Combis’ revenues grew by 20 percent last year

The largest system integrator in Croatian IT presented its business results for the past year on Wednesday, achieving over 400 million kuna in revenue.

Dubrovnik’s Combis, the number one system integrator in Croatia according to IDC research, presented its business results for the previous year at a press conference. Ivan Gabrić, the CEO of Combis, announced that the company achieved 403.6 million in revenue last year and incorporated its operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina into its business. Revenue grew by 20% compared to 2007, while a growth of 7% was planned, with 3.6 million euros generated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, while international sales in 2008 accounted for 2 percent of revenue. On the international market, Combis could only differentiate itself through knowledge, Gabrić emphasized, adding that the company consistently achieved growth, which was highest in 2006 compared to 2005, amounting to 50%, and the gross profit for the entire Combis in 2008 was 3.8 million euros.

40% of Combis’ revenue comes from the financial sector, which is a slight increase compared to 2007, while it generated 21% from telecommunications, which is a decline compared to the previous year, attributed to a calming in that sector compared to 2006 and 2007. The industry contributed 15 percent of revenue, and public administration 19%. The number of employees at Combis grew by 20% last year, to around 270 people, which Gabrić assessed as quite significant for the IT business since most of those employees work in service provision.
– We do not expect to repeat the growth we achieved last year, but we will still grow somewhat and are working on that, planning a growth of 3.5 percent in 2009, Gabrić stated, announcing a planned increase in market share in 2009, and within the company, he announced work on optimizing the business model.

Industries like INA will strongly insist that IT provides them with better control mechanisms to predict the consequences of market shocks, but they will also require IT to implement cost-cutting processes. We have recognized that smaller companies will increasingly focus on internal organization to survive, so we joined the community of Microsoft Navision partners. That the crisis is not so severe in the IT sector was confirmed by Rene Saboti Slovenc, the marketing director at Combis, who stated that the company will not abandon the user conference that will also be held this year in Zadar. (Igor Škevin)