Porsche Digital accelerates digital transformation efforts in Croatia
It’s been an exciting year for Porsche Digital Croatia. Founded in the midst of a pandemic, this joint venture with the Croatian tech company Infinum has already achieved great success in its first year.
In September 2020, Porsche Digital opened a new office in Croatia’s capital Zagreb, making it the fourth in Europe and the ninth worldwide. It was the next step towards further expanding our global innovation network and an excellent opportunity to establish our presence in the region.
Zagreb is one of Europe’s most promising up-and-coming innovation centres. Thanks to the country’s largest university with its focus on IT and natural sciences, the metropolis has a diverse talent pool in the fields of software engineering and data sciences. Thus it was a logical step for us to open an office in Croatia’s capital and make use of the promising talent in the city. Luckily, we found a great partner in Infinum, a Croatian tech company, which stands in line with our ambitions to accelerate our efforts in digital transformation.
The partnership already proved to be a great success as a cross-national network. With merging competences, the main focus of the cooperation is to work together to continue improving and expanding existing digital products in Porsche Digital’s portfolio and the realisation of new services. This cooperation stands in line with one of our core beliefs: to develop products for a diverse, multinational audience, you need to broaden your footprint and be present in relevant technology hubs worldwide.
One year of Porsche Digital Croatia
So far, our team in Croatia consists of around 40 people with experience in engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, design and agile project management. With this skillset, we are able to shape the transformation of the automotive industry from within and expand the boundaries of new technologies.
In product development — as at other locations — we take a holistic approach. Our teams are multidisciplinary, allowing representatives from each discipline to contribute their perspectives from the beginning. This enables us to ensure feasibility throughout the process and eliminate bottlenecks at an early stage. In addition, mixed teams lead to innovation, new ideas and a better understanding of the market.
This collaborative approach is also reflected in our office space. Even though we are big supporters of remote work, we think it’s important to create places for exchange. Our beautiful office in the heart of Zagreb is a combination of Infinum’s playfulness and Porsche Digital’s innovative power. With functionality as a number one priority, it is equipped with mobile workstations, which allow privacy and efficiency while being close to colleagues. It is perfectly equipped for recurring formats such as retrospectives or sprint planning in a team, but also for concentrated work by yourself.
Our contribution to the Porsche Digital ecosystem
Last year, we laid a good foundation for making a decisive contribution to Porsche Digital’s mission. Our task is to develop solutions that flow into corporate processes or are integrated into customer offers. This way, we help to make the digital experience across all channels as pleasant as possible for users.
For instance, our teams are analysing data in order to improve both new and existing vehicles through software upgrades. We also support the technological development of the mobile app My Porsche, which is used by Porsche customers to monitor various characteristics of the car, e.g. consumption, charging but also paying for parking.
A challenging launch
Our biggest challenge on that journey was the time of our launch. We were founded in the midst of a pandemic, which meant that we were being faced with a new and changing environment to which we had to adapt while building a brand.
We have dedicated time to create a strong company culture that nurtures teamwork, transparency, trust, and a pioneering spirit to attract tech-savvy people and talented experts who will be dedicated making Porsche Digital Croatia a synonym of excellence in the IT industry. By doing so, we have managed to overcome this challenge and continuously grow over the last year.
Join us in Zagreb
We are growing fast and looking for the best people to join our ranks, such as Engineers, Product Owners, Project Managers, Scrum Masters and Designers who share our passion towards continuous improvement. In the coming year, we want to increase our team to more than 100 professionals and become a melting pot of top talents.
If you would like to be a part of digitizing one of the most well-known global brands in the automotive industry and shape our local company culture, join us!
About this publication: Where innovation meets tradition. There’s more to Porsche than sports cars — we’re tackling new challenges, develop digital products, and think digital with a focus on the customer. On our Medium blog, we tell these stories. It’s about our #nextvisions, smart technologies, and the people that drive our digital journey. If you want to know more, follow us on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.
