Varaždin is putting itself on the map as one Canadian company chooses the Northern Croatian town as an office location.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 22nd of April, 2018, while a concerningly large number of young people who are dissatisfied with both the economic and general situation in the Republic of Croatia search for a one-way ticket abroad, with Ireland and Germany being of particular interest to a great proportion of them, some programmers found their luck in no less than Varaždin in Northern Croatia. In the picturesque baroque city, the Canadian company Upchain opened up an office in which, aside from just those from Varaždin itself, employees developers from numerous Croatian cities who are naturally attracted by the excellent working conditions, extra income and the possibility of doing some work for some of the world’s largest companies, writes Zimo.hr.
Upchain’s Croatian office is headed by Marko Šipek, who explained the reason why this successful foreign company decided to open an office not only in Croatia, but in Varaždin of all potential locations.
The Executive Director of Upchain, John Laslavic, draws his roots from Croatia, with his father coming from the Karlovac area and his mother from the Varaždin area. Varaždin was chosen owing to his more intimate knowledge of that part of the country, but also because of the Faculty of Organisation and Informatics which works as a staff generator, explained Šipek.
Approximately thirty people are currently employed in Varaždin, and Šipek says that they intend to expand and open a new office in Zagreb too.
Upchain develops product lifecycle management (PLM) software, a software platform that enables product development participants to engage in every step of the production, from the birth of the idea to the point of sale, from engineers to the users themselves.
Due to the cost and time of implementation, such software was not available to small companies and large product suppliers – although some companies tried to develop similar solutions, they didn’t manage to succeed, and Šipek stated that only Upchain succeeded in switching the entire concept of PLM to smaller companies.
Unlike their competitors, their solution is based in the cloud, is much easier to use and, which is very important to note, is considerably cheaper.
This is a revolution in this market and was recently recognised by investors, who collecitvely invested 7.4 million dollars into Upchain and will use this investment to expand and develop business, with part of this amount is also being invested in Croatia, where product development takes place.
Upchain’s highly respected status is best explained by the very clients they work with – there are currently more than 10,000 customers, and among them are Magna, the world’s largest automotive parts manufacturer, ATS Automation Cambridge which manufactures automated production lines, including production lines for Apple products, then OHB AG Munich as part of ESA (European Space Agency) and many other well-known companies.
“We’re the most prominent on the North American market as well as in Europe if we look at customer locations, and if we talk about the distribution and use of the software itself, we’re globally present on the market,” Šipek concluded.
