As the importance of large foreign ICT companies is increasing in Croatia, it is necessary to concentrate domestic companies by creating clusters

Information and Communications Technologies sector is the infrastructure support of contemporary society, a lifestyle. We use it in the way businesses operate in every industry branch, economy in particular. ICT sector underpins efficiency in each part of business, spurs innovations by reducing development periods for new products, improving market conditions thus facilitating the access to information. ICT is a global technology, ICT and globalisation processes are directly interconnected –developed Information and Communications Technologies make globalisation possible.

Parallel to economic activity growth, ICT sector was developing as well. In Croatia in 2006, there were 2523 companies with 31014 employees, making a total profit of over 37 billion kuna; which makes 6.6 % of economy profit or 10.4 % more in this sector compared to last year results. Faster growth of total income and return in the year 2006, compared to the number of employees, boosts increased work productivity. Analysing the last three years, total companies’ profit has increased by 16.1%, and return by 29%. The ICT sector growth has been significantly boosted by good business results of the largest companies, in the telecommunications field in particular, where 24 companies are listed among the top 400 in economy. However, such a large number of ICT companies cannot survive in a small Croatian market. We should also have in mind the importance of foreign large ICT companies is on the increase in Croatia, they are already taking over a significant portion of operations performed by the Croatian ICT sector so far. In order to stop this trend, domestic companies have to become concentrated creating clusters, that is, by forming expert teams of companies capable of performing large projects and exporting “domestic intelligence”.

An increasing application of ICT companies creates tighter competitiveness, resulting in a successful ICT sector making a direct and indirect influence on the overall economy.