Betfair Romania Development Archives - Techsylvania

Betfair partnering with Universities to create a higher pool of specialists and build a sustainable future for the Romanian Tech Industry

Vlad Ciurca — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 11:55:17 +0000

Fast-forward 7 successful and constantly growing editions of Techsylvania, here we are in 2021, where technology is a big part of our lives now. This aspect energizes us and confirms once again that by investing in our tech ecosystem, we can befriend technology and use it for a better world.

What’s next? This has always been on our minds when creating each edition of Techsylvania. The next in tech, the next in business, the next in the social contexts that determine us to bring to life the best ideas and innovations.

Ioana Popa — General Manager, Betfair Romania Development.

The challenging times we are living now have transformed our contemplative what’s next into a vital one, and we’re still eager to go in search of answers while adapting to the new reality. We’re honored to have interviewed one of the successful entrepreneurs with a special sense of identifying needs in the market and providing just perfect-fitting solutions for them, Ioana Popa — General Manager, Betfair Romania Development.

1) As you are a software company, how do you perceive the Romanian tech hub ecosystem in recent years, through the lens of your company?

To be honest I am always amazed by how quickly things change when it comes to the Romanian Technology field. I believe it to be the most rapidly changing ecosystem in the country. I remember fondly of the early Betfair years when we were amongst the first companies in Cluj who had Product Owners and Product Management capabilities built locally. That was more than 10 years ago.

Now, those skill sets and many others are common on the market with brilliant people specialized in various fields. As the software development industry evolved quickly, so did the demand from Tech companies. We found ourselves in a situation where the competition for talent basically grew overnight, so we needed to ensure our thinking is progressive, to be able to attract and retain the best talent. We invested massively in developing and upskilling our people and we partnered with Universities to shape their curricula.

Being an industry with a 0% unemployment rate and with more companies opening offices in Romania it’s only a testimony of the great Tech talent we have in our country. I believe Tech companies need to work together more with Universities to create a higher pool of specialists and build a curriculum reflective of the latest technologies and trends the industry is taking. By doing that we can help ensure the future of the Romanian Tech industry is a sustainable and growing one, with a higher contribution to the Romanian overall budget, and which will maintain our position on the world map of countries that invest in the software industry.

2) How did you adapt as a business to the Covid-19 pandemic?

The past year and a half have given all of us a lesson about what really matters in life and in doing business. We’ve learned about flexibility and how to trust one another again. Working hours received a whole new meaning and timeframe, as each of us had to deal with working from home perks and at the same time share our home office with children or other working family members.

As a company, we took a „people first” approach. That meant being kind to one another, appreciating personal circumstances, understanding when a colleague is having a hard time, and ensuring safety comes first. In addition, forcing people to come into the office if they don’t feel comfortable doing so was never an option for us. This approach is still valid now, 18 months later. We discovered the Covid-19 pandemic did not affect productivity, however, our colleagues did miss having coffees together.

The Tech industry was probably one of the least affected by the Covid-19 context, as it was easy to resume working from home. We had to adapt as new trends started to appear — words like ”zoom fatigue” or „burnout” were often mentioned. We took this very seriously and placed a lot of emphasis on individual well-being through our „No Zoom Afternoon” initiative, well-being days off, regular sessions on emotional resilience, and how to cope with burnout — we did everything we could to ensure our people feel supported through such unprecedented times. And I think we are still in a learning mode, as things seem to slowly go back to normal. The old normal will no longer exist. Companies will need to adapt to the new reality and be extremely agile, otherwise, they will be left behind. The Tech industry has the chance of being a trailblazer when it comes to the future ways of working.

3) Can you tell us more about your company’s history and how your Romanian team developed over the years?

Betfair Romania Development opened their first office in Cluj-Napoca in 2007 via Xoomworks. As they found great talent on the market and the first project was successful, we continued to invest here. Three years later our team grew to 120 people.

We continued to deliver quality work and in 2013 we proudly got to the point of having a Full Development lifecycle in place. That meant that besides developers, testers, and managers we also had roles such as Product Owners and Product Managers done by our Romanian colleagues. We continued to grow the team and deliver more value to the Group, as we moved offices 3 times and became a Center of Excellence for Gaming, Data, and Customer Management. This was due to our brilliant colleagues having an increased understanding of our products and we ensured they were given the proper training to do their jobs. Our focus was not only on technical development, as we put a high emphasis on our soft skills as well.

Starting 2017, we widened our areas of expertise, and set up a Sports Operations team in Cluj, providing operational excellence to Europe and Australia. That was only the beginning of the journey for setting up other Commercial areas such as Gaming Operations, Marketing, VIP management, Insights and Analytics, and much more. At that point, our team was about 800 people. Now we are close to hitting the 1.000 people mark and we are a true Global Center of Excellence, with development and commercial teams working with our colleagues from Europe, the USA, and Australia and providing services to 5 Divisions within the Flutter Group.

This is a true testimony to all the passionate people who work and have worked together with us along the way and to our management teams who were relentless in getting us where we are right now. I am really excited about what will be next as the future unfolds.

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1500 employees by the end of 2023 at Betfair Romania Development and what they believe to be the future of work

Vlad Ciurca — Mon, 16 Aug 2021 11:30:57 +0000

In 2022, Betfair Romania Development has become the largest technology and shared services hub of its parent company, Flutter Entertainment plc. Over 1000 people are powering the world’s leading brands in sports betting and gaming, such as PokerStars, Betfair or FanDuel, from Cluj-Napoca.

The company recently shared their plans of reaching an ambitious milestone of 1500 employees by 2023, so we went on a mission to understand how the uncertainty of the global context and the constantly evolving working models tight in with the company’s accelerated growth plans.

Ioana Popa, General Manager Betfair Romania Development, owns the challenging role of navigating the company through change, while maintaining its position as one of the top employers in Romania.

Ioana Popa, General Manager Betfair Romania Development

Q: Ioana, for the past 2 years, tech companies have been setting the standard of what a flexible working model it’s all about. What does the future of work mean for Betfair Romania Development?

A: First, I think we can all agree the future of work has been one of the most important, yet most debated topics over the past two years. Switching to mandatory remote work from remote work as an option proved to actually be a giant leap for most IT&C companies. Facing change at an unprecedented pace became a game of active listening, that for many resurfaced fears, ultimately leading to uncomfortable conversations.

Looking back at our approach for the past two years, I dare to say that at Betfair Romania Development we played an ace up on our sleeve. Our pre-pandemic flexible working model and a ‘People first’ approach allowed us to tap into critical workforce insights and successfully translate them into decisions and changes aimed to bring purpose, comfort, and support to our employees.

We’ve learnt in no time that to navigate through the uncertainty people need anchors of stability in their lives and, equally, need to be trusted and supported with the decisions they need to make in order to keep their work, health, and personal life in balance. Backed by the two-way dialogue we maintained constantly open, we soon realized that for us, despite the news and trends, the future of work was nothing like an ‘our way or the highway’ type of model. It was about offering our employees the security of the workplace and entrusting them with a powerful tool: choice.

Q: How did the ways of working change at Betfair Romania Development once the pandemic-induced restrictions have been lifted?

A: We currently operate under a model that is considerate with all types of roles we have represented under the Betfair Romania Development hat and that allows people to choose what best suits their working style and needs: fully remote, hybrid or using the office on a daily basis. To top that, we implemented a program named ‘Take 20’ that allows everybody to work from other countries for a maximum of 20 days per year. ‘Take 20’ gained a lot of momentum, especially after restrictions were lifted across Europe, as it allowed our colleagues to travel, explore and work at the same time from their favorite places.

The most recent PwC study* on global workforce placed seeking meaning at work among the factors most appreciated in a top employer nowadays. I strongly believe that a clear purpose, accompanied by trust, frames the creative space from where innovation is born. As an employer who relies on over 1000 professionals to deliver excellence to our 18 million customers worldwide, a key focus on these past 2 years was to ensure we have enabled the platforms, tools, and behaviors to nurture a continuous learning environment.

That’s why, beside our usual career growth trainings and learning platforms, we are currently offering 1000 EUR to every employee as a ‘Self-Development Fund’ they can use to invest in their own growth, personally and professionally. We have colleagues unlocking their potential by using the Self-Development Fund, whether they attend masterclasses or dedicated events on top of our learning curriculum.

To conclude, we are currently in a phase where we are not only offering people options, but encourage them to decide for themselves, train our people managers to guide their teams in this sense and judging from the last survey we ran across the business, we are confident that we took the right path.

The future of work should not be something we expect to happen at one point in time, but something that we, with the decisions made spanning these past two years, have created for the present moment.

Q: You recently announced that you want to reach a milestone of 1500 employees by the end of 2023. Which are the reasons behind such an ambitious plan?

A: We have a track record of delivering excellence in software development and supporting our parent company, Flutter Entertainment plc on major project streams such as Gaming, Customer Management, Infrastructure, Security, Data, Trading, Marketing and many more.

For the past 15 years, Betfair Romania Development has evolved in sync with the business it is part of, and thanks to our teams of experts, we were entrusted and supported by our parent company to develop multiple centers of excellence, driven by the opportunity of shaping an entire industry directly from Cluj.

In 2019, following the acquisition of The Stars Group, Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) — the group we were part of at the time — became Flutter Entertainment Plc, a holding company with a unique portfolio of global brands in sports betting and gaming. We sum up a total of 17.000 employees around the world, working every day on bringing entertainment to life for millions of customers in a safe, responsible, and sustainable way.

Therefore, for the past two years, not only were we dealing with the uncertainty induced by the pandemic, but we were also going through this extremely complex merger, all while working from home. I am extremely proud of all the hard work everybody has put into securing us a place from where we can safely say today that we did it together and we are ready to evolve our story into the next chapter.

Becoming Flutter Entertainment’s largest technology and shared services hub after the merger has opened new windows of opportunities for our current employees and the talent market in Cluj-Napoca. Flutter operates an unbeatable portfolio of proprietary brands, and a great number of brands-related projects are handled or involve our teams in Cluj. We have recently started looking for tech talent to work on our PokerStars projects, a Flutter brand that wasn’t represented in our office until recently. Other brands that operate in very distinctive markets such as FanDuel in the US or Sportsbet in Australia have also planned investments to grow their teams at Betfair Romania Development. From software development to head office functions, we always have a range of fully flexible opportunities open, and to support the growth of these teams, we are ambitious enough to aim for welcoming 500 more colleagues at Betfair Romania Development by the end of 2023.

Q: Betfair Romania Development has a reputation of being a very active company when it comes to supporting the local community. How was the CSR agenda impacted by the current global context?

A: We have a core philosophy when it comes to our CSR agenda and that is unwavering despite the context: supporting organizations to make a difference and encouraging individuals to get more involved within the local community.

Many companies operate a CSR agenda having one charity of the year they support, but the way we do things at Betfair Romania Development is by asking our colleagues to submit causes they believe in (be it smaller projects), which the company then proceeds to support. We stand for what our people believe in and that’s what’s giving us the flexibility to calibrate our agenda according to what matters for them.

This year, we allocated efforts to support projects based on 3 main pillars: Sports & Nature, Arts & Education, Health & Community. We collaborate with many local and regional NGOs and with the help of our CSR Committee, most of the times we reach out and ask directly the NGOs representatives how we can best help: with funds, with goods, or with volunteers.

In parallel with the projects we supported in Cluj, since February we initiated a project called ‘Kindness goes beyond borders’, focused on offering support to Ukrainian refugees. It’s amazing to see the many acts of goodwill continuing to reach those who need them most right now. We are also extremely proud of our volunteering colleagues who are offering the gift of their time and care, whom we fully support with extra days off.

Lastly, we have also announced we welcome English-speaking Ukrainian refugees who hold a residence permit in Romania to apply for our open roles. Those who join us will be part of our teams for the duration of the permit, up to 12 months, with the possibility of renewing the contract for another 6 or 12 months.

While we welcome all charity proposals with an open heart, we always make sure we keep connected to trusted NGOs, making sure we help in an empathetic, yet smart manner. That didn’t change with the global context at all, but reinforced once again the principles and values we are driven by.

We hope you enjoyed this interview as well, because we really believe we found out some valuable insights about the company and their future plans and we can’t wait to have them at Techsylvania on June 28 and 29! Hope we’ll see you there!

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