CROZ is an internationally successful IT and AI solutions provider now aiming to shake up the German market. The Managing Director for the DACH region, Joachim Gucker, and Data Science & AI Consultant Dr. Giulia Solinas explain their strategy and reveal what makes CROZ’s AI concepts unique.
How do you assess the development of the artificial intelligence market globally and in Germany?
Joachim Gucker: The current momentum is impressive: Experts estimate the global AI market volume for 2025 at €220 billion (Source: Statista). Subsequently, annual growth is expected to exceed 25 percent, so by 2031 we anticipate a market volume of €920 billion. Germany is a central AI market, particularly attractive due to its innovative strength and high demand for customized solutions.
Where do you see the top trends in artificial intelligence?
Joachim Gucker: The hype remains high, but the gold rush era seems to be over. Customers now expect concrete application concepts and tangible benefits, such as a measurable increase in return on investment (ROI). Currently, AI agents for process support and automation as well as AI platforms—such as those from IBM and Red Hat—are in high demand.
CROZ wants to be a leader in the AI enterprise solutions market. What successes does your company build on, and since when have you been active in the German-speaking region?
Joachim Gucker: The CROZ Group has over 20 years of expertise in digitalization. Our roots are in the internationally successful CROZ d.o.o., based in Zagreb, Croatia. CROZ DACH GmbH was founded in spring 2022. In just the first two years, we have gained prominent AI project references in Germany, such as DATEV eG. We generally focus on developing customized IT solutions in artificial intelligence, data engineering, integration, software engineering, and cloud-native computing. Our customers traditionally come from the finance, telecommunications, and public administration sectors. Additionally, we are present in energy, automotive, and manufacturing. With our comprehensive know-how, we develop digital platforms, cloud services, and attractive ecosystems from products.
What specific goals are you pursuing in the DACH region?
Joachim Gucker: By the end of 2028, we aim to achieve annual revenues of at least €15 million in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland through consulting and IT services. Initially, we will present the CROZ brand to all relevant target groups and establish ourselves by developing and providing customized AI solutions. Our positioning as a key partner of IBM and Red Hat in AI solutions, AI platforms, modern data architectures, and mainframe modernization will certainly help us. At the same time, we are building a strong partner network to realize innovative products—together with IBM Expert Labs, IBM Client Engineering, and Red Hat Consulting. We also serve numerous customers of our partners CANCOM and PROFI AG. In the future, we plan to support interesting research and development projects to underline our pioneering role in technological innovation.
What sets CROZ apart from other IT solution providers?
Joachim Gucker: Several factors make us unique: In addition to our many years of market experience, we have a highly consistent team—many of our employees have been with CROZ for a long time. Moreover, we are not a classic body-leasing provider but deliver real value creation. We develop individual strategies and holistic, integrative solutions for our customers that go beyond technology to include corporate culture, mindset, methods, and organizational development. Because we actively engage with IT regulations and, more importantly, always analyze changing risks from our customers’ perspectives—making their challenges our own—topics such as EU data sovereignty and IT resilience have been long-term companions for us, not just current trends. Technically, this means, for example, that we deliver AI platforms with air gap and customized AI models, over which our EU customers retain full control. Our solutions are also designed so that the customer builds up know-how during our collaboration. We want our customers to grow with us and not become dependent.
Which industries and company sizes are you targeting?
Joachim Gucker: We aim to attract companies and public authorities with 50 to 1,000 or more IT employees, especially regulated industries such as critical infrastructures (KRITIS) or organizations focusing on sovereign IT solutions under EU law. We primarily target owner-managed organizations, less so those with strong venture capital or publicly listed companies that may only think from quarter to quarter or until the next investor change. Our customers should see digitalization as an opportunity and a differentiator, not as a necessary evil. Within these groups, we specifically address senior management (CxOs), decision-makers with budget responsibility, and department heads who recognize the potential of AI solutions. CIOs are also interesting if they have a concrete requirements profile and budget responsibility.
Where do your customers face the greatest challenges?
Joachim Gucker: The challenges are diverse — from industry-specific to highly individual. Many companies face the task of securing and expanding their business in economically and geopolitically uncertain times. Authorities must master the digitalization of public administration. Across all industries, meeting increased customer expectations for digital user experience is essential. AI-based software solutions play a crucial role here. We solve problems that tools like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot cannot solve “out of the box”—especially when it comes to scaling, quality assurance, integrating large data volumes, API connections, or embedding into existing application landscapes.
We are also the right partner when executives in customer organizations recognize the need for action but do not know how to profitably introduce AI technology. If the development and implementation of use cases have already begun but expertise for professional implementation is lacking, our “Discovery Workshop” is the right offering. And if management wants to develop an AI strategy with us, we are happy—and often take on—the entire technical implementation. Here, there is more than just attractive AI presentations—this is a clear CROZ USP.
Our AI activities do not end there: For companies lacking the technical know-how to get started, we offer our “AI Collabathon.” We invite the entire workforce to design ideas or visions for AI applications that will advance the company—true to the motto: No one knows the processes, products, customers, suppliers, and markets as well as the company’s own people. The “AI Collabathon” is based on an internationally successful CROZ concept and lasts about three to four months. The idea competition is also a great building block for employee motivation. As a special highlight, CROZ will launch a public AI idea competition in the fall, where companies can apply with use cases for which they have no budget. The finalists of our “AI Business Innovation Sprint” receive special expert coaching, and we create a free proof-of-concept for the winner.
Companies wanting to implement IBM or Red Hat products like watsonx.ai or OpenShift AI will also find an experienced partner in CROZ. Organizations grappling with data governance, AI governance, EU sovereignty, IP protection, make-or-buy decisions, costs, scalability, quality, vendor lock-in, auditability, AI compliance, or integrating AI applications into legacy IT landscapes benefit from our comprehensive consulting and implementation expertise.
How does your collaboration with IBM work?
Dr. Giulia Solinas: Our approach is an ecosystem of various partners and systems, with which we always realize the best possible solution. We build individual solutions but also new digital products for our customers’ customers. Since Red Hat is rightly the world market leader with its modern container and virtualization platform OpenShift, and with Red Hat OpenShift AI and IBM watsonx provides excellent AI platforms for hybrid multi-cloud requirements, close collaboration is obvious. We also work closely with the teams from IBM Expert Labs and Red Hat Consulting on joint customer projects.
Which IBM products are integrated into your solutions?
Dr. Giulia Solinas: CROZ has been a long-standing strategic partner of IBM in the EU—as a premier and platinum partner for software and cloud, as well as a mainframe partner in Southeast Europe. We also provide product skills for IBM Expert Labs and IBM Consulting worldwide. Our focus topics are the same as IBM’s: AI, hybrid cloud, and mainframe. Thus, together with IBM and its wholly owned subsidiary Red Hat, we invest early in innovative technologies and products, such as containers, Kubernetes, large language models (LLMs) on-premise and EU-sovereign LLMs, AI agents, code assistants, Backstage.io, and AI plus data governance. The fact that we currently employ six IBM Champions demonstrates our expertise and commitment. We also use many open-source components that are exclusively supported by the community and (yet) have no enterprise support from providers like Red Hat.
Can you outline a specific customer use case?
Dr. Giulia Solinas: Certainly. For DATEV eG, we developed an AI-based data anonymization solution that meets the highest data protection standards while ensuring maximum usability of the information. Specifically, we set up a transformer-based named entity recognition model, trained with tools in the AWS cloud and data protection-compliant information. The model is highly configurable, delivers state-of-the-art results with minimal training effort, and can be easily adapted to different use cases. To tailor the solution to DATEV’s needs, we used open-source libraries such as Pandas, PyTorch, Huggingface, and MLflow. Our proof-of-concept for a robust, scalable, and reliable pipeline demonstrated the potential of a cloud-based solution for productive use. The codebase and best practices can also be used for future machine learning projects.
What is your most important promise to customers?
Dr. Giulia Solinas: We rely on a comprehensive team approach, with which we can design and implement tailored solutions in a short time. The focus is on AI solutions and models that can be integrated into complex system landscapes. For us, AI is not a “toy” but a strong business driver that supports many processes and frees up human resources for more important tasks.
Joachim Gucker: CROZ does not settle for a “one-size-fits-all” approach but develops individual, future-proof IT and AI solutions together with its customers that create real added value. With our experience, commitment, and network, we support companies and public authorities on their journey into the digital future—from strategy to implementation to operation. What sets us apart is that we actively train the customer’s team in technology, methodology, and, of course, the specific solution throughout the project. We share our experience and knowledge with the customer wherever desired. Because we don’t just want to be a service provider, but a partner at eye level.
