Priit Viru: automation helped Adcash grow

One of the primary driving forces behind the rapid success of Adcash, now ranked among the top enterprises in Estonia, is the gradual automation of processes. Last year we adopted a self-service environment that further reduces the human factor, explained Priit Viru, the company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), at SEB Innovation Lab.

According to Viru, everything was done manually for the first few years. “When the client wanted to take down their advertisement on a Friday night, our people would go to the office, phoning each website owner one by one. With today’s volume, this would simply not be possible any more – in comparison with 2011, our company has grown close to 15 times,” told Viru.

“Last year, we realised that in order to continue the growth, we must reorganise the whole company, reinforce its foundations and automatize processes. We had the mind-set of a start-up company in our processes, but we had become a corporation in the meantime. In order to implement the changes, we took an interim year, which has enabled us to move from an annual turnover of EUR 43 million to even EUR 500 million if needed,” said Viru.

According to Viru, these days a product must sell itself and clients must reach the product. “The sector we are operating in is growing and developing rapidly. We are operating in a market valued at USD 150 billion. Our goal is to figure out how to do things more efficiently, taking over an increasingly large part of the market currently 80% dominated by Facebook and Google,” said Viru.

“Last year we also improved our product and adopted a self-service environment, which makes the process simpler and more convenient for the client, also reducing the human factor in our company. Today, we can see that practically the entire business sector is moving from the web to mobile telephones, and a successful company must be able to adapt to the behaviour of the market,” added Viru.

Adcash is an online and mobile ad agent in nearly 200 countries. The company’s turnover is highest in North America, regardless of not even having an office there – work is done from the company’s Estonian headquarters, in addition to Bulgaria and Spain. With only EUR 30,000 of the total turnover of EUR 43-million in 2014 earned in Estonia, the company is clearly a global player.

Adcash aims to raise the value of the company to EUR 1 billion.

Pictured in the photograph: Presentation by Priit Viru, at the Innovation Lab in Tallinn (photograph by: Egert Kamenik)

For more information:

Evelin Allas
Communications Manager
Marketing and Communications Division
SEB

Phone +372 665 5649
Mobile +372 511 1718
Address Tornimäe 2, 15010 Tallinn
E-mail evelin.allas@seb.ee
www.seb.ee

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