Last month part of our team went to New York City to attend a conference called ACAP, organized by the Association of Croatian-American Professionals. We had an opportunity to hear about first-hand experience of American companies cooperating with Croatian companies, and we got to know more about why American clients chose us.
What is ACAP and why did we decide to attend it?
Founded in 2014, The Association of Croatian-American Professionals (ACAP) is an international network of over 2,000 professionals from various industries and academic communities. It is a non-profit organization whose aim is to promote knowledge-sharing and networking between Croatian and Croatian-American professionals, as well as trade between the two.
ACAP holds an annual conference, and this year the theme was called An evolving mindset: Innovation, Collaboration, & Sustainability. Over 300 professionals from both US and Croatia attended the conference.
Devōt team: Krešimir, Angela and Martin together with Srdjan Lončar, ACAP member and founder of CareSpeak & Skok123 Angel Group
We decided to participate in this conference because most of our clients are American, and we wanted to share their success stories. We had the pleasure of attending a panel discussion on US HealthTech Companies Tapping into Croatian Talent. We heard a lot of interesting and valuable information about Croatian-American cooperation in the health tech industry.
Why is Croatian talent beneficial to the US health tech companies?
The panelists included experts from Gencove, OptimizeRx, Noom, and EdgeOne Medical. They gave their insights into their business in the U.S. and explained the importance and value of their Croatian teams. Also among the panelists was Sandro Blaslov, Executive Vice President of Technology at Rectangle Health, a client of ours. Sandro told the story about his first conversation with Martin, our founder, and CEO:
“When I received Martin’s number, I actually called him right away. He took the call in a rental car by the beach, and I immediately thought I definitely want to work with this guy because he had no problem taking this call during vacation. That shows tenacity, right? I found out later that he was actually on his honeymoon. Also [laughs], his wife was not mad because of that.”
Panel on topic US HealthTech Companies Tapping into Croatian Talent
Sandro said Rectangle Health aimed to understand their customer's pain points and resolve them by integrating solutions into their ERP system. To do this well and continuously improve upon the technology, Rectangle Health needed developers, IT staff, product managers, scrum masters, business analysts, etc.
5 reasons why US health tech companies choose Croatian partners
The panelists discussed why they enjoy working with Croatian teams, and they agreed on the following reasons why someone should hire Croatian teams:
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Croatian vendors don’t have issues telling you that your idea is not a good one and that you shouldn’t waste money on it, which can save you a lot of nerves and, well, money.
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Croats foster open and direct communication. They’re opinionated and can criticize you, which is important when you invest substantially.
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Croatia is NATO and EU member state, so it’s highly reliable and safe for investing due to high EU standards in terms of law and economy.
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A high level of professionalism in Croatian teams is one of the main benefits because you can expect both high-level and operational staff to be very competent.
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Everyone speaks English fluently, so it’s easy to get information from the people, you don’t need a translator like in some other countries and it’s just easier to head toward a common goal.
On the other hand, Sandro shared his view on their partnership with Devōt:
“There are often problems with time zones. So when I called Martin, it was around 9 am for me and 3 pm for the team in Croatia, so I just wanted to see their energy level at that hour. The meeting was scheduled for half an hour, and it turned into a two-hour architectural meeting. Long story short, the partnership is [still] going strong. […] I realized that I highly value the level of open communication. A lot of times vendors tell you what you want to hear, and the reason we have the team in Croatia is that they don’t mind saying “that’s not going to work.” No mincing words. If you’re developing something, you want people who can tell you the truth, not what you want to hear. That’s really important.”
We’re glad to hear such valuable feedback from our client, and hearing it directly from Sandro at such an event was a great honor for us. We’re convinced that our relationship can only get stronger, and we’re looking forward to new and exciting projects to work on.
So if this article inspired you to look at Croatian companies as your potential partners, especially if you work in the health tech industry, contact us, and we will see how we can help you or point you in the right direction.
