Digital revolution: Made in Bulgaria

Very soon after the acquisition of Italcementi, the Bulgarian IT team was identified as a key resource pool and an invaluable contributor to numerous Group-wide IT projects, such as CRM, AOM or Magma (mineral lands database for the aggregates business line). This is the next chapter in the team’s success story, which started when the team was part of Italcementi and supported IT activities beyond the borders of Bulgaria.

“Once we saw how Italcementi had employed the Bulgarian IT team globally and recognised their successful contributions to HeidelbergCement’s OneIT projects, it was clear that we had to integrate the Bulgarian team into the global OneIT footprint,” says Dennis Lentz, HeidelbergCement’s Group Chief Information Officer.

In February 2019, the team’s role in the global OneIT set-up was solidified by establishing a new company under the name Global IT Center. The new company and the team were then re-located from the Devnya Cement plant to a new modern office in Varna, the third-largest city in Bulgaria.

Already today, the team consists of 20 talented developers and, with the ongoing digitalisation of HeidelbergCement, is expected to grow over the coming months and years.
Georgi Budakov, General Manager of Global IT Center, has led the team from the very beginning. He reports to Izabela Gebauer, Head of OneIT Applications Management & Architecture of HeidelbergCement. 

“The most exciting challenge for me personally is being part of the ongoing digital industrial revolution,” says Georgi Budakov. “This promises to change the established rules and order in our industry, and our team is ideally positioned to contribute positively to this change.”