Ivana Slavkova-Boteva, Business Development and Public Relations Manager at Spesima Ltd.
Ivana Slavkova-Boteva completed her secondary education at the First English Language High School - Sofia, then at the University of Manchester, UK, received a bachelor's and master's degree in, respectively - "International Business, Finance and Economics" and "Marketing“. After many internships and part-time employment, in 2014 she returned to Bulgaria permanently and started working in one of the world's largest companies in the field of ICT - Hewlett Packard, in the Department for Europe, Middle East and Africa, taking a parallel role as President of the Women at Work Technology Board, which aims to enable employees to expand their network of contacts and upgrade their personal and professional development.
She joined the team of Spesima Ltd. in 2018, where today she holds the position of Business Development and Public Relations manager. She works mainly on the search for new opportunities for business development, current and new markets, the formation of sustainable, long-term strategies for the company, the adaptation of trade policy to market changes and coordination of many projects with national or European funding.
Her motivation today is mainly rooted in the desire to contribute daily to the success of the company founded by her father - Dr. Eng. Ventsislav Slavkov, which for 33 years has prospered and successfully implemented its innovative products worldwide.
Spesima Ltd. is a Bulgarian-German joint venture, established in 1989, which develops and implements specialized systems for automation of industrial production, mainly for the foundry industry, but not only for it. In the last few years the company has successfully established itself on the market in Bulgaria and abroad as a trusted partner for automation in manufacturing companies from various industries.
The company's robots are exported to more than 30 countries around the world, such as Germany, France, Great Britain, Austria, Spain, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Turkey, USA, Brazil, Mexico, Taiwan, Singapore, China, South Korea, Malaysia, India and many others. Spesima Ltd. successfully implements re-engineering of universal robots, and at the same time is the official integrator of robots with the brand KUKA, ABB and Fanuc. Spesima Ltd. is an expert in the field of mechatronic systems, VPN diagnostics and service, industrial engineering, CAD design and CNC processing.
Spesima Ltd. is a laureate in the competition "Innovative Enterprise of the Year 2012", with an award in the category "Independent life cycle of innovation", and in 2018 received the Grand Prize for "Market Leadership" in the field of reengineering of universal robots in the sector Automotive construction. The company also received the brand "Excellence in Innovation" of the Foundation "Applied Research and Communications".
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This year Spesima Ltd. will celebrate 33 years since its establishment. Share a little more about the beginning? What production did the company start with, how did you create a team, how did you find business partners?
The name "Spesima Ltd." is an abbreviation of specialized automation systems. This is the main idea for the activity with which the company started in 1989, but in the years of transition the production is missing. After many attempts to start a business, my father managed to win orders for Spesima for the supply of machine-building parts such as plates, washers and more - as he likes to joke, in "huge series" of 5-10 pieces. After some time he met eng. Ivan Ivanov - a Bulgarian emigrant from the 60's in Munich, who then had a private business in Germany. He is the man who recommends Oscar Frech's Spesima. After a period of successful business relationships from 1990 to 1997, during which they were extremely satisfied with the quality of the products, Frech Internationale Beteiligungen GmbH acquired shares in Spesima Ltd. At that time, Spesima had only its 390 m2 building, divided into 18 small-sized offices. Each of the robots is assembled and tested in a separate room.
The partnership with Frech stimulates Spesima's activities and increases the opportunities for exporting products, especially in the field of process automation in the foundry industry.
The period from 2005 to 2007 was very successful, thanks to the Foxconn project. The company was tasked with making robots for Taiwan's Foxconn, which casts laptop cases and circuit boards for an American communications company. This is a huge workload that Spesima could not bear at the time, so it drafted the design documentation, and ten companies in the country "gave a shoulder" and produced on schedule about 80% of the mechanical parts to be installed in robots. After that, a successful partnership "Spesima" initiated the establishment of a cluster "Mechatronics and Automation", together with the Technical University of Sofia and the Union of Automation and Informatics.
In 2009, due to the global economic crisis, the company cut seven people and turnover fell to 17 times compared to 2006. This requires rapid diversification of markets and products, savings in materials and resources, investment in new technologies. However, the crisis also had a positive effect, because then new customers appeared from Turkey, Serbia, USA, China and in 2011 Spesima signed a contract for exclusive representation with the Turkish company Metal Pres Makina, as a result of which developed a new series of specialized robots MPS and entering new markets.
Today our company owns production and assembly workshops, located on approximately 4000 m2 of built-up area, including 800 m2 of engineering office.
You are the daughter of the founder of the company and a member of the Board of BIA Ventsislav Slavkov. It can be said that your work and family are one. Does this hinder or help?
It is responsible and demanding! Although I had spent several summers at Spesima as an intern and knew what it was like to have a father and a manager at the same time, starting our work together was an extremely difficult process. We had a lot of difficult times, but over time we learned to work together and I think this only brought us closer together. The important thing is that we have always looked in one direction and we know that we both have something to learn from the other! I am extremely proud to have him as my father! I hope one day my daughter can say at least half of the things I can say about him!
You graduated from the University of Manchester. Why did you return to Bulgaria?
The truth is that I never had any plans to emigrate. Fortunately for me, my parents had the opportunity to invest in me and go to the UK. I went with the clear idea that I was leaving to study, to acquire knowledge, skills and self-confidence. This was an incredible period of my life, which taught me many things, led me to meet extremely valuable people, friends and to this day, but in Bulgaria I feel good! Here are my family, my friends and here is my home. I am of the opinion that in Bulgaria you can be successful, as long as you have the necessary qualities, motivation and desire!
Speaking of education, what education do people working at Spesima have? Do you have a problem with training?
Spesima Ltd. employs 30 highly qualified colleagues, including four doctors in various engineering specialties. Our company cooperates with specialists from the Technical University - Sofia, and from the institutes of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Students and interns regularly study with us and prepare their projects and dissertations. Of course, like many other companies, we are facing a shortage of staff. This is normal in view of the great competition on the market in Bulgaria, but fortunately, we always manage to find the right people. Interestingly, there are people in our team with a very unusual education, such as one of our best engineers in the robotics reengineering department, who holds a bachelor's degree in molecular biology.
Did the COVID crisis affect the company's activities?
Despite the lockdown periods and the complicated economic situation worldwide, Spesima Ltd. managed to maintain its market position and achieve a turnover growth of 35% in 2020, when we realized the first sales of new robots, which we successfully implemented abroad. We had many difficult moments related to sick colleagues, delayed deliveries, travel restrictions, etc., just when our products had to be installed and launched. However, our team managed to get through the difficulties, thanks to our professionalism and the fact that we were united.
In the period 2020-2021, Spesima had the opportunity to reorganize its internal resources and expertise and to focus entirely on its innovation activities - intensive development towards further diversification of products and services. During this period, the company began developing digital twins in a cloud-based platform for modeling robotic systems for heavy industry. At the same time, the BOWI international initiative, supported by the European Commission through Horizon 2020, was launched, driven by digital innovation hubs from various regions of the EU. BOWI aims to help investors find leaders in the digital revolution in areas such as Industry 4.0, mechatronics, robotics, the Internet of Things, and artificial intelligence.
Our team prepared a project proposal for cloud-based digital twins for modeling robotic systems for heavy industry and at the end of 2020 we signed a contract for free financial and expert support. Digital twins allow more efficient management of automation performed by Spesima robots and lead to optimization of production processes, reduction of maintenance costs, early prevention of accidents, safe working conditions. To date, the digital twin is a fact and a period of testing and validation in a real environment is imminent.
What lies ahead for Spesima Ltd. in 2022?
Spesima will continue to follow the path of innovation in 2022!
One of the current projects, which we expect to work effectively in 2022, is the intelligent self-consumption photovoltaic installation, consisting of 100 panels with a total capacity of 56 kW, and we expect to cover about 50% of Spesima Ltd.'s electricity needs.
Also, in 2022 Spesima will continue its intensive work on strengthening its market position with the implementation of automation projects in large Bulgarian and foreign companies, as well as to develop the direction of adaptive welding.
