So once a year CEO-s of a big companies write a letter to their shareholders with year summary and the direction where the company is heading in the next year, but as we are not a corporation (yet) I'll just write a simple blog post with just one business fact. The most important one.
2011 summary
Running a business requires lot of different skills and one of them is the ability to always "keep your eye on the ball". But once in a while you need to look at the big picture, to check if you achieved your goals or not, where are you heading, etc. One opportunity for a clean look is the financial year closure and in Croatia this is always in line with the calendar year end. Which is good as you can think about the whole thing during holidays :).
Was year 2011 successful for business? The rough estimates show that we achieved more than 60% cash flow growth with just 12% more man power (comparing to 2010). Enough said. It is hard to pin point exactly the reason for such a growth but here are few good guesses:
- getting more and more stronger in our niche (eZ Publish CMS) by doing more complicated projects, gaining experience and expertize
- a lot more external engagement and building credibility: writing blog posts, share.ez.no activity, using social tools (twitter, google+)
- being present on events like eZ Publish Winter Conference in Nice and eZ Publish Summer Conference in London
- 50% of the cash flow was export
I would like to thank all Netgen employees who made it possible (ordered alphabetically): Davorka, Dinko, Edi, Igor, Marin, Mario, Marija, Marko, Milan, Petar, Viktor, Vjeran, 2x Tomislav. Also, a great thanks to our partner companies: www.infomar.hr, www.effectiva.hr, www.bambibold.hr, www.soma.hr, www.xvision.org, www.creativenights.com, www.blagonic.com, we love you guys and girls.
That growth enabled us to hire more people and establish an office in Osijek. We are counting on them in the following year to keep on growing.
Few more things worth of noting:
- we created a new Netgen logo and a new web design. Still some work to do here but the overall look and feel is here to stay
- we organized the first eZ Publish Croatia meetup (just thinking on how to repeat that this year)
- we are now covering 3 biggest theaters in Croatia with our box office solution, web site and web shop
- in March we co-founded the Croatian Independent Software Exporters association. The association currently has 85 members, really impressive.
- started interviewing some eZ people on our blog (next interview coming soon)
Some expectation for 2012
While revising the elapsed year, naturally, expectations for the following year come to mind.
So what to expect? Lets put it very short (in order of importance):
- more engagement
- more work
- more income
Enough said.
Meet us at eZ Publish Partner Conference in Lisabon or on some of the following #CISEXFriday meetings.
Btw, Happy New Year :)