About us

2020

In recent years, Principal engineering has undergone through a transformation from a supplier of experts to a provider of solutions, expanding its services portfolio and experiencing dynamic growth. This fact was reflected in 2020 turnover of $30 million, an increase of 21% from the previous year.

Last year, the expertise in testing strengthened the most, with a 23% increase in revenue. Additionally, the company had created new solutions, whether it was PRINCIPAL Atlassian, PRINCIPAL Testify as a new solution in the field of online proficiency testing, Security Scan within the competence of PRINCIPAL Cyberinsurance, or an extension of IoT solution through PRINCIPAL TeleHealth.

PRINCIPAL has also broadened its partnership with Oracle and Microsoft, resulting in, among other things, winning of several Microsoft Awards in SharePoint, Dynamics CRM, and AZURE.
In the Czech market, the company managed to acquire several new clients, some of them even outside of finance and telecommunications, historically the largest part of its customer portfolio. The company has become the preferred vendor in outsourcing of IT services to several new customers, especially in analytics and testing, and in software development on Microsoft technologies.

In 2020, PRINCIPAL continued its international expansion. After establishing in 2019 its branch in Slovakia, the company continued its expansion with focusing on the German-speaking countries of the DACH region and establishing its new daughter company in Canada for the North American region.

2019

In 2019, our companies' management and employees established new corporate values based on their needs. Our corporate values have become an integral part of our corporate culture, our corporate brand, and represent the rules we share.

This year, as in previous years, we expanded our customer portfolio. We strive for our clients to be our business partners so that we can build long-term cooperation and provide for them the best services and solutions. We have shifted our customer solutions to manage a comprehensive product portfolio using product brands with our sales and marketing strategy.

In 2019, we recorded a turnover of 424 million CZK.

Business successes

• We implemented a project of a new CRM solution Microsoft Dynamics for Česká spořitelna
• After Asahi Breweries, we consolidated 60 applications of the group for markets in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania
• For Tatrabanka, we started preparing a long-term project for transcribing hundreds of applications in Lotus Notes into SharePoint online
• We started cooperating with NN pojišťovna on the regional IFRS project, the aim of which is to deliver a unified solution for 16 countries
• At SAZKA, we succeeded in a tender for outsourcing testing
• For the Ministry of Industry and Trade, we have completed the first stage of the implementation of an entirely new intranet on SharePoint Online
• In 2019, we implemented comprehensive tools to support project management for the city of Kaplice
• We fulfilled the conditions for the development of a gold partnership with Microsoft on the "Cloud Platform," and we also continue our long-term partnership with Oracle, Aerospike, BackBase

Conferences, workshops, education

• We expanded our cooperation with the educational company Edutrea and were the main partners of the conferences Open Space in Agile, Project Open Space and together, we organized the Forum in Agile
• We were official partners of the Project Management Conference
• In cooperation with the Czech Insurance Association, we organized the Cyber ​​Insurance Conference 2019
• We have officially established a partnership with the IPMA Czech Republic association in the organization of project masters
• We organized our 3-week TEST CAMP, Microsoft school, and Scrum boot camp

We have continued to support communities such as [Pro] Test!, Test Stack, Scrum Beer, Forum in Agile, and more

• We organized Code Breakers, a laser game tournament for IT specialists - the biggest event we’ve held in the last five years

Interesting facts of 2019

• In 2019, we strategically decided to build our business activities in North America
• In December of this year, we established a sister company in Slovakia under the name Principal Slovakia s.r.o.
• We have launched an innovative server for cyber risk insurance at www.cyberinsurance.cz
• We have created our brand SPORTUJI s PRINCIPAL to support an active lifestyle.
• We have expanded our portfolio of services on the www.contractors.cz portal with thematic workshops and meetups for IT specialists

2018

• In 2018 we reached the turnover of CZK 413 mio
• In comparison to previous year we noted an increase in turnover by 20%
• We welcomed new colleagues among us and if you counted us today you would arrive at 350 people
• At the turn of the year we relocated to modern offices in Kavčí Hory. We are enjoying a spacious HUB, relaxation rooms, our own cafe and a great training room with a view of the Prague Castle

• We are proactive in organising and supporting events, conferences and seminars aimed mainly at the spheres of SW development, UX, agile project management and professional conferences in fintech and insurtech
  
  • Code Breakers
  • Experience for business
  • Agile Open Space
  • Agilia Prague
  • Project Open Space
  • Cyber Insurance Conference
  • Medica Connected Healthcare

• We continued to develop our own products and solutions
  • Emotia
  • TeleHealth Portal
  • PCRF
  • PeopleManager a Advanta

• The core of our business consists primarily of cooperation with companies from the spheres of finance, telecommunications and industry
• We broadened our cooperation with Škofin and are part of the development of the company’s main systems and data warehouses
• We continued to expand our cooperation with ASAHI, owner of Plzeňský Prazdroj; for the region of Central Europe we are delivering the solutions Azure, Sharepoint or Dynamics.

Interview

with

CEO Miloš Tkáčik

2017

Principal is doing well. We are keeping a high pace of growth longterm.

• In 2017 the company has exceeded the level of turnover of CZK 350 mio. The year to year increase of turnover by 45% has been translated into the increase of number of specialists involved in projects. At the beginning of 2018 more than 300 IT specialists work for PRINCIPAL.
• The company has successfully kept the high pace of growth mainly thanks to its ability to quickly enlist individuals as well as whole teams that can be effectively involved in our clients’ projects.
  Thanks to a unique business system Principal can be flexible in reacting to a growing demand for specialist capacity as well as particular client requirements. “A close connection of sales, HR and marketing enables us to find the needed specialists, fulfil their high demands as well as develop them in our own system of education“ Petr Kania from HR adds.
• “We focus on developing a lasting relationship and providing superior support for our employees and co-workers. We try to share our values, our approach and develop know-how in the framework of professional meetings, trainings and themed conferences. For 2017 we can mention the popular community event Code Breakers or training for IT specialists under the umbrella of the portal www.contractors.cz“, Zdeněk Culek adds for Marketing.
  On the level of business Principal focuses longterm mainly on the segments of finance and telecommunications. We are however also sucessful in winning projects in the areas of public administration, manufacturing or utilities. Last year we added the following companies to our customer portfolio: Sberbank, BNP Paribas Cardif, E-commerce holding / Mall.cz, ASAHI Europe or Diebold Nixdorf.
• In 2017 Principal continued to develop its porfolio of services. We were sucessful in the sphere of testing, Atlassian (Jira & Confluence), SW development in Java and MS .Net.
• We have also increased the extent of projects delivered with technologies MS Azure, SharePoint and Dynamics, that allow us to deliver comprehensive solutions based in cloud as well as in customer envinronments. As part of the development activities Principal further strenghtened its competencies in the spheres of Cyber Security a Cyber Insurance.
• Principal specialists together with insurance companies work on new products, create new services and take part in organisation of key events in the area. In 2017 Principal put together a strong team of User Experience designers that help implement the latest designer methods at key clients. For example they took part in the design of the Smart Bank application for MONETA Money Bank which won first prize in the Application of the Year competition on LUPA portal last year.
• Expansion into the spheres of Fintech, Insurtech, agile methodologies or User Experience has also been noticeable in the program of conferences Principal organised or supported. In 2017 we organised the conferences Fintech 3.0, Cyber Risk Insurance and supported Agilia Prague or Agile OpenSpace.
• “The new direction of development in the next 2 years will be expansion of business activities abroad. By 2019 we aim to build a stable background for delivery of services and projects to foreign clients and thus exceed turnover of CZK 500 mio. We want to concentrate on development of competencies linked to the growth of digital economy. We will focus on design of digital products and use of big data for improved business operation of our clients.” Miloš Tkáčik states.

2016

2016 brings new challenges and clients in new areas. We confirm high technological maturity and reliability of our services.

• For the mobile operator O2 Slovakia we completed a solution delivery with narrow specialisation Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF), which is part of the core network systems. PCRF plays a key role in the new generation networks based on increasing data usage. 
• We joined in the delivery of the innovative payment service Biip, prepared by Mopet and Česká spořitelna. Principal co-operated on the definition of relevant project methodologies and agile project management. Principal specialists have also taken part in the service implementation and its graphic design.
• For the BMW Group we delivered a new company intranet built on the SharePoint 2013. The main goal of the upgrade was better co-operation of users on daily company tasks. A further goal was to broaden functionality and improve ergonomics of the controls.
• We prepared the innovative product eSig, which allows for smooth transfer to the „paperless“ administration of company HR documentation.  All contractual documentation pertaining to the human potential is in digital form with a safe electronic signature.

2015

From the very beginning of the year we continue the high pace with existing customers as well as with customers from new areas.

• We won a tender in Raiffeisenbank for the supplier of one of the most important projects to be implemented in 2015 and 2016. We will take part in the launch of a new multichannel solution for extension of banking products sales channels.
• In Škoda Auto we will take part in the B2C Optimisation projects, which includes extensive implementation of the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server.
• We initiated cooperation with the research cyber security lab Quarkslab from France. Thanks to this cooperation we are able to provide our customers with access to unique security services and applications for active cyber protection.
• We started activities in the area of biometric security. After the clients initially learned about the possibilities of the technology we have launched first client projects.

2014

During 2014 we were successful in gaining more customers mainly from the finance and Telco segments.

• WIn Raiffeisenbank we assisted with outsourcing of the core banking systems, development and with testing.
• We won first projects with key customers like Česká spořitelna and GE Money Bank.
• We implement exciting methodological projects for example agile access introduction in Air Bank.
• We contributed to the launch of a new service Multi Sim at the telecommunication operator O2.
• We step up the effort and investment into own product and services development. We react to customer needs providing help with their typical problems.
  • The unique application PeopleManager is designed for administration and management of project resources, capacity planning, predictive analysis and reporting.
• We bring top solutions from the various technological partners to the Czech market. We assist our clients in developing their business and maximising their yields.
  • We started selling the portfolio of analytical tools from the Israeli company GSTAT. The tools help with customer retention, marketing campaigns or with development of individualised products and services in banking, telecommunications and retail.
  • We offer products from the areas of business operation monitoring with interactive operational problems solving.
• We focus on raising and developing top experts. We have delivered many quality specialists for business consultations, project management, development, testing, and other ICT technologies to our customers.
• We started activities in the area of biometric security. After the clients initially learned about the possibilities of the technology we have launched first client projects.

2013

We continue to grow our customer portfolio.

• Škoda Auto, ING, Sberbank, Kolektory, Oriflame. We have expanded abroad; we are now active in Russia and in Slovakia.
• We are very active as a supplier of key employees for our customers.
• Our specialists participate in professional conferences. We now have 130 vetted specialists from ICT, business consultations for banking, insurance and telecommunications in our portfolio.

2012

• This year we strengthen our positions in the financial sector and telecommunications delivering both IT specialists and projects. At the same time we target the utilities sector and industrial companies and services.
• 2012 is marked by broadening our portfolio of products aimed at fast investment return, sales increase and product optimisation. We develop our own products in the newly opened development centre in the town of Vestec.

2011

• During the year we assert our position in the banking sector and telecommunications delivering both IT specialists and projects. We enter into partnership with Oracle and become part of the Oracle Partner Network. At the same time we are members of the Microsoft Partner Network and IBM Partner World program. We actively develop partnerships with international partners focused on smart business solutions.
• To improve the IT outsourcing and HR services we launch a new job search engine Contractors.cz that targets searching for IT specialists and pairing them up with the appropriate job offer.

2003

Miloš Tkáčik establishes the company Principal engineering plc. and focuses its activities on software development, IT consultations and outsourcing for system integrators, banks and Telco companies.