Brazilian ERP giant Totvs eyes international markets
Brazilian software giant Totvs will be focusing on further expanding its presence outside its home turf and winning more business with large customers.
A key pillar of that new strategy is a significant change in the top management: 32 years after founding the company, Laércio Cosentino will be stepping down from his role of chief executive.
Former IBM executive Rodrigo Kede Lima has been appointed director-president at the company and will be gradually taking over the role of chief executive in a process that will take three years. Meanwhile, Cosentino will remain CEO during the transition and will be shifting his attention to areas such as the technology strategy and client relationships.
Kede Lima worked at IBM for more than two decades in various areas, having led the company's Brazil operations between 2012 and 2014. The executive, whose career at the Big Blue also included a spell in the US as global transformation head, intends to expand Totvs' international business, which currently represents less than 2 percent of its net revenue.
Totvs is a popular choice when it comes to ERP within the small and medium enterprise segment in Brazil. But the company wants to aim for larger accounts, a space still very much dominated by German powerhouse SAP.
In addition, important business goals for Totvs include getting more customers to upgrade to the latest version of its ERP platform, boosting the popularity of Fluig, its collaboration and productivity tool and also ramping up cloud adoption - the company recently launched a partnership with Amazon Web Services to provide access to its systems in order to cater for cloud demand.