April the 23rd, 2022 - The Zagreb company Holosys has got an owner from the powerful Egyptian Elsewedy group, which has been the owner of the Slovenian Iskraemeco group since back in 2007.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Brnic writes, the Zagreb company Holosys, a tech group which deals with the production of measuring instruments, has now got a new majority owner, the Slovenian Iskraemeco, seeing it become part of the Egyptian group Elsewedy.

With the announcement of the conclusion of the contract by which this Slovenian company will take over the Zagreb company Holosys, both companies expressed their joint expectations that together they will be able to offer more comprehensive smart solutions for electricity, water and gas, and further expansion in the global market.

Holosys founders Tomislav Lekic, Zoran Zoricic and Ivan Lukacevic have been developing a system for the production of advanced electrical devices based on NB-IoT for remote reading of energy consumption since way back in 2004, which they've since placed on more than 50 markets.

Late last year, Russia was included in the list of export markets, where an important step forward was expected, and for a small company that developed with its own solutions, one of the main references is that more than half a million such measuring instruments worldwide are connected through some of their systems.

Thir range includes power supply modules, data acquisition hubs, antenna systems and data processing software.

The Zagreb company Holosys has about 20 employees and like many other companies during pandemic-dominated 2020, their continuous growth of revenues halted. Data for last year hasn't yet been published yet. They say from Holosys that the movement of income in the period marked by the coronavirus pandemic was certainly marked by global and local trends, with a pronounced disruption of supply chains, which inevitably left an impact on their business.

“The decision to make the Zagreb company Holosys part of the Iskraemeco Group was motivated by strategic development reasons. First of all, through Iskraemeco, Holosys is gaining a strong and experienced partner on the global market, which will increase our market reach. We expect the synergistic effect of complementary technologies and products, and we'll be able to provide additional quality by expanding the portfolio of our services and raise the user experience to a higher level. This is certainly a great opportunity for the growth of our team and an additional step forward on the international market,'' said Tomislav Lekic, the director of Holosys.

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September the 11th, 2021 - The Croatian company Holosys develops and manufactures advanced electrical devices which are based on NB-IOT (narrowband Internet of Things) for the remote reading of energy consumption. They're present in as many as fifty countries around the world.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Darko Bicak writes, as of this week, they have added the largest country in the world - Russia - to their already impressive list of their export markets. Namely, the Croatian company Holosys performed at the EcwaTech 2021 fair at the beginning of the week, the largest event in the water industry in Russia, and clearly caught many an eye.

“It was our first step into this enormous market and we're pleased to be able to present our solutions to all visitors, both from Russia and abroad. We've established contact with numerous utility companies and system integrators from this part of the world and we're continuing with more talks about specific projects. As always, making new contacts means new learning opportunities and opportunities for growth,'' they said from Holosys.

As Tomislav Lekic, CEO of the Croatian company Holosys, explained, they're entering the Russian market with new technology that is beginning to be applied in various economic sectors, and interest is growing due to a number of advantages - better signal coverage, reliable data delivery, savings for utilities and companies. Holosys independently develops, manufactures and supplies the NB-IoT Bridge and the NB-IoT Pulse Reader P1-N, modules that enable connection to the telecom operator's NB-IoT networks.

The company has been doing business with numerous companies and utility companies across Croatia for fifteen years now, while worldwide they work with established manufacturers of telemetry equipment, system integrators and utility companies. Their solutions are in more than 500,000 measures of water and gas consumption in the world.

All these experiences are built into the development and improvement of the NB IoT system, and according to Director Lekic, the Croatian company Holosys' NB-IoT device can connect up to five metres at once, so less equipment is needed to establish a stable transmission of readings.

''The ideal scenario for the implementation of the solution includes a module that connects to the consumption measures, and which connects to the mobile network through which it sends the collected data. The data is then displayed via software and can be analysed at a remote location.

The devices are extremely durable and can operate at temperatures from -20 to +80 degrees Celsius, the battery lasts up to ten years, depending on the frequency of sending the consumption data, and the devices have IP68 protection against water penetration,'' explained Lekic.

They further explained from the Croatian company Holosys that utilities and companies get a long-term and reliable solution for secure data transfer, and it is possible to implement it where the standard mobile signal fails to reach, so it is ideal for rural areas and underground infrastructure. Implementation, they claim, is simple, and as the infrastructure is significantly simplified, meaning that maintenance costs are kept low.

''With the implementation of NB-IoT, utility companies gain access to the real-time monitoring of their distribution network, and in the event of a breakdown or leak, they can react much faster and as such work to reduce losses. They also get the infrastructure through which end users can access an application that sounds an alarm in the event of a pipe burst and provides information on excessive customer consumption,'' concluded the director.

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As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes on the 11th of October, 2019, in fifteen years, one Zagreb-based company has grown from a small team in an apartment building into a respectable team of experts dedicated to developing and innovating their own Internet of Things (IoT) technology products. They create solutions that are used in automatic energy consumption reading systems.

The Zagreb-based company Holosys boasts more than twenty products used in automatic water and energy readout systems, water and gas infrastructure monitoring and energy efficiency monitoring systems, which are marketed in various infrastructure facilities both here in Croatia and abroad.

The company from Zagreb was started in 2004 by Bojan Grbec, Ivan Lukačević, Zoran Zoričić and Tomislav Lekić, engineers with valuable experience in large systems, which, as director Tomislav Lekić explains, was a great and key combination to launch their own project, celebrating a successful fifteen years of doing business this year.

So far, they have sold their products in more than fifty countries across four continents, and more than 500,000 metres of water and gas consumption worldwide are connected through some of this Zagreb company's systems.

In recent years, they have seen strong revenue growth - in 2014 they had four million kuna in revenue, and last year they reached nine million kuna. They expect to finish 30-40 percent growth this year when compared to 2018. "This is largely the result of our orientation towards foreign markets, where we can see great potential in the future," Lekić said.

But, let's go back to where it all began... The company's creators had, according to the director, valuable experience in manufacturing and development in companies such as RIZ transmitters and Siemens, but they were faced with a new, completely different challenge.

"During the moments of first starting a company, you can manage processes more directly and efficiently, which is both a challenge and a risk. At the very beginning, we worked in a leased space of 36 m2 in an apartment building in Dugave, and today we're located in a leased 800 m2 in the Jankomir business zone, and there are currently 28 of us,'' Lekić recounts as he looks back to his company's beginnings.

In the early years, with the development of some of our own products, much of the revenue came from product development jobs for others. In 2012, they made the strategic decision to invest all of their development into their own products and make a living from them. Even then, they focused on the Internet of Things (IoT), smart energy and water.

"Looking back, I'm proud that we've accomplished many of our goals, some within the deadline, some a little slower.

For example, five years ago we said that within five years we'd develop and produce more than twenty of our own products, and we were able to do that. We intended to increase the number of customers and our sales activities, especially abroad, and we managed to continue in the same direction, which is all the fruit of organic and gradual growth.

The key to successful business in our case was to focus on our own development and manufacturing, identifying trends, and giving up on time in some industries, and instead focusing on IoT and AMR (Automatic Meter Reading).

Often, you have a number of ideas that do look great, but it's important to choose one or two and focus and then come up with the best product possible At one point, we also worked on traffic reporting systems, where we developed great products and got valuable references, but we still decided to focus on another area,'' Lekić explains.

Zagreb's Holosys also offers a complete communication and surveillance IoT solution - from delivering quality and durable sensors to energy and water meters, to delivering a set of devices and antennas to amplify and receive signals, to processing data in software and turning it into meaningful and easy to understand information through business decisions.

"Our products and solutions, whether they be a power readout module, data collection hubs, antenna systems or data processing and analysis software, were created within Holosys.

They're based on their own knowledge and bring numerous benefits to utilities and end-users through cost-effective system maintenance, accurate and timely information on energy and water consumption, and infrastructure damage, preventing major breakdowns and losses such as pipe crashes, " Lekić explains.

The Zagreb-based company offers solutions on technologies that are widely accepted across the world, from the currently most widely accepted wired and wireless M-Bus technology to the ''hot'' and new NB-IoT communications technology that is still very much in its infancy.

"In Croatia, our appliances can be found in all areas, both in plumbing and gas installations, as well as in many public facilities. We market a good portion directly abroad, and our clients are water and gas distributors, construction companies and faithful partners who supply our products and they are installed in Croatia and abroad, primarily in the EU,'' Lekić points out. The company, he adds, nurtures a team spirit and strives for a work culture and careful staffing to select the right people for the team.

"We stand out for our innovation and this is what our employees need to be able to fully identify with. We explore new opportunities every day, whether in code programming, creating technical solutions for devices, or spotting new opportunities in the business development market. Our employees, across all departments, must be prepared to review existing solutions and create new ones daily, and above all to be motivated by the results of the research. Regardless, we're trying and succeeding in being competitive in wages and other benefits, and so far there's been no need to import labour. We have enough quality candidates from the Croatian labour market,'' the company's director claims.

Through these fifteen years of work, there are many projects that they are proud of.

"Some of our devices are in Tahiti, our water consumption reading modules are near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, they're all over Europe, Africa... We've provided services for major infrastructure projects around the world, and our products have been installed in numerous communal areas. When I look at the whole thing, what matters is the proven quality of our products and the positive perception from our customers. They see the concrete benefits - from reading the usage of energy and water in real time, lowering the costs of business, stopping financial losses, being able to properly look into failures...

For example, using our technology can reduce unnecessary energy losses by up to 70 percent. Therefore, we can say that the devices are ecological in function and we believe that this is how we contribute, in a small way, to the preservation of our planet.

This realisation also brings satisfaction through a sense of purpose to the work. We're most proud of the team that we've been able to gather together over the years, both within Holosys and among our partners, and their long-standing trust that we have maintained,'' the director points out.

He also referred to the smart energy industry, which is in a phase of dynamic development due to the increasing need for energy efficiency, and solutions for remote sensing of energy, gas and water consumption are, he says, one of the most important links in this process, due to precision of measurement, simplicity of usage and of course - savings.

"We plan to launch new products in the near future in line with 5G telecom development and in this segment we expect stronger market development. Accordingly, we're positioning ourselves as an innovator and leader in the application of new IoT technologies, such as NB-IoT, which should simplify the reading system. Our solutions are not only easier, faster and more accurate to obtain data, but also to change the way we do business and engage in business processes,'' explains Lekić.

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