OREANDA-NEWS. On 06 July 2009 was announced, that an IT Session of IES-Holding was conducted in Nizhniy Novgorod. Representatives of IT departments of the companies controlled by CJSC IES, IT service companies of the Holding (Strategic Business-Systems, LLC, Group Vista, LLC), the largest Russian suppliers of IT solutions and integrators took part in the event. The leading Russian and international IT companies such as Avaya, Cisco, AyTecho, Krok, Lanit, Р.В.С. became the partners of the IES-Holding in organizing the event, and CIO (Chief Information Officer) and Energorynok (Energy Market) magazines - its informational sponsors.

Corporate IT sessions became a pleasant tradition of IES-Holding. This session is the third for the last three years. IT sessions conducted by CJSC IES serve as a platform for generation of effective solutions for the Holding's needs, team building, exchange of opinions, and demonstration of the best practices for IT development.

According to Sergey Emelchenkov, the IT Vice-President of CJSC IES, during the period of financial crisis IT has two ways in the power industry. The first one is "to zero out" investment programs and slash current IT costs. However, according to Sergey Emelchenkov, given the nowadays situation the "save with IT, but not on IT" principle used by IES-Holding is much more effective. This approach implies performing reduction in IT costs quicker than reduction in core business income occurs; introduction of effective and immediate IT solutions for corporate governance; minimization of investment expenditures; avoidance of IT initiatives inconsistent with the company's new tasks; and achievement of sustainable results. Alongside with the above Sergey Emelchenkov noted that in such tough conditions we should not forget that life goes on and we should act proactively building a foundation for future success.  Sergey Emelchenkov underlined that CJSC IES has already built one of the country's most effective IT teams in the power industry, but the achieved results need to be developed. The most urgent tasks include establishment of a corporate project office, introduction of a company-wide technological standard, and creation of a sole IT service company on the basis of Strategic Business-Systems, LLC.

Denis Kirienko, the CEO of Strategic Business-Systems, LLC, noted that the company has demonstrated dynamic development since its establishment in 2005. However, it is still necessary to significantly speed up the growth rate in the next three years. The key tasks of the company in 2009 include integration into the common information system of the holding and development of IT infrastructure of the sales companies within CJSC IES (OJSC Komi Power Sales Company, OJSC Udmurt Power Sales Company, OJSC Orenburgenergosbyt), implementation of "Dispatching Roll 2+" project (software package for collection and storage of data, and analysis of technological parameters to improve production efficiency) for the Trading Division, rolling out of a fully functional integrated portal of IES-Holding for all its subsidiaries. The development tasks for the next three years declared by Denis Kirienko are rather ambitious and include sales growth up to 5 billion roubles by 2012, increase in the share of external clients (outside CJSC IES) up to 50% of the company's sales, and entry into foreign IT markets.

The participants of the IT Session also took part in the round-table conference organized by CIO magazine and dedicated to the discussion of the power industry IT strategy in the new economic environment. They fulfilled collective tasks, which resulted in the projects aimed at improvement of IT efficiency within the Holding, and also participated in a team building event.