Split is quickly becoming a major IT hub of Croatia, and the latest story of Typeqast is further proof of the city's tech potential.
In 2017, a branch of the Dutch technology company Typeqast opened in Split, and from October 2017 until now, 25 IT experts from the Split area and surrounding area have been hired, reports Poslovni.hr on March 3, 2018.
The most significant number of Typeqast employees are in the age group of 26 to 34 years, which is why Typeqast has become one of the most critical factors in strengthening the Split IT scene. In a relatively small amount of time, just a few months, to be exact, a large number of young people who came out of the Technical and Informatics Faculties found a job in Split instead of leaving the country to find the same opportunity abroad.
As we learned, due to their excellent response to clients and the exciting projects announced by Typeqast’s Director and Development Manager in Split, Marko Barić, with the Dutch management team, Typeqast is currently working on improving the strategic positioning of this company on the market. This story began when the Dutch investors, among which the future CEOs of the company Meynard Weerman and Filip Pravica had a significant role, contacted Barić.
"Defining the company's image and refining the development strategy has gone smoothly since everyone had a fairly clear picture of what kind of company we wanted to create. In other words, we knew what kind of company we did not want to have, driven by negative experience with a multitude of external IT companies we worked with throughout the years. The story was slowly coming together, and the company started working through two offices - one in Amsterdam which focused on the business analysis, contact with customers, sales and other business activities, and the tech office in Split which focused on the design and development of software solutions. We are currently the fastest growing software development company in Split, and we will continue to grow by the end of the year with 40 employees. Because of the amount of work, we decided to open an office in Zagreb, and our concept is that every employee has a clear voice, is heard, and is respected,” said Barić.
The quality of work of Typeqast employees, he added, was recognized in the first two months when two employees of the company won first place at the Marathon Competition 'Gewaton 2017' in Split. Barić is also the initiator of the first Amazon Web Services (AWS) meeting group in Croatia that brings together software development specialists for the AWS cloud platform. Other members of the Typeqast team make a significant contribution to the IT community in Split as they are the initiators of themed events relevant to the IT industry, along with numerous free lectures and workshops.
“Given the respected voice software experts from Eastern Europe have, among the few possible locations for their development center, Split slowly emerged as an ideal choice. Our city has daily air connections with all major European cities, is only an hour or two from most European metropolises and in the same time zone, there is a local technical faculty (FESB) with experts coming, and its location in the Mediterranean certainly increases the value,” Barić noted.
The key to success in the IT industry is investing in young people, notes Barić, allowing them opportunities for continuous development and access to exciting projects. At Typeqast, they are doing their best to create the ideal environment to develop software in Split, in other words, they are trying to create an atmosphere people want to come to each day.
"We are primarily based on Microsoft technologies, but we also have teams dealing with PHP, Java, JavaScript, and some others. The problem we are currently facing is that experienced people have very little time to form strong teams, especially without hiring juniors,” Barić added.
Nevertheless, both in the world and in the IT sector in Croatia, there is growth in almost all of its key indicators, from exports to the number of employees and their income. According to Eurostat data, there were more than 8.2 million IT professionals in the EU last year, and Croatia was well represented in the group of countries with a marked increase in the number and share of IT professionals in a total number of employees. Croatia is grouped with Estonia, France, Germany, Portugal, Finland, Bulgaria and Hungary, and this is a process of development that is now impossible to stop, showing the speed and persistence in overcoming obstacles.
The one complaint of Typeqast is the bureaucracy in Croatia, because everything that is done by online or telephone calling in developed countries in Croatia, is done by going door-to-door, commented the director.
”Someone has to lose half a business day just to get a piece of paper with a stamp. Things are being solved very slowly and ineffectively, as there are countless examples. For example, all documentation should be signed and stamped and archived in paper form, while such things are stored and distributed in electronic form. We initially had a lot of trouble trying to explain to our Dutch investors that certain things can’t be resolved quickly or even at all because some of these things are unavailable to them.”
However, given the significant export potential of this sector, and as the media has already written about Typeqast, after all, the solutions created today in their Split office operate all over the world.
Translated from Poslovni.hr
