ISS established in Porto, wants to increase its team significantly

The Danish ISS World Services, a company focused on work experience and facilities management, now arrives in Porto with a new digital hub dedicated to software development. The hub, which will be fully operational by the end of the year, already has 10 professionals, and the goal is to recruit 100 more software engineers by the end of 2023. Data science, machine learning and mathematicians are some of the areas for which the ISS is looking for people.

Who helped the ISS to open doors was the Luso-German Xelerate.tech business accelerator, which chose Porto to install its Tech Hub. "We are very happy to be able to help ISS software engineering, a global company, to develop here in Porto," says the CEO and co-founder of Xelerate.tech, Klaus Straub.

The ISS Tech Portugal, which will support the company globally from the country, wants the Porto team to develop integrated technology solutions, specifically in the areas of IoT (Internet of Things), mobile and data, and that make a difference through innovation.

With two technological centres, in Denmark and Poland, the city of Porto was a choice "without thinking twice". The manager describes Porto as "a good place to set up companies, where there is a lot of culture. It is a well developed city in technological terms".

In the country's second city, the goal is to get close to university students to attract human resources. "There are many university students in the city, there are many talents to be captured. "We want to include these young people in the facility to develop more technological skills. We are open to young people who want to join us for work."

While they want juniors for the job, it is also important to hire senior talent for the IT teams. "We need both juniors and seniors, it's important to diversify and enhance the work that will be done at ISS," Klaus Straub avers.

Let's talk about values. There are 100 new professionals, with an average salary of 50 thousand euros per year, which translates into 4,167 euros per month, and adds up to five million euros just in salaries at ISS. Along with people, there is also "a strong investment in technology", tells Dinheiro Vivo the CIO/CDO of ISS A/S, Markus Sontheimer.

Also about the software that will be developed in Porto, Markus Sontheimer believes that "it will be different", compared with what is done in other countries. "We want to develop more tools that make life easier for customers, for example, an integrated software between customers and workers, in order to optimise the business", explains Markus Sontheimer.

Given the new working formats, "it is important to keep up with other technologies. It is important that ISS develops solutions for customers to help them adapt to today's world of work. We have to orchestrate the technological future.

The CEO of Xelerate.tech emphasises that "we are helping ISS to be faster at building this software. We want to help find the right people to build the technology. In a year and a half the application will be developed.

In Portugal, it should be remembered that ISS has a strong presence throughout Europe and beyond: "At ISS we operate in 30 markets worldwide. Europe, Indonesia, Australia, Singapore, USA and Mexico are the markets where we are", emphasizes the responsible.

"To become the technology leader in the industry, we are not only investing in cutting-edge technology, but also increasing internal capacity on a global scale," he adds.

And in which areas? "Healthcare, logistics, hospital maintenance are a few examples." The company also has "solutions for offices, industries and airports. This way, we can be all over the world and employ more than 50,000 people".

The person in charge joined the team in June last year and thought about what he could change and improve. "What can I do with technology in a segment where the human factor carries a lot of weight? How do we build a platform that can grow globally?"

This is where the business lies. "We are moving everything to a cloud platform, which will allow us to be much more agile," he says.

The future in technology is not always predictable and one has to have one's feet on the ground. "First, we have to walk before we run. Let's see what the future holds while we are developing this new project," says ISS' CIO/CDO.

ISS has 350,000 employees and almost 40,000 global customers.