When the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe was lifted at the beginning of the 1990s, the Hungarian engineer and IT specialist Dr. Géza Homonnay was well aware of the growing number of Hungarian software engineers and developers who headed West or already working for Western European companies.
“I was convinced that there was a growing demand for experienced and qualified staff in the IT sector,” says Dr. Homonnay, managing director of Gamax today. “So I decided to start my own workforce leasing company, targeting the IT segment. Luckily, I could fall back on a few initial contracts which laid the basis for what Gamax has become over the years.”
At the beginning, Gamax’s workforces could help to implement software development projects in Germany, for instance. In the years to come, software development emerged as another main activity, followed by software and hardware trading in 1992/93. “We set up Gamaxnet Ltd., which focuses exclusively on the distribution of hardware as well as software components,” stresses Dr. Homonnay. “Since 1993, Gamaxnet has been concentrating on data communication and wide-area network infrastructures and has been quite successful in its segment.”
Until today, the subsidiary has experienced rapid growth and has concluded many exclusive distribution agreements with well-known players like Digi International, MiLAN and Ericsson-ACC, amongst others. But there was more to come. Gamax started software localisation for the giant Microsoft and received the prestigious Microsoft Strategic Localisation Partner award in 1994 together with three other companies in Eastern Europe.
“Clearly, the award demonstrated our competence in completing the localisation of programs and documentations for global companies. Microsoft is only one prominent name,” says Dr. Homonnay. “Presently, we still perform software localisation and translation jobs for Hungarian and other Eastern European languages. Added to that, our localisation unit has been taking over medical translations, and has been working for the EU in this field since 2004.”
The significant boom in the IT business around the year 2000 and the following euro conversion one year later resulted in strongly growing business activities for Gamax. “The years 1997 to 2001 were really the golden age of workforce leasing,” points out Dr. Homonnay. “Companies still have trust in our contract workforce, and due to the leasing of IT specialists, we indirectly participate in projects focusing on software development all over the globe.”
Project teams formed by Gamax can be employed in a wide range of different fields, and for each contract Gamax carefully selects a team of specialists to best support the customer. “We are able to find the best engineers and developers for any type of project,” adds Dr. Homonnay. “And this is possible in a short period of time. The team can be located on our premises or at the customer’s facilities.” When it comes to software distribution, Gamax is well represented in the Hungarian market. It is the exclusive distributor of Matlab, a highlevel technical computing language and interactive environment for algorithm development, data visualization, data analysis and numeric computation.
“With Matlab, companies can solve their technical computing problems faster than with traditional programming languages such as C, C++ or Fortran,” explains Dr. Homonnay. “Currently, we generate 15% of our turnover with the distribution of Matlab to the Hungarian market as well as to Romania, Bulgaria and the Balkan States.”
Throughout its years in the IT world, Gamax has been working wiht high profitability and has increased its turnover continuously. “We are a financially sound enterprise, and we only employ lease workers if there are any suitable projects. We have a pool of specialists we can fall back on as soon as a new project comes up,” stresses Dr. Homonnay.
Dr. Homonnay is convinced that Gamax’s service and product portfolio is unique in the Hungarian market. “We provide high-quality work and are known as a reliable partner. This is why we have achieved a very elaborate standing.” Gamax is active in various business fields, which puts the company in a favourable position.
“In 2010, we acquired Pannon-Work, a leading name in the labour and staffing market. The recent crisis has not really affected us very much. Quite on the contrary,” points out Dr. Homonnay. “Pannon-Work, for instance, has done extremely well recently. In 2009, many companies were looking for new temporary staff to bridge higher production capacities.”
Gamax is determined to realise continuous growth in the coming years. Moreover, it will focus on further exploiting the high potential of its new subsidiary Pannon-Work. There are still many promising options waiting ahead.