Bled and London, UK, October 7, 2019 - The concept of Hidden Champions was first identified and studied by Hermann Simon, a world-renowned expert in strategy, marketing and pricing and who is considered the most influential thinker in the German-speaking world after Peter Drucker. The Hidden Champions are highly innovative and specialized small and medium-sized companies that are leading internationally in their niches. In 2011, a survey by IEDC and CEEMAN found that Slovenia had the highest number of Hidden Champions per million population (followed by Estonia). The same has been shown in the continuation of the research conducted by IEDC and CEEMAN in 2018 and 2019. This is an incredible success for Slovenia.
The research was conducted in 22 countries (Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Estonia, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Moldova, Poland , Romania, Russia, Serbia, Northern Macedonia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine) by 66 researchers who examined 304 companies and identified 105 Hidden Champions among them. Of these, 45 companies are "old" and 60 are "new" compared to 2011. More than 40 companies are expected to become the Hidden Champion in the coming years.
Poland (11), Belarus (10), Serbia (10), and Slovenia (10) have the highest number of Hidden winners.
The Hidden Champions in Slovenia are: Akrapovič d.d., ATech Electronics d.o.o., Cosylab, d. d., Control System Laboratory, DOMEL, d.o.o., EKWB d.o.o., NiceLabel - Euro Plus d.o.o., Hidria Holding d.o.o., Instrumentation Technologies d.d., POLYCOM Škofja Loka, d. o. o., Typhoon Mountain.