How are the sectors doing? Energy and construction are growing, trade is declining

DHL Group, the leading global logistics company, which achieved revenue of nearly 82 billion euros last year, has adopted a strategic framework for the second half of this decade, in which it aims to increase its revenue by 50 percent by 2030. So how does DHL Group plan to raise its annual revenue to 120 billion euros in just five years (for comparison, that is four of this year’s Croatian state budgets!)?

A key part of DHL’s strategy for achieving this growth is the focus on revenue growth in markets and industrial sectors that show growth significantly higher than global GDP. As industrial sectors that the logistics industry should particularly focus on in the next five years, DHL has identified biomedical sciences and healthcare (the biopharmaceutical, cell and gene, and clinical trial markets are expected to grow at an annual rate greater than ten percent), new energy sources (expected growth greater than 15 percent per year), and e-commerce (expected global growth of seven percent per year until 2030).

There is a whole range of different rankings of activities and sectors expected to grow significantly faster than global GDP in the coming period. These three industries that DHL will focus on in a logistics sense are generally found among the top ten on all these lists. Almost invariably, artificial intelligence ranks first on all these lists.

In Croatian corporate practice, we have not yet heard (which, of course, does not mean that it does not exist) of an example of such a strategic approach focused on turning towards fast-growing industries as DHL has done. However, analyzing Fina’s data on the number of active companies in specific activities, those that submit annual financial reports, from 2019 to 2023, we noticed that Croatian entrepreneurs, whether planned or intuitive, are still following global trends. Although there are also indicators that some activities, traditionally firmly rooted, resist this.

The far highest growth rate (as much as 55 percent) of the number of active companies was recorded in the activity of ‘electricity, gas, steam, and air conditioning supply’. The number of active companies in that activity last year was 1243, which is 440 more than five years earlier, indicating that the global trend bringing renewable energy to one of the fastest-growing industries in the world has been accepted in the Croatian entrepreneurial scene. However, the high growth of entrepreneurs in Croatia who want to ride that wave, given all the administrative obstacles in obtaining permits, still does not guarantee success. It is indicative that despite such high growth in the number of entrepreneurs, the number of employees in that activity has only increased by three percent at the same time. In other words, entrepreneurs have recognized the global trend, but the state has not yet.

That it is easier to stick to well-trodden and proven paths for profitable growth than to embark on innovations, no matter how promising they may be, is best evidenced by the data on which activity saw the largest absolute increase in the number of entrepreneurs in Croatia over the observed five years. It is construction, where the number of active companies increased by 5779, or 36 percent, with a fairly high growth rate of employees at those employers, which was 22 percent.

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