After founding a company and building a successful business, some founders retire. What they do there was attempted to be answered by Ivan Bračić from PIP, Tomislav Cvetko from Oprema, and Slobodan Marković from Comel in Belgrade. All of them are founders of their companies and all are retired. They were asked how they present themselves today at the beginning of the panel.
– I have never introduced myself as an owner, because one should not manage a company from that position. Today my wife is the owner, and I am just a proud founder. Today I am more involved in social work, while my oldest son is the director of the company – said Ivan Bračić.
Tomislav Cvetko, who was at the helm of Oprema, a company engaged in the production of hospitality equipment, currently among the five largest equipment manufacturers in the world, said that he passed the director position to his son last year, while he is now just a board member.
– Today I come to work only four hours once a week, and I started the transition process more than ten years ago. Since 2013, my son has taken over a good part of the business, especially concerning sales – said Cvetko.
Slobodan Marković from Comel has been retired for ten years, so he says he now introduces himself only by his name, as he no longer holds any position in the company.
– Now I come to the company when I want, and most often just to have a coffee – said Marković.
Unlike the other interlocutors, in his company, the director position is not filled by a family member.
– Our director is currently not from the family, but he has worked with us for a long time and earned that position through dedicated work. I am satisfied with the decision to have a person outside the family in the director position who has received a stake in ownership. That was my best move, even though my daughter is also in the company, but she is an economist – said Marković.
Today, they all enjoy the fruits of their long years of work and are in the companies only out of their own desires.
They summarized their experiences and advice for founders preparing for retirement in a few sentences. The most important thing is to trust the people to whom management positions are left, and to prepare the company for the second generation of leaders, whether they are from the family or not.
Branimir Hebrang, Foto: Ratko Mavar/Lider
The Croatian telecom is no longer just a telecommunications company, it is now much more – began his presentation Branimir Hebrang. With this, he meant that HT is now strong in the ICT market and that they are developing solutions for those areas.
– Digitalization is a term that is often used today, and the simplest definition is that digitalization is the process or procedure by which new technologies are used to improve and accelerate business processes – explained Hebrang.
Unfortunately, in Croatia, digitalization has not yet fully taken hold. The DESI index, which measures the development of the digital economy and society in the EU, proves this. According to it, Croatia ranks 22nd out of 28 EU member states.
– HT, in order to encourage digitalization and to accelerate it, offers a solution in the form of the EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) platform. This is the electronic exchange of documents and the first step towards digitalization. It is a platform through which documents between multiple companies are exchanged digitally with minimal human intervention – said Hebrang.
