. MASIT has become the enabler for the growth of the Macedonian ICT businesses: They are now recognized domestically and abroad. We are very proud that we have existed for 20 years on the market with more than 100 member companies, numerous projects implemented, and many partnerships have been established through the years. Today MASIT is the voice and resource of a competitive ICT sector, supporting an innovation-driven economy and a key contributor to the nation’s prosperity.
The ICT industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in Europe and an important contributor to almost every economy’s growth. Based on some European indicators, Western Balkans countries are severely lagging behind the EU countries in digitalization. How can Western Balkan countries close this gap? What are your insights and recommendations?
Digitalization is essential for any country’s rapid economic growth and progress, economy, and any company. The digitalization process means the use of digital technology to change the business models. Digital transformation brings concrete changes to the business, develops new business models, and increases market competitiveness. The ICT sector has excellent growth potential, and with appropriate incentives, there is potential for creating overall economic growth.
Technology is growing rapidly as the pressure to implement new technology develops. Companies already realize that digitalization is necessary to survive in today’s world — it is no longer an option but an essential need for all companies, regardless of size and sector. Additionally, digitalization is a continuing process, and to be successful, you need professionals, dedicated employees that will follow the company’s strategy and technology.
Companies face the challenges of digital transformation daily and the need to use digital technologies to accelerate their growth and innovate processes, products, and services to adapt to new generations of consumers. For Macedonian companies to be more competitive in the European markets, all work processes need to switch to a digital platform, whether projects, products, marketing, or sales. Macedonian companies and companies from Western Balkan countries’ real challenge is to decide which of the new technologies will work in the best interest to improve business operations. On the other hand, it is crucial not to forget that digitalization is a continuous process. To be successful, you need professionals, patience, and dedicated employees to follow the company’s digitization strategy and technology. This is my personal opinion and a recommendation to the Western Balkan companies.
As one of the USAID EDGE grantees, together with your partners from Kosovo and Serbia, you are implementing the Digitalization Path project to support the SMEs from Kosovo, North Macedonia Serbia in their digital transformation activities to improve companies’ operations. What kind of activities is being implemented to achieve the goals?
The Project Digitalization path is a 15-month project funded by the USAID Economic Development, Governance and Enterprise Growth Project and implemented by MASIT (North Macedonia) in partnership with STIKK (Kosovo) and ICT Net (Serbia). The main goal of this project is to support SMEs from the targeted value chains (fresh and processed fruit and vegetables, apparel and textiles, wood processing, and tourism) from North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Serbia in their activities to better understand and get familiar with the benefits of the digital transformation. Analyze their current level of digital transformation and create Digital Transformation Strategies identifying and prioritizing needed IT solutions and financially supporting them in purchasing and implementing IT solutions to improve their business activities.
The main project activities are:
· Benefits of digital transformation through newsletters, brochures, and events;
· Support companies from supported sectors in creating Digital transformation strategies;
· Support companies from supported sectors in purchasing and implementing ICT solutions (50% or up to 3000 USD support).
What are the benefits for MASIT and its partners using this regional approach, implementing a regional project in three Western Balkans countries instead of working only in one country?
First of all, we are very proud that we are leading and implementing a regional project. The benefits of implementing a regional project are numerous. Still, I will stand out some of them: working with experienced and trusted partners (such as our partners) and developing new ideas by sharing information, experience, and knowledge. Also, the implementation of this kind of project will help us solve all the challenges about digitalization beyond borders. And we will be able to deliver results and essential data and analysis for the digitalization processes for companies from the three counties such as North Macedonia, Serbia, and Kosovo. It is an enormous privilege and honor to lead a regional project and a big responsibility to monitor every project implementation aspect.
In December 2020, with the USAID EDGE project’s support, MASIT held an info-session to present the findings of the analysis of the ICT industry’s needs in the Western Balkans region for the skilled workforce, one of the biggest challenges for maintaining competitiveness and increasing growth. Can you highlight some of the most important conclusions and recommendations from this analysis?
The report provided a comprehensive picture of the companies’ constraints and challenges in the ICT industry in the region of Western Balkans, about skills and availability of labor they need to operate effectively and to grow and offer recommendations for improvements.
The conclusions from the report can be summarized in the following way:
· Most of the companies are micro or small — this may mean a lack of management functions and/or skills within the company;
· ICT companies “specialize” working: Mainly on the local market(s), or Mostly subcontracting for export markets (with exceptions);
· Lack of well trained and experienced new employees;
· The employees in the industry are primarily engineers;
· The students are interested in the ICT sector because of the working conditions, wages, and the possibilities for personal growth;
· Continuous education requires for both technical and soft skills;
· There is a lack of sufficient communication between ICT companies, academia, employment agencies, and the Government;
· Countries in the region do not use the full potentials of their ICT capacities.
While COVID-19 caused a dramatic global economic slowdown, it was also a catalyst for rapid digital transformation. As we can see, 2021 shows no sign of our digital world slowing down, providing more opportunities for businesses and collaborative ways of working. What did the ICT sector in general and MASIT particularly learn from the challenges related to the pandemic?
Although the ICT industry is not directly affected by the COVID 19 crisis, it still feels the attack because many of the companies with which work come from the most affected sectors, such as tourism, transport, and the automotive industry. Of course, depending on the nature and type of work, the adjustment process brought specific challenges in maintaining productivity, hiring new employees, communicating with customers, etc. However, taking into account the agility and mobility of the ICT sector, we can say that for now, the consequences are relatively low, especially if a comparison is made with other industries that really had and still have significant downtime. Faced with the new situation, many ICT companies had to take quick measures to adapt and plan for operation in the coming period. Most of the companies started organizing some of the employees to work from home. The ICT sector shows high mobility and flexibility to work from home, especially given that 62 percent of companies can fully customize their operations independently of the workplace and 37 percent partially. Standard measures for adjusting the crisis in ICT companies are reducing working hours, changing and improving the sanitary technical working conditions, etc. On the other hand, the measures for stopping the payment of rewards and bonuses, reducing the employees’ monthly income, and non-payment of dividends are also present.
The ICT sector has shown solidarity, inventiveness, and readiness in the past period to lead digital transformation processes. Right now, in the time of crisis has proven to be necessary and inevitable.
In this direction, MASIT, in the past period, has organized several initiatives and open calls to our member companies to make available their entire resources and services for the needs of the state and its institutions where it requested needed. In that sense, with the implementation of highly professional solutions for contact with citizens and legal entities, the level of communication and information between state institutions and legal entities and citizens, on the other hand, has been raised. Further applications were donated to help monitor the pandemic; major telecom operators expanded their Internet access capabilities to enable institutions, legal entities, and citizens to function smoothly in their everyday business operations.
On the other hand, MASIT, as an ICT chamber of commerce, is constantly following all the measures, requests, and active calls from the Government of North Macedonia and relevant institutions for our company members to be well informed and to follow all the recommendations that our Government announces.
