As Novac/Bernard Ivezic writes, the Swedish company Transcom, which entered the Croatian market fourteen years ago in parallel with Tele2, to which it provided call centre services from Vukovar, has taken over Varazdin City Connect. While the value of the takeover hasn’t yet been announced, Transcom’s plan going forward has. Its goal is to position itself as the leading BPO service provider here in the wider Adriatic region.
The acquired company, Varazdin City Connect, became quite popular in Croatia in a short amount of time. It is a very young company that is growing so quickly that it is being hailed as ”Varazdin’s Infobip” – a true mark of success when one considers what the actual Infobip from Vodnjan has achieved.
the Varazdin City Connect company was founded back in 2019, and in its first year of operation alone, it had revenue of 1 million US dollars and a net profit of 328,589 dollars. Last year, it generated revenue of just over 7 million dollars and a net profit of 4.7 million dollars. This year, however, the company expects to generate revenue of nearly 18 million dollars with double-digit net profit growth.
In addition, the Varazdin City Connect company grew to 425 employees last year, of which 340 are located right here in Croatia. Now, in the middle of 2021, thar figure is even higher, with 620 employees, both in Croatia and in nearby Macedonia and neighbouring Slovenia.
Marko Dagelic, President of the Supervisory Board of City Connect, says that their business with the Swedish company Transcom is extremely good.
”The current owners and management of the Varazdin City Connect company have entered into the co-ownership of Transcom and took over the management of Transcom’s positions in the Adriatic region, and with this business move, Transcom has become the dominant BPO service provider with more than 3,000 employees,” explained Dagelic.
He stated that this was a key reason for the acquisition, as it will allow for greater and easier growth and better service delivery to global clients, as well as greater availability of labour and language skills.
Transcom stated that the Varazdin City Connect company is an enterprise specialising in omnichannel user experience and has a strong presence on the German market. The largest number of its clients are listed companies and fast-growing e-commerce companies.
Jonas Dahlberg, President and CEO of Transcom, said that Transcom has significantly improved profitability over the years, developed a strong digital offering and is now growing rapidly in attractive segments such as e-commerce and technology.
”The German market is now our strategic priority and we’re continuously strengthening our operations to support the high demand for our services. By partnering with City Connect, we’re further strengthening our ability to thrive on the German market,” noted Dahlberg.
Dagelic from the Varazdin City Connect company added that from their perspective, business is good because of the similar cultures and values shared by Transcom and City Connect, but also because they complement each other.
”With Transcom’s well-managed operations in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia, we now have a presence throughout the region and additional resources to provide superior services throughout the Adriatic region, serving not only the German market but also large multilingual and international clients,” said Dagelic, adding that as part of this move, they didn’t sell the project of the previously announced future data centre in Varazdin.
Namely, they announced the construction of a data centre of 2000 square metres, the largest such facility in all of Croatia. That part of the business is now under the auspices of Cratis, which was partly linked to City Connect through management and partly through actual ownership.
”These are now separate stories,” stated Dagelic.
the Varazdin City Connect company boasts a wide variety of services in the field of telecommunications and software, hence the association with the incredible Infobip, which it actually has nothing to do with at all. City Connect is building virtual telecommunications networks for customers, which is something telecoms normally do. Furthermore, it deals with the installation and connection of software, such as system integrators, then the contact centre, and even consults its clients on how to carry out the digital transformation they need. In any case, this is a successful company that stands out from the usual classifications.
”With a new opportunity to expand our current portfolio, we’ll continue to provide flexible, agile and top service to our clients,” concluded Dagelic.
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