The EBRD’s Business Advisory Services help a lighting designer and manufacturer to grow.
Croatian design has been acquiring a distinctive character over the past few years and it is giving successful manufacturing businesses in the country a boost.
One of these is Lika Svjetlo, a company specialising in lighting design and manufacturing. It is owned by Blaženka Jurcic and her husband, a young couple that founded the company in her hometown, Gospić, after gaining years of experience in Italy.
Growing brand
Lika Svjetlo produces hand-made lighting designed mainly for hotels, shops and public spaces. The brand is becoming well known and with the increasing demand for their products, especially from Italy, Austria and Germany, the two entrepreneurs decided it was time to scale-up production.
And with the current production facility being neither spacious nor practical enough, they planned to build larger and more suitable premises in the industrial zone near Gospić.
Planning wisely
To determine the costs and benefits of moving to a new facility, in 2010 the EBRD’s Business Advisory Services team in Croatia helped Lika Svjetlo find a local consultant who developed a financial feasibility study of the investment project. The study, 50 per cent of which was funded by Luxembourg and the remainder by the company owners, allowed them to confidently apply and obtain a loan for their project under very favourable terms.
The new Lika Svjetlo facility opened in June 2011, created 10 new jobs and is expected to double lighting production. And after Blaženka was awarded a prize by the Ministry of Economy and Entrepreneurship for achieving outstanding business results, Lika Svjetlo’s brighter future seems to have only just started.
