October the 1st, 2022 - The Croatian startup Farseer's software which gave Microsoft Excel a run for its money has recently received international recognition.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Josipa Ban writes, doing business well means, among other things, planning things well. However, it was impossible to precisely and accurately plan various business segments in one programme, until the team of programmers came up with the Farseer software.

"Farseer is a cloud solution for financial modeling, planning and analytics that enables integral planning within a company. This includes everything from operational to financial planning to reporting on all these items," explained Matija Nakic, the co-founder and director of the Croatian startup Farseer.

In fact, he added, this software replaces the entire forest of often irritating Excel documents, and with its implementation, users, namely large and medium-sized companies, manage to eliminate up to 90 percent of the time normally spent on such boring, manual tasks.

"Our approach was, and still is, to solve the most difficult problems in the field of financial modeling. That means we're great for users who need to plan intensively. By simultaneously solving several specific problems, we've created a platform that is very robust and universal. Farseer brilliantly solves the challenges faced by companies who have outgrown Excel," Nakic pointed out.

This, in fact, is their competitive advantage because all the latest technological solutions in the field of planning, the third generation, according to the co-founder of Farseer, solve only a certain part of the problem, while Farseer's software offers everything in one place. It is therefore not remotely surprising that the solution, which has been on the market for only two years, and on the development of which four founders worked for three years, has been included in the Top 15 global third-generation planning solutions, i.e. in the official guide for FP&A (Financial Planning and Analytics).

The whole story surrounding the Croatian startup Farseer is actually the result of frustration due to the lack of planning tools. Nakic, as well as the creator of this solution - Zrinko Dolic, come from the world of telecom, where they worked as planners with spreadsheets, that is, with Microsoft Excel. "Back in 2010, we asked ourselves why there were no better solutions than this, and honestly, not much has changed since then," recalled Nakic.

The young four-member team decided that they would offer a much better solution if they put their heads together. Today, their team is much bigger and has sixteen people. The excellence and usefulness of the Croatian startup Farseer's software is rapidly being recognised by this rapidly moving and extremely demanding market. Today, only nine months after the commercialisation started, 27 companies are already using their solution.

Alpha Chrom from Switzerland, the Swedish Lelo, EOS Matrix, Violeta, Plinacro, Intercapital, and Mazars are just some of their clients. However, Nakic pointed out that in the long term they want to specialise in two industries - distribution and production. "Both are characterised by a very intensive planning process due to the huge amount of data they handle every day. They have a thousand components, distribution centres, numerous customers, and tonnes of different variables that they have to plan according to. Planning using Excel is impossible for them," Nakic explained.

“We actually automate a lot of the planning ourselves. Planners only have to change or tweak parameters at very high levels and you can literally get a profit and loss plan (P&L), which is what it all boils down to, in a mere five minutes. Users can plan their expenses by different departments, and all of this is automatically aggregated within Farseer,'' stated Nakic, adding that their vision is to enable senior management to set the EBITDA they want and to get several different scenarios to achieve it.

In addition to all of the above, when using Farseer, various simulations can be performed and parameters can be changed, which are then automatically propagated through the entire model. The success of the solution should be supported by rapid changes and constant shocks on the market, which we've witnessed more than our fair share of in the past few years alone.

"Planning is no longer a quarterly 'sport' of sorts, it has instead become relevant and important to do almost on a weekly basis. People want to plan in great detail, much more detailed than before. They want to monitor what is happening with costs, with income and with the key performance indicator (KPI). We see a big opportunity in this,'' emphasised the co-founders of the Croatian startup Farseer.

Nakic has revealed that the plan for the startup, whose sales have grown by 21 percent in the last six months alone, is to achieve 450,000 euros in revenue by the end of the year - 250,000 from licenses and 200,000 from services.

"I believe that growth will intensify. We're now at a turning point," he said, and at that turning point, they're also looking for a new investment, the second after two years of business (in the first one, they collected 100,000 euros of investment). This time the plan is to collect much more, but Nakic doesn't want to reveal the details as yet, saying only that the money will be invested in development, i.e. fine-tuning of the product and in marketing and sales.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 21st of November, 2019, Croatian IT company Beta Software has developed a communications platform for corporate users. They recently introduced their application, Bizar, to the public after five years of developing and refining it.

Skyhighgrowth and BizDev Genius from Serbia and Zeromolecula and Aynclabs from Zagreb have joined the project in recent months, and the app is available today on all platforms, including Android, iOs and desktop. Company CEO Marko Čumbrek revealed how the application works and what makes it stand out in the proverbial "sea" of many similar ones.

Beta Software's Bizar application contains private and group conversations so that employees do not have to "exit" the application, as is usually otherwise the case, but have multiple types and levels of privacy for all projects.

The application boasts a Hidden option for ''hidden status'' messages, Private for private ones and Open and Public ones related to public projects. Within these messages, each project can be broken down into separate segments and access can be given to each individual or group that needs access to that part of the project or information.

"We can assign tasks to projects which need to be executed that are timed so that the application reminds you when and what task to complete, who should do it and for what project. It sounds complicated, but this is common in fast-moving companies that want to have everything under control,'' explains the CEO of Beta Software.

They are aware of the demanding path of market penetration, as companies such as Google, Microsoft, Slack and Monday are their strong competition, but they have still managed to come to grips with the competitive and demanding market.

Čumbrek points out that applications like Beta Software's Bizar are sought after on global markets where fast communication is absolutely imperative.

"In companies, saving time and the speed of solving tasks and projects is crucial today, especially if those companies have to separate themselves from the competition and win," Čumbrek adds. Among other things, they also offer rebranding applications, so any business can have a personalised Bizar application with their own name and logo on it. In translation; for larger clients, they also make the desired changes that competing companies, for example, don't offer.

"We're flexible because large clients and the market are asking for us to be like that. When you're like our competition, where each of them [those companies] is worth a couple of billion dollars, they have a lot of owners and some are on the stock market, you can't easily adjust and you're slower in acting and even in making decisions.

Of course, we had offers for some companies to initially be part of the Bizar project, but we didn't want to seek approval for every move precisely because you're typically very slow at the time. 

Today, Beta Software has more than 40 external associates and four full-time employees based in Dubrovnik, where it was launched in 2007.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 25th of July, 2019, the Saudi manufacturing plant for aluminium processing, Ma'aden, will apply the Croatian company 8Sigma's innovative software solution, called "manufacturing execution system" to digitise aluminium production for the automotive industry, the Croatian software company, which is based in Zagreb, proudly said on Thursday.

After a competition/tender which involved several respected and reputable companies, Ma'aden's management decided that the best in-class offer was precisely the one delivered by the Croatian company 8Sigma, whose experts developed their very own software solution and proved the level of their expertise by working on some of the most demanding projects in the field of the very complex metal industry, reads the statement.

As stated, co-operation with the Saudi Ma'aden Aluminum is part of the plan that includes a several million dollar investment and refers to the complete digitisation of production processes in a rolling mill where aluminium is processed for the automotive industry.

The cooperation agreement between the two companies was signed last week and refers to the first phase of introducing the 8Sigma's MES solution at the factory facility in Ras Al Khair, which should be completed and commissioned in 2020.

"By implementing MES, both management and the factory's employees will have a fast and accurate insight into all of the phases of the production processes in real time. MES will enable product tracking from the time the raw material enters the production process until the finished product is ready for delivery to the final customer.

Some of the most important benefits will be surely product quality growth, process optimisation, as well as tracking employee performance comparison and machine efficiency control, "said the statement.

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More Croatian innovation continues to impress not only those in nearby Western Europe but those across the Atlantic in the United States.

As Marta Duic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 22nd of June, 2019, the Croatian company Agency04 agency is a Zagreb-based software development company that generates more than sixty percent of its revenue on the markets of Western Europe and the USA.

This successful Croatian company was founded five years ago, and today their team consists of seveny experts from Mobile, Web and Java development, user experience-UX, automatic quality control and so-called Agile counselling.

"All of [the company's] founders are people from the world of development, and we believe that this is one of the reasons why the quality of the solutions we deliver is primarily recognised. Our greatest achievements are our colleagues, all of seventy of them. Last year, that year was once again marked by the growth in the number of people in our team and an increase in the number of our clients. We ended [2018] with a 137 percent larger team than we had in 2017, and this year we expect to go down a similar path,'' stated Domagoj Madunić, the director of Agency04

This Croatian company is going from strength to strength, and it is currently focused on the markets of Switzerland, the USA, Austria, and Germany where they work for companies such as Strabag and ELCA, XebiaLabs, and in Croatia, they work for large companies including Iskon and A1. New markets that interest them are other European ones, and they include the British and Scandinavian markets, as well as those of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

"We gave our vision the name five star service, namely, we want to offer customers something that they'll be impressed with process of, as well as with the communication and the quality of the products they're buying from us. Something that sets us apart from all of their previous experiences. Our industry is changing quickly, and that level of service is like a moving target. The growth of our size and portfolio is likely, but only if we stay true to the highest level of service,'' explained Madunić.

Growth is clearly visible when looking at this company's impressive figures, revenues have risen from 6.95 million kuna back in 2017 to a massive 13.5 million kuna last year, with more than double the growth of employees, from 29 in 2017 to 71 who are currently working for this Croatian agency.

"We recently started working on our new website, and we decided on a somewhat brave concept and asked all of our customers for a video statement or a written statement. When we made a contact list, we counted that seventy percent would be willing to give a written statement, and maybe fifty percent would be willing to stand in front of a camera and record a video statement.

Not everyone likes such exposure, and it's not easy to get in front of the camera. We have taken into account that our customers are big companies and that we will have challenges and a long process of approving such statements. We were shocked when we got literally all positive responses, and 100 percent of the people asked about cooperation with us in some way or another. Such a relationship with customers can't be purchased with good sales and marketing, but only with good deliveries,'' said the company's director.

''This year, for the second summer in a row, we'll host a free summer school that will provide students with a theoretical and practical insight into Java application development using the Spring Boot library suite during five weeks. The course will take place online during the week, with personal meetings with lecturers taking place at weekends, and at the end of the school, participants will be able to show off what they learned during their time at our summer school in a two-day hackathon.

We've been looking for young and ambitious people because there's a large gap between academic and practical knowledge in Java programming, and among other things, we want to give young people the opportunity to learn something that will be practical to use.

Along those same lines, it's a great opportunity for us to reach some high-quality employees, last year, thirty attendees participated in this summer school, and from them, we've given permanent employment to four people,'' noted Domagoj Madunić.

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Croatian innovation seems to know no bounds (other than state bureaucracy that is), and is continuing to go from strength to strength with an impressive wave of technological inventions and solutions, winning acolades and recognition from around the world.

As Samo Pozitivno writes on the 22nd of May, 2019, Croatian-made flight control software, Vibe solution, has been declared the world's best technical solution by the expert IFATCA jury, an international flight control association. As far as the acknowledgment for this piece of innovation, the representatives of Vibe and Croatian air traffic control received an award during the first day of the IFATCA58 event, which took place from the 20th to the 24th of May in Costa Rica.

To win the title of being the absolute best of the best, this Croatian software was carefully chosen among technical solutions from more than 130 countries worldwide. The jury awarded their recognition to the Croatian multi-briefing system, which is one of the brighter examples of cooperation between the private and public sectors.

''The idea was to develop a system that will enable the easier and faster information flow between departments in air navigation control so that decisions can be made timely and precisely on the basis of "in-time" information, but also to maximise the performance of the department. Croatia's air traffic control has proven to be an excellent partner, as it recognised this idea five years ago and helped us to develop a system that has made the experts proclaim it the best in the world,'' said Marko Emer, the creator of Vibe Solution software upon receiving the award which was handed over by Philippe Domagal.

The value of this Croatian software was recognised by most of the 50,000 members of IFATCA from more than 130 countries around the world, consisting of aerospace and flight control professionals, making this success even more significant.

"It's always nice to get praised for some work, but when that praise comes from the experts, and when the choice is between the solution made by an IT company from Croatia and hundreds of other software developing companies from some of the richest countries in the world, then that feeling of satisfaction is far greater. This award for Vibe Solution once again proves that Croatia can truly prosper by investing in IT and providing opportunities for digital transformation through our innovations,'' emphasised Emer.

In the following four days of the IFATCA58 conference, numerous meetings took place between representatives of air navigation control from around the world, and there were certainly be opportunities for Croatian representatives to elaborate more closely on their experience with Vibe Solution software.

''Now the Croatian air traffic control officially uses system uses the best multi-briefing software in the world, which surely brings extra credibility among colleagues from around the world,'' added Emer, adding that he hopes that this Croatian software will soon be adopted by yet more countries across the world.

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Click here for the original article by Slobodna Dalmacija