The company posted turnover for 2017 of €99.1 million, up 19% on 2016, surpassing the objectives of its three-year plan, which will be complete at the end of 2018, a year ahead of schedule. Operating income jumped 9% to €7.2 million. The workforce increased by 20% in a year. In the space of five years, turnover has grown by 81% and the number of employees has increased by 64%.
Hardis Group, a digital services company and independent software vendor, announces its results for 2017. Turnover grew by 19% to €99.1 million, against €83.3 million in 2016 and €95 million forecast in early 2017. Operating profit was up 9%, reaching €7.2 million, against €6.6 million in 2016. The workforce increased by 20% to more than 1,000 employees. These figures are the result of the company's strategic transformation plan, which began in 2013. Hardis Group is expecting turnover growth of 14% in 2018.
2017: strong growth and international expansion
Of the €99.1 million in turnover, 69% originated from service activities. With a value of €39.8 million, Business Applications services contributed 60% of the total for services. Salesforce integration activities reached €3.5 million, including contributions from Bluetis and Synefo, two integrators acquired in 2017. "Our ambition is to double this figure in 2018 (€7 million) with the creation at the beginning of the year of a new strategic business activity called Cloud Platform, focused on the integration and development of professional applications with Salesforce, AWS, Google and Facebook. We are also going to focus on artificial intelligence with these partners and IBM Watson", says Nicolas Odet, CEO of Hardis Group.
Business Consulting activities represented €11.1 million, up 28%, driven by the transformation needs of organizations, ways of working (open innovation, DevOps, agile methods, etc.) and information systems. Turnover for cloud hosting and consultancy services (Cloud Operations) reached €17.8 million, up 17%, half of which came from Reflex, its logistics software suite. "Applications from AWS, Google and Azure will also be important growth drivers for Cloud Operations", Nicolas Odet continues.
As for its software publishing activities, logistics applications (Reflex Solutions) represented €27.8 million. In total, they now amount to €37.1 million within Hardis Group's turnover (including consultancy, integration and cloud hosting services), up 23% on 2016. The sales of licenses and services for the development platform Adelia were worth €2.5 million.
2017 saw Hardis Group opening two subsidiaries in Spain and Switzerland, acquiring two external companies, beginning construction of the new head office in the Presqu'île area of Grenoble, redeveloping all Hardis Group agencies and winning an Honoree Award at CES in Las Vegas for its Eyesee drone inventory application. "We've also reached 1,000 employees, compared to 600 five years ago. Our business plan and the opportunities we offer in terms of innovation and our internationalization help us attract talent", comments Yvan Coutaz, Executive Vice President.
2018: innovation, transformation and internationalization
For 2018, Hardis Group is expecting 14% growth in its turnover and 19% growth in its operating profits which should reach €113 million and €8.5 million respectively. In terms of service activities, the company will continue to transform its offering and as an organization to meet the needs of its clients in terms of innovation, agility and value creation within the following target sectors: banking, insurance, distribution, industry, energy and logistics. It will pursue its active co-innovation policy, with leading players and promising start-ups, in the fields of artificial intelligence, smart devices, data intelligence and robotics. At the same time, Hardis Group will strengthen its offering in terms of designing and integrating "cloud native" professional applications through its strategic Cloud Platform business activity. Lastly, Hardis Group will accelerate its activities and Reflex client projects at an international level, in Spain, Benelux, Switzerland, Eastern Europe, the United States, South America and China.
"We believe that our profession will undergo a profound transformation. We must enable our clients to benefit from the cloud and to add value to their data by offering applications which combine third-party cloud components, the market's professional software packages and Hardis Group's service", Yvan Coutaz explains.
In terms of the workforce, 200 new employees will be welcomed in 2018.