NFON Sees Big Potential in Croatian Market

Cloud telephony systems replace the need for conventional enterprise telephony hardware, such as private branch exchanges (PBX), said Gernot Hofstetter, general manager of NFON for Austria and CEE region, in an interview for ICTbusiness.info. Projections show us a lot of options all over CEE, and Croatia plays a substantial role in each of these scenarios. Today the share of cloud PBX in your country is 11.7% and in 2025 it will reach 25.7%, according to Hofstetter.

The arrival of NFON on the Croatian market is a continuation of business expansion. How did you decide to come to our market?

We recognized the potential that Croatia has in terms of cloud telephony. It's an early-stage market with huge growth capacities. Cloud communication predictions show us a lot of options all over CEE, and Croatia plays a substantial role in each of these scenarios. Today the share of cloud PBX in your country is 11.7% and in 2025 it will reach 25.7%. This means that in 2025 a quarter of all businesses will use cloud telephony. In other words, about 88% of companies do not use it yet and this is where we see the opportunity.

Having said that, we are aware that there is a lot of work to do. We try to stay humble and work hard to become the first solution for cloud business communication. Right now we have seven subsidiaries in Europe and we are active in 15 countries. Not only are we a leader in Germany, but we also know the market in Europe very well.

What are your key competitive advantages and who is the NFON solution for?

We are a voice-centric company present in business since 2007, which aims to deliver high-level services. Every day we offer companies across Europe intuitive communication solutions to improve their business by introducing them to the freedom of business communication. Within our core product Cloudya we offer the cloud telephone service for all industries and sizes. Our premium solutions offer more possibilities to meet individual industrial or corporate challenges with easy to set up, flexible, safe, and secure solutions.

How does it work and what does a company need to have to use it?

Cloud telephony systems replace the need for conventional enterprise telephony hardware, such as private branch exchanges (PBX). They can be implemented and maintained more easily and at a lower cost. The only necessary thing for the company is to have an internet connection. Users can access the services virtually from anywhere using a smartphone or laptop, whether they are in the office, at home, or on the move.

You pointed out earlier that this is primarily for the tourism sector, are you targeting small family hotels or large hotel chains?

Our solution is not intended only for hotels. In general, we see the potential of cloud-based business communication in the entire tourism sector.

Let's go back to the technical solution. How does the system work and what does it bring from the options to the users?

The base technology is called hosted PBX and it refers to the concept, that the telephone system is not installed at the company site, but at a geographically redundant data center, and can be accessed anywhere with any device.

Our core solution Cloudya makes it possible for employees to stay in contact and work more productively wherever they are, and whichever device they’re using. All they need is just one number and one email inbox. Thanks to CRM integration, users can work more efficiently with click-to-dial directly from the CRM system and Cloudya delivers all PBX functionalities users ever need, from voicemail to call queues. In the CEE region, it is common among small businesses to have the mobile phone as the only device for telephony. This may lead to losing control of the current affairs, when the recipient is busy or not available. In Austria, for example, the situation is different. When employees communicate with colleagues and customers via business telephones, the call can be picked up by co-workers, customer service, or the reception, thus ensuring 100% reachability for the client. Leaving the phones in the offices after working hours allows to separate work from private life, and that we want to provide to Croatian companies as well.

You have announced that you will be working with partners and the affiliate network. How do you plan to develop it, are you looking for large system integrators or smaller companies, will you focus on regional coverage or are you looking for just a few partners?

To deliver the best customer experience and accelerate our growth, we have a very strong partner network across Europe, with over 2.300 partners from small IT experts to large system integrators and carriers. Partners are NFON's biggest strength, and the partner network that we are building in the CEE region will largely depend on how many users will use our services. We are targeting small, medium, and large IT companies that will include our services in their portfolio, but we do not plan to focus only on them.

Our goal is to establish cooperation with both large system integrators and everyone who sees our solution as an opportunity to improve their business. The main focus will be on partners in Croatia, and the goal is to have as many of them as possible. We do not want to limit ourselves and the number of partners.