Brazil is not known for its software industry, which makes the success of Totvs, a company that might appear less out of place on the IT-heavy Bombay Stock Exchange than on Brazil’s Bovespa, all the more surprising.
Totvs produces enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for small and medium-sized companies, focusing on firms with up to $2bn in revenues. It has sustained fast growth with little volatility in its home market and is increasingly expanding overseas. In the past eight years alone, Totvs has grown revenues 10 times to some 1.05bn reais, says José Rogerio Luiz, CFO. That makes it the largest in the ERP space in emerging markets and the eighth most important such company in the world. In its home market, Totvs has seen off the challenge from giants such as SAP and Oracle, Mr Luiz asserts.
