Originally posted at the Belgrade Foreign Visitors Club
There has been plenty of talk over the last few years about the need to attract talented Serbs from the Diaspora back to Serbia to lead the next generation of Serbian businesses with their unique blend of Western know-how and understanding of Serbian culture.
I have recently come across not one but two perfect examples of run-away success stories involving returnee Serbs building world-class businesses right here in Serbia. Here they are…
The first business I want to introduce you to The Box Group, an advertising, marketing, branding and PR start-up launched by Predrag Bozovic, one of Serbia best entrepreneurs, who is based between the UK and Belgrade.
Predrag Bozovic, CEO, The Box Group
The Box Group has taken the Belgrade business scene by storm.
Finally a media company that offers fully transparent standardised pricing, meets its fixed deadlines, offers a world class end-to-end product and does it all in weeks not months.
Thanks to The Box Group highly professional marketing is now affordable to local SMEs. Box Group clients know exactly what they are paying for, and they can add or subtract standardised product components to suite their requirements or budget.
One of the best things about the the Box Group is their flexibility. They can and do deliver complete “boxed” solutions for a fixed all-in price (and guaranteed delivery dates) or they can just cover areas where you need external help (planning, web design, advertisement production, copy-writing, market research, targeted campaigns etc), so you only pay for the components you need.
The Box Group have produced entire campaigns for clients in two weeks thanks to their aggressive deadlines policy and perfectly honed requirements capture and production processes.
They are now attracting foreign clients who are keen to benefit from Western levels of quality assurance and respect for deadlines, but at a bargain outsourced price.
These guys are definitely one to watch.
It was during a meeting with The Box Group that I came across one of their clients, Notos Clean Energy, the second highly impressive Serbian company in this story.
Notos Clean Energy is a dream come true for Deputy Prime Minister Djelic and his Sustainable Economic Development team.
Here we have a Serbian & Canadian partnership, run by returnee Serbs who are attracting millions of Euros of investment in clean energy and sustainable economic development.
This is exactly the direction Serbian industry needs to take: green, sustainable, and energy efficient, with the agricultural sector focusing on high value organic produce. The Box Group represents the other winning strategy, that of establishing Serbia as an outsourcing destination where Western minded owners and managers can provide inexpensive but high quality services to Western companies and consumers.
Its not just services and agriculture where the opportunities lie, Serbia’s comparatively inexpensive energy, superb talent pool and booming technology sector is attracting the attention of infrastructure providers, Data Centre builders and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) experts as one of the key global investment zones of the next decade.
I wish both Notos and The Box Group the very best of luck, but from what I have seen, they will not need it.
They show that the returnee model works beautifully. Its time to take this message to the Diaspora.
http://www.notoscleanenergy.com/en/
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