On September 17, ISD celebrated its 15th milestone in the software development industry. This long and challenging journey has an inspiring story about passion, dedication, and hundreds of successfully handed-over projects.
We are now a team of 80 people sharing the same passion for coding and delivering excellence. Certainly, there is no better person to talk about the way ISD created its own story than Radu Corlateanu, managing director at ISD.
MB: Hello, Radu. It is nice talking to you today. How is it to realize that ISD is already 15 years old?
RC: Hello. It is a mixed feeling. On one hand, I feel very proud of what we managed to achieve: a committed team, reliable collaborations, persistent growth. One the other hand, I feel like we are just warming up, as there is much more to be done. On our way to growth, we need to adapt to stay ahead of the market.
MB: We know that the company’s anniversary is on September 17th. But let’s go beyond that date. Where did the idea of creating ISD come from?
RC: I was a student at the Technical University of Bucharest in 2007 and I was part of AIESEC – an organization for students that holds exchange programs. At that time, Inther Group was planning to open a subsidiary in Bucharest, Romania, but they also wanted a local person to support the establishing process of the company and manage it locally. Since Inther wanted this person to know more about Inther activities and culture, they planned to launch an exchange program. This is how I got on board and the following 1,5 years I spent at Inther headquarters in the Netherlands.
After I completed the program and we wanted to open the office, I suggested Paul and Martijn, the founders of Inther, to open it in Chisinau. And that is how Inther Software Development (ISD) was established in 2008, in Moldova.
MB: What was the first company’s project about? What were the first technical skills you needed at that time to develop it?
RC: ISD started with 2 people here in Chisinau – another developer and I. Our first project was to develop a voice recognition application on compact .NET framework running on Windows CE. The challenge was to implement a voice streaming protocol that would run gracefully on a noisy warehouse Wi-Fi network. We exceeded the expectations – the application was playing perfect sound despite the relatively low performance of the devices and network quality.
The evolution of our team, starting with just two engineers and growing to a robust group of 80, unfolded organically.
MB: Today, the developers and engineers are covering a much larger pool of skills. How did things change in time in terms of technology?
RC: Even if we used mainly .NET for the first project developed at ISD, the language that is used the most in our projects is Java. For some time, we have even positioned ourselves as a Java company. In time, we started to develop projects that also required more of Java Script, .NET, and Phyton, but we also have experience in working with less popular technologies.
Working on automation, digital transformation and IoT projects can be challenging, since the client can request specific technologies, such as the programming language Go. At the same time, we try to keep our set of technologies to a reasonable balance, while gladly investigating other new challenges – this is a fantastic opportunity to grow and to add more technologies to our list of skills.
MB: What are the businesses that ISD supports?
RC: Helping Inthergroup in the warehouse automations projects allowed ISD to develop a strong footprint in the intralogistics realm. We helped deliver many projects where our software was placed at the core of warehouse operations. A true breakthrough happened in 2017 when we started to deliver the projects to companies outside the group. Shortly after our first contract many others flowed in. We went further stepping into the postal, engineering, insurance, health industries.
Today, 50% of our development is focused on projects from Inther, and 50% on projects from direct customers. Each project is unique and interesting in its way, and I can say that we successfully delivered all of them, even if, I must admit, some projects were exhausting.
MB: What do you think is unique about ISD?
RC: There are many things that stand out when we talk about ISD, but on top of my mind are:
- Logistics is within our DNA.
- Continuous improvement. We are never comfortable with the status quo. We improve our capacity through our growth programs: Executor to Partner (E2P) and Junior to Medior (JtoM).
- We are engineers at core. In my view, our tech-centric approach has been instrumental in developing strong and enduring relationships with our clients. As evidence of this, the vast majority of our collaborations from over the years remain active and thriving to this day. This not only validates the value that ISD brings to the table, but also leads me to believe that ISD has played a significant role in helping our clients maintain a competitive edge in the market and achieve enduring success.
MB: Today, when you look behind on this long journey, what are the biggest achievements you have reached, and you are proud of?
RC: Personally, I am proud of my team. I am proud of the people that have so much dedication and passion for their work and have a fair level of responsibility and commitment toward each project, thus each customer we are working with. At human level, these people are amazing and the vibe in our office is special thanks to them.
MB: Are you also focusing your efforts on paying it forward to the community? What are the main areas of social responsibility you are trying to follow?
RC: One thing that shaped ISD the way it is today is a strong believe that we are part of a larger mission. Giving back to the society by sharing our knowledge is something that we did from our first years of operations. Countless teaching projects were delivered by ISD alone or in collaboration with the Technical University of Moldova and Tekwill. We believe our strength lies within a couple of technologies that we master. We started teaching Java, later we also stepped into the .NET, Front-end, PLC courses. This allowed us not only to bring knowledge to the community but also to fortify our team with ambitious young talents.
MB: A 15-years journey must spin around a common vision shared by all the team members. How would you define the vision of ISD and how did you manage to achieve it?
RC: We have achieved a lot and there is more to come. Looking forward, we strive to develop further what has been created so far. Continuity and consistency are elements that have been at the forefront of ISD over the years. As we increase in size, we shape our internal structure to better deliver value and at the same time, to stay flexible. Also, our ambition is to become a true international company with presence in geographies all around the globe.
Every vision is actually a dream. A dream we want to bring to life. The vision of ISD is “Driving progress in the IT industry through technical excellence”, and stays at the core of everything we do. I cannot say we have achieved it to the level I wanted, but we are working on it with every project we deliver, with every growth program we launch, with every collaboration we have with academia and so on.
MB: We are getting to the end of our discussion. To close on an inspiring note, do you have a message for all the people who have written the ISD story by now?
RC: The achievements we have so far are possible due to a couple of factors: our customers that trust us with their technical challenges, our friends and partners that support us, and of course, our colleagues that bring contribution with passion and commitment. All these might sound mundane, but it cannot be more true. I want to thank everyone for contributing to our incredible journey!
MB: Thank you and happy birthday, ISD!