«MobiliseSME is an opportunity to generate additional income and expand our business»
Dejan Viduka is the representative of the Serbian company Konsalting agencija FAMACOM, which has participated in MobiliseSME as Sending Company.
Davor Vrandečić is the owner of the Croatian company Grimizni cvijet, which has participated as Host Company in our programme.
Dejan and Davor have been collaborating for 6 months in Osijek (Croatia), thanks to their participation in MobiliseSME.
We interviewed them to find out how they have been doing in our programme:
– Hello, Dejan! Could you tell us a bit about your company and your professional path? Why did you decide to participate in MobiliseSME?
We are a company that develops software for education. Our main product is kEDIS, an information system for universities, faculties and colleges.
Our goal is to offer this software in other markets from the close environment with which we share a similar way of working and language, namely: Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro.
In accordance with our plans, we came up with the idea of participating in the MobiliseSME programme, trying to offer the product and service on the Croatian market.
We found out about the programme from contacts with the staff from Business Incubator Novi Sad, with whom we had the pleasure of cooperating before.
– How about you, Davor? Please, tell us about your company and how you found out about the MobiliseSME programme.
Our company builds web apps and web sites for various client types, such as high education institutions.
During our professional path, we have established strong connections with our partners, so our range of services is not focused just on the web, but also on various services in the field of desktop publishing.
Thus, participating in MobiliseSME is a great opportunity to spread our activities and gain experience in the fields of software development and programming.
Information about MobiliseSME was provided to our company by Tera Tehnopolis d.o.o., one of the Local Contact Points of the programme.
– From a business point of view, how did the collaboration with the Host Company contribute to your company, Dejan? Would you repeat the MobiliseSME experience?
The cooperation within MobiliseSME was excellent and we believe that it will continue to our mutual satisfaction.
Based on this experience, we would recommend everyone to participate in this programme – if there is an opportunity to repeat this mobility experience, we would be happy to be part of it again.
From this business collaboration, we got everything we planned and much more!
For example, we established new acquaintances in the field of our business, as well as we improved the product or rather adapted it to the new market, which will be of great benefit to us in the fall, when we start offering our services and product in Croatia.
– Davor, could you briefly describe the matchmaking process and the preparation of activities with Dejan? How did the process go?
In general, the matchmaking process and the preparation was fluid, thanks to the staff of our Local Contact Point.
As we had worked with Dejan Viduka before, we decided to boost the collaboration already taking place.
In our previous project, we helped to set up the business. This time, we just wanted to deepen that cooperation with the new product they offer in the territory of the Republic of Serbia, trying to adapt and improve it in order to be offered in the territory of the Republic of Croatia.
– Dejan, how did this collaboration with the Host Company contribute to your company’s development?
As part of the programme and our stay in Osijek, we had the opportunity to see and learn something about business that we were missing, as well as to improve the product and services we offer together.
Our product has received another dimension and we believe that this knowledge will prove itself well in the market.
We are always looking to learn new things, especially if we have the opportunity to learn from an experienced professional, such as Davor, the owner of the Host Company.
Davor is a great professional and it was a great pleasure to work with him in all aspects of our cooperation, and we hope that it will continue even after this experience.
No matter how busy a person is, there is always something new to learn. Especially for us, it was to delve deeper into the field of design and to study how it affects the user experience and, therefore, the satisfaction of our clients.
– What about you, Davor? How did the collaboration with the Sending Company contribute to your SME?
The cooperation allowed us to participate in the creation of a new market for both companies.
Thus, MobiliseSME was an opportunity to generate additional income and expand our businesses.
The concrete news is that we improved the project and created a base for new business; we also used our contacts from the education sector, and now it has become a new market for us.
If this cooperation proves to be successful in Croatia, there is a possibility to offer the same product together in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In this situation, we would be happy to repeat the experience in this programme.
– Dejan, with which knowledge, techniques or information have you contributed to the Host Company? Which functions and responsibilities did you have during this collaborative period?
We both had the opportunity to develop ourselves and our services/products.
The Host Company had the opportunity to acquire new knowledge regarding educational software and to participate in its adaptation to the Croatian market.
On the other hand, we (as the Sending Company) were able to visually improve the product and create a strategy that will be applied in the future, which is to visually adapt the product to each user or, in other words, to brand the product according to the wishes and needs of the user.
We believe that this detail also sets us apart from others and can help us find new clients on both sides of the border.
– Do you plan to continue the collaboration after the experience with the MobiliseSME programme?
Dejan: The plan is to continue our cooperation and offer our product together on the Croatian market.
The product is now tailored to that market and the Host Company has excellent contacts with potential users of our product and services.
We believe that, in addition to kEDIS, we can jointly design new products for the same target group and, thus, enter the Croatian and surrounding markets.
Some of the future plans are to create a software for generating schedules that would facilitate the work of educational institutions.
This new project would rely heavily on kEDIS and could be offered in pairs or separately.
Davor: As we already said before, if this cooperation turns out to be good, then together we would try to conquer new markets, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina or Slovenia.
In addition to this, the plan is to visually adapt the project to each new client to be unique and according to their wishes, and that would be our part of the job.
All of the above may lead to the development of a joint product for a similar target group, such as the schedule generator we have mentioned.
– Dejan, did you improve your knowledge of mobility of workers within the EU after your participation in MobiliseSME? Which role had the Local Contact Points in sharing this information?
The wish of every employee and employer is to spread their knowledge and products to other markets, especially if they are more developed than those where they have provided their services so far.
In European countries such as Croatia, which is located in our neighborhood, it is available to us linguistically and culturally, and it has improved many trends in business compared to Serbia, where we come from.
A big role in our participation in MobiliseSME was played by our Local Contact Points (Business Incubator Novi Sad and Tera Tehnopolis d.o.o.), which provided us with all the useful information at the very start.
This programme is one of the few that we have come across that enabled business development and progress in any country of the European Union.
