MICRO GRUPA d.o.o. (Micro Group Ltd.) Fast growing knowledge based company Founded in 2000, 30 employees, 3 specialized companies MICRO projekt (MICRO Project) MICRO bilanca (MICRO Balance) MICRO edukacija (MICRO Education)
WORLD BANK FORUM: Entrepreneur's experiences in doing business in Croatia?
MICRO GROUP ACTIVITIES Assisting foreign investors coming to Croatia investors from 14 EU and other countries facilitated investments of more than 30 million advising over 130 companies with foreign ownership Project development Independent market based incubator network Preparing projects for investors and exporters
DOING BUSINESS IN CROATIA: CONVENTIONAL INTERPRETATION Croatian Government has to do something for the improvement of the business climate Entrepreneurs need a locomotive Use of trend-based terminology Establishing a company is a hard work Insufficient incentives i.e. stimulations Loans are complex to obtain and time-consuming Good business infrastructure, but there are nobody to use it.
CONVENTIONAL PROBLEMS BASED ON THESE INTERPRETATIONS State considered to be a business leader Lack of entrepreneurial activities entrepreneurs are «giving themselves up» to the state Underdeveloped financial sector to support entrepreneurs => limited scope of available financial products Issues related to land and property registries Unintelligible goals Public opinion on entrepreneurs
REVIEW OF PROMOTIONAL MEASURES Lack of integral information system Lack of coordination of promotional measures Promotional measures promoted as a social mitigation rather than business incentives Lack of project evaluation system that would correspond with the development objectives of the institutions that are providing promotional measures Orientation toward trends promotion The measures should be in line with the general development objectives.
POSITIONING CENTRE A role in: Searching for a market niche inside the field of activity Positioning according to the Croatian national development objectives Positioning in line with the development objectives of the region and EU
SERVICE DESIGN CENTRE Greatest GNP increase in service sector Greatest opportunity for added-value creation in service sectors Service sector is underdeveloped (incl. tourism!) The most important and largest client is Republic of Croatia Entrepreneurship parks, incubators, etc. have an independent service research and production - one centre could produce/provide services for all it means that we have aproximately 60 experts for this field, but altogether they produced less than 30 services
COMPETITIVENESS CENTRE FOR ENTREPRENEURS (SME) Competitiveness information from other countries Suggestions on the manufactured (and hopefully exported) product quality level Establishment of a center that will cover the issues small-to-large businesses linkages - harmonize the needs of the large companies with the development directions of small enterprises All incubators, centers, etc. develop their clusters independently it means that we have approximately 60 experts for this field, but we have 3 clusters formed.
UNUSED AND/OR UNDERUTILIZED INFRASTRUCTURE E.g.: in Split (2nd largest city in Croatia) there is only one business building! However, various institutions in Croatia have thousands of sq. m. of unused, empty and devastated office areas County?, State?, Institutional? Why not using these facilities? barracks, sites, etc.
CAPACITY BUILDING: EXPENSIVE KNOWLEDGE!!! Average seminar day price = 100 $ Underdeveloped knowledge market outside the university framework Universities are entering the knowledge market with damping prices preventing development of knowledge along the promotional measures No case-studies based education
POSSIBLE SYNERGY EFFECTS Looking through «pink» sunglasses Entrepreneur (start-up or with a new project) Opportunity of visiting the center for positioning to get information about the sector(s) Obtaining information on the competition / sectors in the targeted foreign markets How these can be used to stimulate one s own competitiveness? How to develop new services or new lines of product in order to make them more competitive? How to cooperate with large export companies, and how to become their partner? How to get training?