Abysalto Targets Foreign Markets After Its First Year

After its first year of operations, Abysalto is at the point where the initial merger has to turn into sustainable growth and a clearer market presence. The company was created from three firms, has brought its cultures together, and is now preparing to expand its products abroad. Željko Tandarić, CEO of Abysalto, describes the first year as a period of learning, bringing teams together and laying the foundations for the next stage.

“We are one year old, and we have around 450 people. Over the past year, we have grown by about a hundred,” Tandarić tells ICTbusiness Media – ICTbusiness.info & ICTbusiness TV. He compares the stage to a child learning to walk: the company had to bring teams together, align its culture and prepare for growth. The next plans are linked to what was announced at the start: taking existing products to foreign markets and entering areas that are not yet strongly represented in Croatia.

One of those areas is robotics, which Tandarić mentions as an example of new fields the company is entering. Another important direction is preparing products for international sales. He says openly that good technology is not enough if the market does not hear about it. “You can build a brilliant thing, but if you do not market it well, nobody will know about it, and you will not sell it to anyone,” he says. Abysalto is therefore developing the market positioning that needs to accompany its technology portfolio.

The portfolio is broad. Abysalto has transport solutions, including the digitalisation of urban public transport, smart energy management systems for energy consumption and production, and an AI-driven HR system. Tandarić expects the market for energy solutions to gain momentum as buying, selling and optimising energy becomes more prominent. In such systems, digitalisation is not just administrative support, but a tool for managing complex processes.

AI is, as expected, one of the central topics. Abysalto has a division of around twenty people working in the field, while specialised products are being developed both for existing solutions and for new applications. Tandarić mentions public procurement, sales and distribution as examples of processes where automated systems can help, accelerate work and improve results. “We have started developing specialised products that automate and improve processes,” he says.

In the debate about AI’s impact on jobs, Tandarić does not accept catastrophic scenarios. He sees artificial intelligence as a powerful technology already changing many roles, but says he is not afraid of it. He recalls that developers were extremely sought after a few years ago, while some now wonder whether AI will threaten their jobs. His answer is that the role of good developers will change, but will not disappear.

AI will increasingly write code, but someone has to understand the context, guide the system, and know what is actually being built. “Good developers will become architects and orchestrators,” Tandarić says. This does not mean the end of development work, but a move to a higher level of responsibility. Instead of having all work tied to writing code manually, the focus shifts to understanding processes, architecture, the customer problem, and how AI should be directed.

Tandarić argues that such technological revolutions are not new. History offers many examples of machines or automation eliminating certain jobs, after which other types of work appeared. He expects the same with artificial intelligence. The difference is the speed of change, which requires companies to adapt faster and prepare people for different roles.

For the next five years, Tandarić sees Abysalto as a significantly larger and more international company. He hopes it will move from its current limited liability form to a joint-stock company, have three or four offices abroad, and grow to 800 or 900 people. The plan is to sell existing products abroad and develop several additional ones along the way. After its first year, Abysalto is no longer only the result of three companies coming together. It is an attempt to build recognisable digital solutions for a broader European market from a domestic base.