Marko Kornfeld (Alfatec Group): We Want to Expand Our Presence in EU Markets and Beyond to Reach New Development Opportunities

Thanks to Chat GPT, artificial intelligence has become a widely discussed global topic, but for the past three years, Zagreb’s Alfatec has also been working on enhancing its Elarion platform. The platform is based on artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing as the core of the company’s text analysis solutions, as well as sentiment analysis that reveals the intentions and meanings of the spoken words of the speaker or written text, object and image recognition in pictures or videos, and geospatial analysis with time tagging.

Elarion is a robust platform that provides solutions tailored to almost all industries. Alfatec Group’s Director Marko Kornfeld emphasizes that they have focused primarily on the financial and hospitality sectors, retail, distribution, manufacturing companies, and telecommunications. In developing the platform, Alfatec utilized the best global technologies such as Python, Angular, or AWS.

Ambitious Plans

Alfatec Elarion Hospitality is an example of a tailored comprehensive solution designed for the hospitality industry. Its modules, Kornfeld says, monitor customer satisfaction, compare prices with competitors in the market, and track guest feedback and satisfaction during and after their stay at the facility. This allows hotels to increase occupancy rates, guest loyalty, and service improvement, while guests can stay connected with the hotel or campsite at all times, order room service, report issues, or rate the service and accommodation.

– We have ambitious plans for 2024 that include growth in all areas of our business. We want to expand our presence in the European Union markets and beyond to reach new clients and new development opportunities – announces Kornfeld.

He emphasizes that after establishing several key departments, the growth and expansion of Alfatec Group have been unstoppable. The database department was one of the first. Alfatec focused on the Informix database, which has proven to be very reliable, stable, and scalable for data storage.

– In the IT security department, we provide advanced solutions for data encryption, vulnerability assessment, and monitoring of IT systems, devices for storing cryptographic keys, and similar. In this area, we collaborate with renowned global manufacturers such as Thales, Entrust, or Qualys, thus ensuring the highest level of security for clients’ IT systems. The business analytics department, which we established in 1999, develops solutions that enable clients to collect data from various internal and external sources. This data is consolidated and processed for business reporting. This has allowed us to focus on providing advanced analytical solutions for clients. Eleven years ago, we established the Research and Development Department and began creating our own products, i.e., independently developing innovative solutions and enhancing our offerings. A further important step occurred in 2015 when my father Drago Kornfeld transferred the management of the company to me, ensuring continuity and the continuation of successful operations. Four years later, we achieved our first project for the internationalization of business, co-financed by the EU, thus enabling expansion into the international market and establishing cooperation with foreign partners – describes Kornfeld.

Investment in IT and cybersecurity is extremely important today, he emphasizes, and companies are increasingly aware that investing in IT security solutions is a necessity, not a luxury.

Keeping Pace with Changes in IT

Alfatec recorded an 81% increase in revenue last year, generating 5,773,444 euros, and its exports grew by 65 percent. During this time, earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation were 536,000 euros, and the profit margin was 9.42 percent, due to significant investments. Kornfeld attributes the reasons for this surge to the increase in business volume, i.e., sales in both domestic and foreign markets across all Alfatec departments, as well as development projects co-financed by the European Union.

– Five years ago, we began transforming the company for a breakthrough and readiness for further growth. In addition to bringing in new experts for managerial positions and strengthening departments, we focused on additional training. Quality reorganization and rejuvenation were key moves to achieve our ambition to be a fast and significant player in the market. Last year, we initiated the modernization of the company’s identity, which included a new visual identity and office redesign. Our most important investment is continuous investment in employees. Last year, we increased our expert team by a third, so today we have more than forty experts. We raised salaries by ten percent. This was a reward for the effort, work, and contribution of all employees, but also our way of coping with rapidly rising inflation. Alfatec Group was a modest family business with three employees 33 years ago. My parents Drago and Marijana Kornfeld made the brave decision to leave their managerial positions in successful companies. Despite the uncertain wartime period at that time, they decided to invest their savings and venture into entrepreneurship. As the company progressed, the team expanded, and we gradually introduced professional management. Initially, our foundation was hardware sales, but over time, following market needs, we gradually introduced software solutions. We also became partners with the largest global technology companies such as Thales, IBM, or SAP – Kornfeld states.

Possible threats to business, according to Kornfeld, include a lack of quality skilled labor, new economic crises, and further uncontrolled increases in business costs. He believes that the global economy is in a challenging period as we move from crisis to crisis – after the COVID crisis, new problems have been caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.

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