On the day it unveils the new names for its different divisions — Glintt Life and Glintt Next — Glintt Global’s leader, Luís Cocco, reveals the Portuguese company’s growth plans in an interview with JE. Acquisitions in 2024?
Yes, probably. And more hiring too, because the company’s biggest assets don’t show up on the balance sheet — they’re the people, he says.
Glintt doubled its profits in 2022. What will the 2023 results look like — you only announce them in April? Will it be the same kind of progression?
As I said, we’ll only release the figures in April. The public figures we have are from September, and we’re at €90 million — a clean €10 million a month. So the preliminary numbers show we reached €120 million in 2023.
In 2022 you had €112 million in revenue…
That’s right. Our target is to grow €8 to €10 million a year. So we reached €120 million and, in terms of profitability — which is also one of our priorities — we’re also going to significantly grow net income.
In which areas? What’s driving all of this?
Everything. We’ve now organized ourselves into two major areas, but one of those areas has three [divisions]. All areas performed excellently in 2023. All met their profitability targets. In other words, the results are good not just quantitatively, but qualitatively too. Every area is doing well. Historically, sometimes one area would underperform while another compensated. This year, all of them met their profitability targets. So we’re doing very well. I even [knocks on wood], but I think 2023 was a spectacular year, and I’m very optimistic about 2024 too.
Luís Cocco, introduce Glintt.
First and foremost, we’re a technology company. Recognizably so. And we have two major areas: we operate vertically in the healthcare market. And all of this applies to both Portugal and Spain. In other words, we develop technology solutions, software and related services for the healthcare market, mainly hospitals and pharmacies, where we’re leaders in Portugal and Spain. I like to stress “Portugal and Spain,” because it’s not common for a Portuguese company — especially a tech company — to be a leader in Spain. And we are.
What does a pharmacy need in terms of software?
Everything: customer service, stock, invoicing. So the software manages everything in a pharmacy, including more sophisticated things like cross-selling. Someone buys one thing and the software immediately suggests another. The software can detect that a patient is taking two medications that, therapeutically, shouldn’t be combined. And it warns them. It also manages something else that’s very important: robots. Pharmacies are increasingly storing medication in robots. These have huge advantages. First of all, there’s better stock control and losses disappear. The space is much more optimized, and above all, in customer service, the person at the counter doesn’t have to step away from the customer. In other words, they always stay at the counter — the software instructs a robot to dispense the medication, and the person at the counter is always facing the customer. That gives them another opportunity to make a sale.
You gain extra minutes of interaction with the customer.
Increasingly, the pharmacy is a retail business. A few years ago it was almost sacrilege to say that, because pharmacists dispense medication, but it is a retail business, and what matters is maximizing the value of each sale. Okay, so that’s the software for pharmacies. So we have one vertical area in the healthcare market. And in that pharmacy area, we have our own in-house products, our own Glintt software. Then, the other area is technology, where we also develop applications for large Portuguese and Spanish companies — typically for the 200 largest Portuguese companies and the 500 largest Spanish ones. There, we compete in other areas, but we work across the board. For example, the Chave Móvel Digital [Portugal’s digital mobile key, used across most citizen-government portals] was built by Glintt. We’re the main technology partner of AMA (the Agency for Administrative Modernization).
And by sector, who do you work with most?
We work with the sectors that spend heavily on technology: banking, energy, telecommunications and public administration.
And there you build custom solutions to their needs.
Exactly. Applications, interfaces, everything. Right now, Artificial Intelligence is very much in fashion.
What are companies now asking Glintt for in the AI space?
Typically, all these companies have already been going through a digitalization and technology transformation process for several years, and they have very high IT budgets. Now, anything labeled “Artificial Intelligence” has a special appeal. Every company today wants to do something with Artificial Intelligence.
But that’s exactly my question. Do companies want brand-new solutions? Or do they want to add Artificial Intelligence on top of a solution they already have?
They want to apply AI to some part of their business processes or offering. The solution most companies went for at the very beginning was customer service — semi-automated support. But in the meantime, we’re thinking about other things too. For example, stock management, sales forecasting. Artificial Intelligence works a lot with predictability, right? In distribution companies, in stock management, order management and consumption forecasting, AI can be very useful.
My main question is to understand how companies are looking at this — what are they trying to get out of AI?
We have around 500 code developers, so anything that improves our efficiency in code development has a massive impact. And this is one of those things. Then, with clients: I think there are a lot of curious people right now. At the moment, anything with the label Artificial Intelligence… underneath it might just be washing machines, but people love it. There are many clients who are mostly curious. They’ve heard the hype and want to understand what it’s about. But then, after a first contact, they want to know to what extent Artificial Intelligence can affect the way they work. Our role is somewhat about showing them that. What tools they have, how they can use them, where they can go try them out, etc.
“Now, anything labeled ‘Artificial Intelligence’ has a special appeal. Every company today wants to do something with Artificial Intelligence.”
Essentially, Glintt is a human capital company. Human capital and technology, exactly. Our value lies in our people and the functional experience they bring, because technology without understanding the business doesn’t work. So people need to understand the business in order to know how to apply technology. The functional knowledge people have — for example, in hospitals — is essential. No one can develop software or technology for hospitals without understanding how a hospital works. That’s why we have biomedical engineers, nurses, people who know that business here. And so our main asset isn’t even on the balance sheet. When we look at the balance sheet, we don’t have real assets, we don’t have buildings. Our assets are our people.
And how many people does Glintt have right now? How many do you expect to have by the end of 2024?
Right now we have 1,200. We’re a services company. And services means people — it’s selling projects, selling hours. So to grow our topline, we need more people. If we want to grow by these €8 to €10 million a year, we’re going to need, comfortably, another 100 people, which is roughly 8 to 10% [of our current headcount]. We have very intense hiring activity — our growth necessarily depends on more people.
Is it easy for Glintt to hire in Portugal right now?
The tech sector is very hot. There are a lot of companies hiring…
And a lot of people leaving…
Yes. The market is global. Remote work has proven that tech companies can, in general, function very well fully remote. Glintt went fully remote right away, and the last two or three years have been Glintt’s best. Teams adapted well to working remotely. And now there are many Portuguese people, trained in Portugal, working from home — but for German, Dutch, Scandinavian companies.
The usual suspects.
They pay a lot more. So I’m competing for people against that kind of company. And then there are also other kinds of companies operating in this tech space — a bit more under the radar, let’s say — that pay very little on the official payslip and then pay expense allowances, mileage, various add-ons, and manage to give an employee the same take-home amount at a much lower cost. So it’s tough competition. Because Glintt pays everything through the official payslip.
How does Glintt see itself fighting that trend?
Us? What’s our advantage: first, we have a project, and we work in very interesting sectors, and tech people like the appeal of the project. Working in healthcare is very interesting. Health and technology are two fields that are alive, dynamic and growing, where people enjoy the projects. So that’s an advantage we clearly have. Then, we’re a leading company in the markets where we operate, and people like strong companies. And we try to offer competitive pay and an attractive workspace. We did renovations, and the office, which used to be a bit dull, is now something people like more.
But since most people work remotely, they still come in occasionally.
They’re starting to come in more. I also want people to come in more. I think being fully remote hurts a little. And then, what do we do? We hire a lot, and we’re doing the same thing that’s being done to us. We have people working from Latin America, right? If the resources we have in Portugal are being poached by companies abroad, then we also have to go looking elsewhere.
Mainly Brazil?
Brazil. And for Spain, we have many people from Spanish-speaking Latin America: Argentina, Chile and Peru. There’s huge mobility — because a person can work from anywhere, for anywhere — and so that’s a challenge we face. That’s also why, in the new Glintt Next area, which handles this technology work for large companies, we’re increasing our presence in the Spanish market. We have clients in France, and we’re looking to increase the share of our revenue coming from clients in Northern Europe, to balance labor cost pressure with higher revenues.
Is Glintt looking at companies with a view to acquisition? In which sectors?
Historically, in recent years, we grew a lot through acquisition. We paused a bit in 2022 and 2023, but we want to keep growing.
Will you reverse that pause [in acquisitions] in 2024?
We’d like to. That “yes” depends on us having attractive opportunities. And we’re actively looking, because I think we know the markets we’re in very well. Our acquisitions have gone well. I usually say that an acquisition begins when the contract is signed — it doesn’t end there. Whether it goes well or not depends on how it’s managed. Modesty aside, we’ve proven we’re good at managing acquisitions. And so I think acquisition is a very interesting way to complement our offering and gain more clients, because in our field there’s a real cost to acquiring a client. The client feels comfortable with a supplier that has already proven to be useful. And so, we’re proactively looking at acquisitions in Portugal and Spain, and even abroad. Because we believe it’s a good way to accelerate growth.
“In recent years we grew a lot through acquisition. We paused a bit in 2022 and 2023, but we want to keep growing.”
What’s Glintt’s next big development?
We have several. We’re in the process of launching a new platform for hospitals. It’s a much more modern and sophisticated solutions platform than what we currently have. It’s already being tested in some hospitals in Portugal.
In what way is it more modern?
It’s faster, there are fewer errors, and so it’s much easier to operate. It’s a new generation compared to the products we currently have, which are already several years old and legacy. So it will clearly define 2024 in the hospital segment, not only in Portugal but also in Spain.
And will it have an impact on the performance of hospitals within the SNS [Portugal’s National Health Service] network?
It will. Hospitals benefit a lot from technology. Generally speaking, hospitals aren’t among the industries most inclined to adopt technology. Banking and telcos, yes, always have been. Hospitals, not so much. But I think that, especially now, given the current constraints, technology is an excellent tool to increase resource efficiency. And hospitals are starting to realize this. Right now, when you sell technology to hospitals, you’re not just selling to the CIO, but to the entire Executive Committee. Because if I can provide tools that optimize the operating room, but also the resources used around it — the upstream part, the pre-analysis that’s done, and the downstream part, which means the patient is operated on and needs a recovery bed. If I can provide fast, efficient tools that optimize this, then with the same resources, I can achieve much greater output. So it’s a clear win for the hospital. Hospitals have a lot to gain from using technology. And to the extent that we have faster, more efficient technology tools that help hospitals make better use of their resources, that has a major impact on the healthcare system itself.
Glintt is announcing a change today in the names of the group’s companies. Why did you decide to do this?
Glintt grew a lot through acquisition, and as a result, it created several brands. We’re ambitious, and we want to keep growing further, with more clients, a broader offering and eventually new geographies. But we felt we had a communication problem, in the way we presented ourselves. This new brand structure comes about essentially to help us communicate our skills and capabilities, in order to grow further. We came to the conclusion that we were very weak in communication.
How so?
Many clients didn’t know all the capabilities and skills Glintt had. We had the Nexllence brand for the technology consulting area. And people would ask, “but is Nexllence part of Glintt?” It was confusing, even for our own people. So what did we decide to create? We decided to create a brand that, in my opinion, is the best of both worlds. We have a main brand, Glintt Global, which encompasses Glintt and everything we have. Then we created two sub-brands: Glintt Life, for the healthcare area, and Glintt Next, for the technology consulting area for large companies. They’re all Glintt: one is Glintt Global, another is Glintt Life, and another is Glintt Next. It guarantees unity — and when I hire someone, they’re a Glintter.
What kind of gains does that allow?
On the other hand, by having individualized brands, it allows for much more tailored communication of our skills, expertise and offering to specific clients. When I work with clients like EDP, REN or BCP, I need to communicate certain attributes, and sometimes people would say, “but you work with pharmacies, what does that bring to Novo Banco?” Now I can shape the communication, the events and the offering for that segment of large companies. When I’m at Glintt Life, I communicate health, care. There, we’re a HealthTech company, a healthcare technology company. So I think this was a missing piece for us to ensure growth: clarifying, and having the ability to clearly communicate our skills to each market and each client segment, in order to address our clients’ problems, while at the same time ensuring we’re all Glintt.
Jornal Económico story, 19 January 2024
