Hidden Champions of Croatia

Small competitive businesses with growth potential are crucial for the Croatian economy, which made a slow recovery after the 2008 crisis. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor confirms on a yearly basis that the country has a low share of businesses with growth potential, mainly because of a lack of competitiveness measured in terms of product novelty. The technological readiness of Croatian businesses is close to the EU’s average, but product innovativeness is falling behind (Singer et al. 2018, p. 34–35). This brings up the question of the entrepreneurial ecosystem which should provide better support to businesses with growth intentions and potential through education, R&D transfer supported by government programs, availability of equity capital, or business angels support. Examples of hidden champions confirm the existence of businesses strongly committed to growth, and their lessons learned are that their success is exclusively based on the strong leadership of their owners, capability to develop teams with strong commitment to innovativeness and global markets.