TOP ESTONIAN ENTERPRISES

Photo: Toomas Tuul
TAAVI KOTKA
Which was the success of the last year and
which situations had to be faced?
The major success was surely the launching of
the activities in Qatar and the wins of the large
scale projects outside Estonia. The challenge was
the switching from the “profit“ regime to “economic
recession“ regime similarly to others in
2008 and accordingly also the transformation of
the organisation. We are especially satisfied that
the investments of the “profit” time started to provide
benefit just now and we believe that these assist
us also past the more difficult time.
Your mission is to be the most reliable
IT development partner – which tips
are you using to achieve this?
Webmedia has four main values: Innovation,
Passion, Team-Spirit and Results. The latter
“Results“ means that the initial promises are
always completed, even if this is not economically
beneficial for us and one should pay more
for that. In creating reliability in the eyes of the
client the remaining three main values are also
not less important.
Where to expand? Which are the objectives?
The long-term objectives of Webmedia are very
ambitious and their description here could seem
like a crazy delirium, but in the shorter perspective
we have set ourselves the objective to be the
company ready for the stock exchange by the
year 2013 (e.g. fit for stock exchange, not publicly
traded company) and we move continuously towards
this aim. This means the continuation of
at least annual 20-30% growth, considerable
growth of income outside Estonia, completion of
product portfolios, increasing of the team, improvement
of internal processes etc. We do not
connect our expansion plans with the countries,
these are rather related to the sectors and products
wherein we feel strong today.
Flexibility is an interesting word –
what does it mean in your company?
We live according to the principle: the company
respects you and you respect the company. If you
require more room for your private life, let it be
the single free day or for longer period, your wish
should be fulfilled. The company knows that you
contribute this back some day. The same is valid
vice versa, if the company needs you more than
foreseen. This is an unwritten rule which is the
part of Webmedia’s inner culture. It is very hard to
communicate this in words, but this was expressed
in activities in the title of the Most Employee-Friendly
Company in 2008.
What brought Taavi Kotka
to Webmedia and what motivates
most in this activity?
I joined Webmedia in 2000 about a year after the
establishing of the company. The possibility to
participate in the team was offered, the objective
of which was to create the Estonian best ITcompany
and the freedom of activity was given
to test the innovative software development
methods. The better opportunity for the young
student of informatics specialty could not be
thought out.
The client base of Webmedia mainly consists of
the leader companies of its sectors (telecom,
finance, insurance, e-commerce etc.) in the private
sector and the more innovative institutions
of the public sector. These are the well-known
“good clients“ at the market who have understood
that IT is not only a matter of fashion, but
it is really possible to considerably improve the
functioning of these companies or institutions
by thinking out new solutions together and have
an impact on the economic results. If you have
good clients who are not afraid to test radical
innovations and you have a youthful and curious
team, then this is the best workplace for me –
this motivates. •
75