Company History

The history of Amphora Group began in 1998 with the establishment of a company focused on software quality assurance services. A combination of advanced Western working methodologies and the intellectual capacity of Russian IT specialists made it possible to offer testing services of unmatched quality, which were quickly recognized by the global industry leaders HP, IBM and Microsoft.

While developing its business in the West, the company effectively played a pioneering role in Russia, where very few were familiar with quality assurance. In 2001 the situation began to change: Russian IT companies started to recognize the importance of quality assurance, testing and the implementation of modern processes. This resulted in a more than 300% increase in the volume of our services and enabled Amphora to become the No. 1 QA company in Russia.

Leadership in quality assurance did not lead to complacency; on the contrary, we identified new market niches. In 2003, Amphora Systems was established within Amphora Group to provide system integration and support services. Its scope covers data and application integration, IT infrastructure management and IT consulting. Within just two years, the clients of Amphora Systems included RAO UES, TNK-BP, Alfa-Bank, ING Bank, VimpelCom, MTS, MegaFon and many others. Business growth in this segment was so rapid that the company's headcount increased by more than 120% annually.

In 2005-2007, Amphora Group was recognized as one of the fastest-growing IT companies in Russia. During this period, we significantly expanded our industry expertise in telecommunications and banking technologies and joined the market leaders in the delivery of business-oriented solutions for these sectors of the economy.

In 2008, Amphora Group scaled up its operations and entered the top five Russian IT outsourcing companies, while also strengthening its position among the largest IT companies in Russia.

A milestone of 2009-2010 was the conclusion of a Strategic Partnership agreement for the markets of Russia and the CIS between Amphora Group and S&T International, and the launch of a new brand, S&T CIS.

S&T International is a member of the international S&T AG corporation, whose companies employ approximately 1,600 people in 19 countries. The corporation is a leading provider of consulting, outsourcing, system integration and IT services in Central and Eastern Europe. The corporation is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

The alliance with a major European integrator strengthened the position of Amphora Group in the IT and business solutions market. The company maintained its leading position in the IT industry, entered the TOP 20 largest IT service providers and was ranked in the TOP 5 of the "Largest BI Projects 2009-2010" rating.

2011 was a year of innovation: the group launched projects to implement the Operational Excellence service (S&T CIS know-how developed using the best practices of the European headquarters) at a number of Russian banks, and expanded its product portfolio with cloud computing solutions, including Cloud Testing, a proprietary product new to the Russian market.

These services are based on advanced European technologies and business practices that comply with international quality standards. Operational Excellence is a service for improving the operational efficiency of banks, primarily in retail banking. Cloud Testing is a service platform for organizing the testing of complex corporate IT infrastructures using cloud computing technologies, significantly reducing testing costs through efficient resource management and the use of only the resources strictly required.

In 2011, Amphora Group, as part of S&T CIS, entered the TOP 10 largest IT service providers for banks, the TOP 20 largest IT service providers and the TOP 25 largest IT companies in Russia.

In 2012, the company took the development of solutions fundamentally new to the Russian IT market to the next level: an Innovation Center was established to conduct research into promising areas for improving the efficiency of retail banks and enterprises in other industries (retail, telecommunications).
The IT solutions portfolio was expanded with Dynamic Sales Foundation, a product that provides dynamic sales process management based on individual customer profiles. In addition to its proprietary innovative services, the company continued to invest in the development of its traditional service portfolio. In 2012, S&T QA Factory, a center for quality assurance and business process continuity, was launched and became one of the most advanced in Russia, the CIS and Eastern Europe. Its services deliver savings of up to 35% compared to the client's initial quality assurance costs, while improving the quality of IT services provided to customers and corporate users and reducing losses associated with IT system malfunctions.
In the same year, S&T Serbia, one of the TOP 3 largest system integrators in Serbia, joined the S&T CIS group, which includes Amphora Group.

Today, Amphora Group is a dynamically developing holding company. Intensive exchange of experience, ideas, developments and technologies between the group companies creates a synergistic effect and enables us to provide our clients with advanced services of the highest quality.