April the 16th, 2022 - The Zagreb ReversingLabs company has become a member of the world's largest open source security initiative, placing Croatia on the map of success in yet another sector.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, among the 20 global technology and other companies that joined Linux's Open Source Security Foundation in March (OpenSSF) is the Zagreb ReversingLabs company, a cybersecurity specialist enterprise and one of the fastest growing IT companies in all of Croatia.

OpenSSF has been operating under the auspices of the non-profit Linux Foundation since August 2020, and it brings together the world's most important initiatives to increase open source security. The latest round of membership enlargement saw Spotify, MongoDB, Alibaba Cloud, Citi, Huawei Technologies and others join, as well as the Zagreb ReversingLabs company. This followed recent speeches to congressional bodies on the growing risks of open source and the need to increase its security. The White House also held a summit on the same topic.

Open source security is under the magnifying glass of the American authorities after a number of organisations and corporations were attacked back in 2020 and 2021 through the software supply chain. With the May 2021 decree, American President Joe Biden enacted a series of measures to improve the security of software and digital infrastructure in the country, and a significant portion of those measures relate to the supply chain. Further improvements to the regulatory framework are also expected.

“More and more new threats are coming from the software supply chain, and among them are risks from the open source ecosystem. Due to a number of interdependencies and complexities, companies often don't have any insight into the origin of the code and components built into their software. It's difficult for them to recognise malicious elements in applications and track every component from its origin to the final version of the software. We're happy to join OpenSSF and we believe that we can contribute in the field of automation of more complex lists of software components, as well as when it comes to further reducing risks related to the supply chain and software development process,'' said Mario Vuksan, CEO and co-founder of the Zagreb ReversingLabs company.

''Open source is the foundation on which software is built today. Our work at OpenSSF, along with the contributions of companies and individuals from around the world, is key to the improvements we want to achieve,'' said Brian Behlendorf, the CEO of OpenSSF. According to him, OpenSFF is a neutral forum with broad support through which significant progress can be made when it comes to open source security.

The Zagreb ReversingLabs company

ReversingLabs has built the world's largest malware database through a development centre located right here in Zagreb. The company, founded back in 2009 by Mario Vuksan and Tomislav Pericin, won the title of Black Unicorn in the United States of America for the third year in a row last year. It is awarded in the cybersecurity industry to companies with growth potential up to a market value of one billion dollars. ReversingLabs' development centre and expertise are all in Zagreb, and their customers - leading social networks, antivirus companies, corporations and government agencies - are rrom all around the world.

So far, they have raised 81 million US dollars in two investment rounds and invested it in new product development, organisational growth and further placement in the US market. They employ 120 people here in Zagreb, and another 60 in the American city of Boston. They have significant sales and marketing activities in the US, where they have been present almost since their inception.

The Zagreb ReversingLabs company was also among the first to interpret the anatomy of the attack on the American IT company SolarWinds, which marked the entire year of 2021 and is one of the largest known cyber incidents in the world to date.

For more, check out our business section.

April the 15th, 2022 - A1 Croatia (A1 Hrvatska) is busy strengthening its presence and position in Eastern Croatia, which is regularly forgotten about in almost every sense and which has experienced by far the worst of the country's demographic crisis. Employment opportunities are being offered in the hopes of keeping hold of the workforce.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, in order to strengthen its position in Eastern Croatia and show young people that there are companies in which they can develop and work, A1 Croatia has opened 70 new jobs in its Osijek-based call centre. In addition, the wider goal is to improve the service by making agents more accessible so that they can devote more and better time to customers. With this move, Osijek, with new employment opportunities, becomes the second largest A1 Croatia business centre after Zagreb.

A1 Croatia has invested in arranging an additional 600 square metres of modern and functional office space, which will complete the working space in Eurodom to cover about 1000 square metres. About a hundred agents will work in it, and about 70 of them are currently being employed or are undergoing education and training.

The General Director for Private Users of A1 Croatia, Ivana Markovic, emphasised the importance of a positive working atmosphere because agents are expected to know and be able to do everything, which isn't easy at all.

A strong contribution to youth employment and retention

By choosing Osijek for the new location of the call centre, A1 Croatia is directly contributing to employment and retention, primarily of young people, in Osijek-Baranja County and the City of Osijek.

"Osijek is coming to life in the economic sense, which is confirmed by statistics. We've reduced the number of unemployed people in the city, there are more immigrants than emigrants, and the average salary has increased. We've freed investors from needing to pay utility/communal contributions, which leads to multimillions in terms of savings in the construction of commercial facilities. In terms of conditions, our Nemetin Economic Zone is one of the most attractive in all of Croatia. We're creating a positive economic environment, a significant part of which is A1 Croatia with its large Osijek investment,'' said the Mayor of Osijek, Ivan Radic.

The Osijek-based A1 Croatia call centre also employs more women than men, and the average age is around 25 years. With colleagues from sales and technology in the capital of Slavonia, A1 is the employer of more than 160 workers.

Ivan Skender, Chief Director for Business Transformation, Human Resources and Corporate Communications, stated that A1 Croatia continues to invest in its employees.

''In 2021 and 2022, we invested 8 percent in employee salaries and benefits to ease the impact of inflation. Regular and transparent communication and the creation of a motivating work environment are the foundations of our corporate culture,'' said Skender.

All new employees in the A1 Croatia Osijek call centre receive numerous benefits, among other things, they have the opportunity to receive a bonus for getting good results, they will be able to work from home and they'll also be improve their education to gain future skills.

For more, check out our business section.

April the 13th, 2022 - The Zagreb startup Optimoroute has been gaining some truly excellent results across the pond on the American market.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sergej Novosel Vuckovic writes, the recently held American-Croatian Forum in Zagreb raised questions from many domestic companies about what they can provide to Americans and Americans in business. The successful Zagreb startup Optimoroute was able to give them the answer and a hint at the direction in which they should go.

The Zagreb startup Optimoroute stated that Croatian enterprises should try to place an innovative product with expertise in its application and adaptation for different industries. The company run by the Saric brothers - Marin (Chief Executive Officer, CEO) and Frane (Chief Technical Officer, CTO), as co-owners (the third is their friend Goran Kukolj) has developed software, ie a platform for route optimisation and organisation and scheduling field work for the likes of deliverymen and drivers, which brings savings to companies.

With today's disrupted logistics-distribution-supply chains, any method that would reduce the consumption of both variables in the saying "time is money" is highly desirable, and this is best recognised by Americans, Optimoroute's most numerous customers, of which they have more than 2,500 worldwide.

"Our biggest market is America and it has the strongest growth (70 percent of all our revenue), and we have very good results in Europe, Australia and New Zealand. Our sales team routinely deals in foreign markets without talking to them live or on the phone. How much we've grown is best shown by the fact that this year alone we sent several million SMS messages through which we informed our customers about the details of their deliveries or the arrival of their service technicians,'' the Zagreb startup Optimoroute's founders explained. There are also small florists and factories, distributors, and also sector leaders among their clients:

“Our client and fresh food supplier is Hardie’s whose 160 trucks make thousands of deliveries a day across the state of Texas. With the OptimoRoute platform, they reduced the distance travelled by 20 percent and increased their delivery capacity by 16 percent. The planning process has been accelerated 8 times, and now one person is doing what a team of people used to do,'' say the Saric brothers. Just how efficient and adaptable their innovative platform is for all SUVs is illustrated by yet another example:

"When a severe snowstorm hit the northeastern United States recently, some 16 million Americans were affected. The services involved in snow removal used our platform with which they could act in the field much faster. Given that with our software, one person does more work in half a day than a team of 8 logisticians would do in a month, it isn't surprising that we've reached a lot of clients,'' explained the men behind the Zagreb startup Optimoroute.

"We're currently in talks and we hope that some of those talks will result in some new customers as they're aware of the importance of modernising their logistics to become more competitive in the global market," said Frane and Marin Saric. An important piece of news for their business, aside from the fact that they have doubled their number of employees to 40 since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic and that they have grown significantly when it comes to revenue, they also believe that they have attracted top managers. Although their entire engineering process is right here in Croatia, Optimoroute is, as they say, an international company that employs experts from the USA, as well as from the rest of Europe in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

"As energy prices continue to rise, companies are becoming more sensitive to fuel consumption, which is another reason why our platform is so useful to them," concluded Frane and Marin Saric from the Zagreb startup Optimoroute.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

April the 9th, 2022 - The Croatian company Galeb, based in the Central Dalmatian town of Omis well known for its textiles throughout the country and beyond, is set to make military under garments for the next four years.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, the Omis-based textile company Galeb will equip the Croatian Armed Forces with underwear for the next four years. At the tender of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Croatia which was opened at the end of last year, this Croatian enterprise was the only one to submit a binding offer for the job, and the Ministry of Defense announced that it successfully met all of the conditions.

A framework agreement with an estimated value of 33.5 million kuna will be concluded with the Croatian company Galeb, while this year, the delivery will be realised in the amount of 8 million kuna. According to the tender documentation, the largest approximate quantities needed by the Ministry of Defense for this year are in the part of military T-shirts and shorts in olive green, of which 34,000 pieces were ordered, while significantly smaller quantities of blue and khaki/camel underwear were requested, as well as functional underwear and military pyjamas.

The Ministry of Defense reserves the right to control the level of quality in certain stages of the production of these items, and delivery is planned, depending on the type of product, within a maximum of 120 days from the conclusion of the contract.

For many years now, more precisely since way back in 1996, the Croatian company Galeb has been supplying its products to the Ministry of Defense, and has been gaining more and more success in the international market of special clothing products, thanks to the excellent cooperation it has with the Ministry of Defense. By meeting the high quality standards and obtaining the AQAP certificate, the Ministry of Defense opened the door to the citizens of Omis to participate in public procurement tenders for NATO members. It is the only textile company that has managed to meet NATO's high competition standards twice since Croatian independence was declared following the Homeland War.

In addition to the army, the Croatian company Galeb supplies its products to the Croatian police (MUP), the Civil Protection Directorate, as well as to the Customs Administration of the Ministry of Finance. As for the quantity and further orders in the years to come, they will, as has been determined by the Ministry of Defense, depend on the needs, as well as the amount of funds provided in the military budget.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

April the the 9th, 2022 - The Croatian longevity food tech startup Cidrani has received investments from some big Croatian IT names, including the person behind the wildly successful Photomath.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian longevity food tech startup Cidrani recently presented a new investment round worth 190,000 euros within the Bird incubator, under the auspices of which it has been operating for the last year.

New investors in Cidrani are some very well-known Croatian IT and business names, including the founders of Five, Luka Abrus and Viktor Marohnic, the founder of Photomath Damir Sabor, private equity and venture capital investment expert Mirna Marovic, financial expert specialising in the IT industry and EU grants Tajana Barancic and serial entrepreneurs and business angels Maja and Jonathan Cooper.

Cidrani has imposed a unique concept of organic fermented micronutrients for the health of the digestive microbiome which, if taken as a daily ritual over a long period of time, significantly reduce inflammatory processes in the body and contribute to healthier longevity.

They want to conquer the American market

In terms of revenue, Cidrani is growing at an annual rate of eight times, and their goal is to become the top longevity company in the world. They were the first to introduce personalisation and a monthly subscription to fermented micro-beverages, and in addition to numerous private users, more than ten companies have already included their employees in the community of Cidrani enthusiasts of healthy digestion.

"This year we intend to enter all European markets and enter the large US market. We plan to participate in as many as five of the strongest food fairs, and we're launching our own scientific clinical study, which will further confirm the impact of fermented micro-beverages on general health. We're also working intensively on the development of artificial intelligence (AI), the foundation of a virtual assistant that will support our customers on the path to health and longevity,'' said co-founder Bruno Balen.

Investors Luka Abrus, Mirna Marovic, Tajana Barancic, Maja Jelisic Cooper and the co-founder of Cidrani Nika Pintar revealed at a recently held panel some of their personal and professional reasons behind why they decided to invest in Cidrani, and also talked about the general principles of investing and attracting investments.

The investment of 190,000 euros from some big Croatian IT and business names in Cidrani represents the so-called ''bridge round'' of this progressive startup, which is announcing a new investment cycle at the end of the summer, in order to conquer the US market and further develop machine learning algorithms.

For more, check out our business section.

April the 6th, 2022 - Croatian companies are set to have much easier access to the much desired and very demanding American market.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Ana Blaskovic writes, in the shadow of the current war in Ukraine following the Russian invasion and potential threats to Europe, security dominated the topics of the recently held Croatian-American Business Forum, which began in the City of Zagreb on Monday, on the anniversary of the founding of NATO. Opening the meeting, President Zoran Milanovic pointed out that Croatia joined the North Atlantic Alliance because of the United States.

"Only because of American help and protection, Croatia is in NATO, not because of London, not even because of the constructive and friendly Berlin, but exclusively because of the United States," he said, thanking the United States for being the ''only country in the 1990s as a state to have provided support to Croatia''. Speaking on video, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken sent a strong message that "an attack on you is an attack on us", adding that the United States will "always have Croatia's back''.

Commenting on the recent NATO meeting, President Milanovic said that it didn't mention countries "that have a problem with their own identity, affiliations, and awareness of who is their friend and who is their enemy", especially emphasising the commonly problematic neighbouring Serbia as a country that Croatia wants as a "good neighbour". He told Belgrade to ask itself if it was a part of the West or not, and to declare where it felt it belonged and not to cause continued confusion. He criticised NATO for not talking about the Western Balkans, while discussing countries such as Georgia and Moldova. "Is now the time to root out the malignant Russian influence (in the region, op. cit.) that we've been hearing about for years?" Milanovic asked.

The security aspect is a key precondition for the development of business ties, and the abolition of the visa regime and the finalisation of agreements on the avoidance of double taxation will contribute to the strengthening of economic cooperation, providing a spring in the step of many Croatian companies. The head of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) Andrea Doko Jelusic said that the agreement was "in process and that the Ministries of Finance in both nations are negotiating the terms of the agreement", but that it should happen "very soon" after which it must be confirmed by the Parliament and the Senate.

It is difficult to say exactly how many American companies operate in Croatia because many operate through European subsidiaries.

"I think at least a third of our chamber operates like that. If you look in the court register you'll see that the country of origin is the Netherlands or the United Kingdom. We've calculated that the volume of trade between companies connected to Croatia and the United States is approximately 9 percent of Croatia's GDP,'' said Doko Jelusic, noting that companies on both sides of the Atlantic employ about 20,000 workers. "With the entry into force of this contract, it will be much easier, especially for smaller Croatian companies. American companies usually work through large European headquarters, so it may not be so critical for them. It's to be expected that Croatian companies will be able to enter the American market in a much more easy way,'' she said.

How much can Croatia, a small European country with a chronic problem of non-competitiveness, provide to the huge American market with about 326 million inhabitants?

"Ireland is small, too. However, it's a question of focusing on certain industries, high added value where you can be competitive, where you can sell expensively, have expertise, so why wouldn't it have something to offer?'' asked Doko Jelusic.

Mihael Furjan, the leader of Pliva and HUP (Croatian Employers' Association) pointed out at the panel discussion that it is impossible to be a global player in business without a focus on the American market.

"It's crucial for the investor to be safe, so it's important that Croatia is part of NATO and the EU, and soon Schengen. It's important that investors see that there is a secure business climate, legal system and framework, otherwise they just won't come. There are many wonderful places around the world where a much better yield can be made than in Croatia, so it's important that as a small country we're part of a secure system,'' said Furjan, adding that he thinks Croatia could learn a lot from the United States.

“When it comes to where the US is best when compared to others, it's definitely in terms of innovation and education. We can debate a lot about education, but the fact is that the best business schools are in the US. We need to ''copy-paste'' that,'' added Furjan, emphasising that there needs to be a ''critical mass'' in order to penetrate the American market, and he sees the potential for strengthening economic ties in the IT segment, in energy, and in the pharmaceutical industry.

"Croatia is home to less than 1 percent of the EU's population, we can't export large volumes to the United States because we can't meet their demand. We have to find a niche to be a big player because we can't go to the US market with small volumes, which is important to be efficient,'' he said.

Koncar CEO Gordan Kolak agrees that security is paramount. 

"Many investors when asked about investing in Croatia mention the safrty aspect,'' said Kolak, adding that in the last two years, Koncar has been forced to withdraw teams from Africa and Scandinavia and to stop talks with partners in Ukraine. "Without security, you can't count on business prosperity," he said. Koncar concentrates on renewable energy sources and digital solutions in the energy sector, counting on several decades of experience in hydro and wind energy. "We have the knowledge and the technology, we're counting on that when we talk about expanding our business in the American market, where we have several projects," noted the head of Koncar.

Silvio Kutic from Vodnjan's Infobip, the first Croatian unicorn, commented on the fact that his company, which today employs 2,600 workers, is in the acquisition phase. He said that with a good idea, a company can cause a disruption in the market, especially emphasising the advantage of the American market in the form of abundant capital available for financing innovative ideas.

"Everything that can facilitate the mobility of companies to the United States is important, I urge everyone, especially in the IT sector, not to look at it (the absence of a double taxation agreement, opa.a.) as an obstacle. We're counting on it to make the situation easier for us in the future,'' stated Kutic.

Ruza Tomic Fontana, President of the Management Board of Coca-Cola HBC Adria, pointed out that Croatia as a country should strengthen its education system according to the needs of the business environment, but that employers must also contribute.

“We need more dialogue between the business and private sectors about the business environment, anything that can help when it comes to creating a more stable environment. I would focus on the amount of the total tax burden and solve the problem of labour shortages,'' she said.

For more on Croatian companies, check out our business section.

April the 4th, 2022 - The Varazdin Ekos Holding company is among the ranks of the most stable Croatian companies despite the state having more or less totally ''forgotten about them'', according to its founder.

As Jutarnji/Novac writes, the Varazdin Ekos holding, one of the most stable Croatian companies, is now under new management. The founder and man who brought Ekos Holding to the wholesale confectionery throne, Hrvoje Vojvoda, once the mayor of Varazdin, has been replaced by his son Josip, and the biggest changes they faced took place in Ekos pekarnica, the most important daughter company of Ekos, holding a 75 percent share in their revenue.

Last year ended with 100.2 million kuna in revenue, the year before with 80 million kuna, and the Varazdin Ekos Holding company is growing year by year.

Josip Vojvoda has always surrounded himself with women in business. Much like his father, the other bosses who had been building the company since 1990 have now also retired. The new president had to elect some new people. He appointed only four women to the management of the Ekos bakery, all of them under the age of 40, and Josip is convinced that these new bosses are the best for a new, more modern Ekos Holding.

Ekos recently embarked on a major challenge, the construction of a modern plant in the neighbouring county of Medjimurje.

''Six thousand tonnes of cakes come out of Ekos every year, and with this new plant, that number will be three times higher. From back in 2012 until today, the company has been growing steadily, the confectionery part is our core business and we can all be happy here that we're engaged in this business. Confectionery is the pinnacle of every food industry and always brings something new with it, it also brings what is old is back into fashion, but in some sort of new version. We've shown ourselves good in overcoming new challenges,'' stated Josip Vojvoda.

He is young, just 38 years old, is married to wife Zeljka, who is also employed by Ekos, and has two daughters, Eva (10) and Vita (2). He has a degree in economics and grew up within the Varazdin Ekos Holding company's realm. At one point, he and a friend, whose father is a business partner and co-owner of Ekos Holding, decided to start their own business. They founded the company Agrofood and were engaged in the sale of fruits and vegetables from local farms. They did well and when the company established itself on the market, the "renegade" sons sold the company to Ekos Holding.

The Varazdin Ekos Holding company is also specific in many other ways. The company is constantly growing, their revenues are high and stable, and the company has been at the same address since its founding way back in 1990. In an old, but renovated beautiful Art Nouveau one-story house, sandwiched between two similar ones in the city centre. There is a bread production plant in the yard. It’s like it’s a small manufactory, not a million-dollar company. But it is precisely this unpretentious charm that distinguishes Ekos from many other companies of that same rank. Although a well-known European player in the field of confectionery, Ekos is still like a family confectionery in its hometown of Varazdin.

The state has forgotten about them...

''We collaborated a lot with Robert Hromalic, bought recipes from him and he educated our pastry chefs with some new recipes. Otherwise, we just work on continuous education. A few weeks ago, six of our pastry chefs were in training at the famous Richmond confectionery school in Lucerne. The global trend in confectionery is the vegan, gluten-free and premium segment, where ingredients must be from proven sources. We definitely stand out from the competition there, each of our cakes has an RSPO biocertificate, which means that children aren't abused in the growing of the cocoa,'' said Vojvoda.

The state has forgotten them in everything related to EU funds, and as an industry, the Varazdin Ekos Holding company cannot withdraw even one single euro because it does not belong to anyone.

''The sector of nakery and confectionery, obviously, isn't particularly interesting to anyone. We're proverbial orphans. On the other hand, we marvel at imported, cheap products made with European money. Here in Croatia, when they wrote out all of the aid programmes, they left our industry out totally. We applied to the Ministry of Agriculture, but we had to prove that the cake is a product made from fruits and vegetables, which we failed to do. I'd need to bite my tongue hundreds of times when I'd see that we have such a quality product that is increasingly being exported, and the Ministry hasn't even got as much as a listening ear for us,'' he said.

Since they could not get an incentive, they've been financing the investment themselves, and partly had to borrow.

Recently, the directors of all major companies in the industry - Ekos, Team Zip, Cakovec Mills, Dubravica and others - went together to the Ministry of Agriculture, only to find out that when the programmes were written, the bakery and confectionery industry wasn't included in them.

"We're not even in the new envelope for the next ten years. They said they were sorry about that,'' concluded Josip Vojvoda.

For more, make sure to check out our business section.

April the 3rd, 2022 - The Solin-based company Include has been making headlines more or less since its very creation, and for all the right reasons. This innovative company, headed by young and ambitious Croatian entrepreneur Ivan Mrvos, has made quite the global name for itself. Mrvos' newest creation has found its home in Slavonia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, the Croatian company Include has officially installed its very first Aerys G air quality monitoring station, and the first location is the Donji Miholjac industrial zone in Slavonia.

To briefly recall, back in late October last year, Include introduced its brand new Aerys stations, the latest product designed under owner Ivan Mrvos to measure air quality in urban areas. They allow for the easy and affordable installation of a large number of units which then provide the most important information on local air quality at any given time, giving cities a proper insight into the source of pollution and their frequency.

"The air quality index in Donji Miholjac shows that the air is of very decent quality in the last few days since the device was installed," claims Ivan Mrvos.

Include also stated that the Aerys G system is a standalone product, the first ever installed in Donji Miholjac, and also the first Include installed product in the last seven years that is not a Steora smart bench.

Aerys is available in three different types - Model P allows for the measurement of the concentration of suspended particles that typically represent the largest source of pollution. Model G measures the concentrations of NO, NO2 and O3 gases, while Aerys X includes measurements of particulate matter, toxic gases and basic atmospheric conditions.

Last October, they announced during a presentation that the first Aerys systems would be delivered to the Italian capital of Rome, which was completing the construction of a smart market at the time.

A new campaign

Since its founding back in 2015, Ivan Mrvos' remarkable company has been building its visibility on its Steora smart benches. Today, their smart city solutions are used in 59 countries around the world. They also stepped into the smart waste management market by introducing Terra bins that reduce waste collection by 80 percent, thus reducing both carbon dioxide emissions and removal costs.

Back in December last year, they launched their third fundraising campaign on the Funderbeam platform. In the pre-series B round of financing, they reached their desired minimum amount of 400,000 euros, and Ivan Mrvos revealed that there were some very well-known names from the Croatian IT and financial scene among those investors.

“More than a hundred investors recognised the value of our goal of making communities around the world a better place to live. Since 2015, we've expanded to 59 markets, with more than 1,700 products installed in more than 500 cities and municipalities. Thanks to this financing, we'll manage to reach even more markets,'' they announced from Include.

The goal was to raise between 400,000 and 1 million euros, as an overture to the second phase by the end of 2022, in which, as previously stated, the plan is to raise 5.5 million euros. The capital will be used to offer smart products to cities with easy installation, ie to scale production processes.

After becoming the first Croatian company at Funderbeam in 2017, in 2019 they started their second campaign and raised 1.5 million euros in record time.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

April the 1st, 2022 - The quite remarkable Vodnjan-based company Infobip has come on leaps and bounds since its creation, making a name for itself on a global scale. The Croatian Infobip company now has a new impressive move under its belt, in the form of a partnership with the German giant, Vodafone.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the impressive Croatian Infobip company has announced a partnership with one of the largest mobile network operators in Germany, Vodafone, to provide mobile security for potentially 62 million smartphone users across the country. Vodafone has been well known for a great many years now by mobile phone users from not only Germany but from across Europe, and this latest move is sure to put Infobip even more firmly on the tech map than it already is.

Vodafone is joining Deutsche Telekom in enabling Infobip's Mobile Identity mobile authentication solution, which will be available to business customers in the banking, retail and public sectors.

According to ICT Business, the rise in fraud over the past two years has shown a critical need for companies to invest in better security. While two-factor authentication (2FA) via email, SMS or push notifications ensures that a company can verify who a person actually is, it comes at the cost of users having to change authentication channels, disrupting the overall user experience and making things sometimes more complicated than they need to be from an end user perspective.

Using the Croatian Infobip company's Mobile Identity solution, companies will be able to easily verify precisely who their customers are by their mobile phone number at every stage of their journey, from account activation and set up to payment and application download. All of this happens safely and quietly in the background, without the need for the user to enter a verification code.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

March the 29th, 2022 - Croatian covid certificates are going to remain necessary for companies to receive state/government support despite the fact that in most other places across the country and indeed across Europe in which they were once needed, they're being scrapped.

As Marina Klepo/Novac/Jutarnji list writes, employers operating within economic activities with reduced activity can continue to count on the government's job preservation aid for the months of March and April in the maximum amount of 4,000 kuna per worker, but they'll need to show they still have valid Croatian covid certificates

As reminded in the Ministry of Labour and Pension System, Family and Social Policy, "state support is approved based on a drop in income of 40 percent and more."

It is also awarded to employers from the areas where the earthquakes of 2020, those from Sisak-Moslavina, Zagreb and Karlovac counties, regardless of their sort of field or economic activity. Croatian covid certificates are still a condition for receiving any government support.

"Grants in the amount of 100 percent are received for all workers if 70 percent of them or more have Croatian covid certificates, and if there are fewer, then those grants are awarded proportionally," they said from the competent Ministry, which has been paying grants monthly since the global coronavirus pandemic began way back in March 2020 to try to preserve jobs.

About 13 billion kuna has been invested in these grants, and when contributions are added to that, the amount soars to a massive 17 billion kuna. Largely thanks to these subsidies, the Croatian market remained more or less stable during the height of the pandemic, and the number of insured persons has been growing almost continuously.

Back at the beginning of the year, the CES announced that it would continue to pay subsidies to employers who shorten their working hours due to business difficulties, but this is now possible in the amount of up to 50 percent, meaning that the amount of support per employee was reduced from a maximum of 4,000 kuna down to 2,000 kuna. Part-time support is mostly used in labour-intensive activities, such as in the textile, clothing, footwear, leather and wood sectors. At the end of last year, it was used by 2,368 employees.

Back at the end of December, the CES Council adopted a package of Active Employment Policy Measures for this year after the Croatian Government announced a new measure called "I choose Croatia/Biran Hrvatsku", which aims to "motivate the return of emigrants, encourage them to start a business in their homeland and encourage population regeneration in areas with pronounced emigration ".

Green and digital business

This year's measures are mainly a continuation of the measures that have been offered to companies before, from support for employment, internships, training and self-employment and more. In addition, part of the existing grants (those for self-employment and internships) has been extended to cover green and digital jobs.

For more, check out our business section.