Eureko Randstad becomes - Netherlands
Transcription
Eureko Randstad becomes - Netherlands
The Netherlands-Polish Chamber of Commerce ÕÀi Ài>ÌiÀÊ ÃÌÀi}Ì Ì ÀÕ} Ê `ÛiÀÃÌÞ No. 25 Summer 2008 ÕÀiÊ ÃÊ iÊ vÊ ÕÀ«i½ÃÊ i>`}Ê w>V>ÊÊ ÃiÀÛViÃÊ ÀÕ«Ã°Ê "ÕÀÊ "«iÀ>Ì}Ê «>iÃÊÊ >ÀiÊ>ÀiÌÊi>`iÀÃÊÊVÕÌÀiÃÊÌ ÀÕ} ÕÌÊ ÕÀ«i]Ê >`Ê VÕ`iÊ V i>Ê >`Ê ÌiÀ«ÃÊ Ê Ì iÊ iiÕÝÊ >`Ê >VÀÃÃÊ ÕÀ«i]Ê Ài`ÃÊ ÀÃÌÊ Ê Ài>`Ê >`Ê ÌiÀ>iÀV>ÊÊÀiiVi° ÕÀi½ÃÊ `ÛiÀÃÌÞÊ >`Ê ÃÌÀ}Ê >ÀiÌÊ«ÃÌÃÊ>ÀiÊiÞÊ>ÌÌÀLÕÌiÃÊ >`ÊÕÀÊ"«iÀ>Ì}Ê «>iÃÊ>ÀiÊ vÕÀÌ iÀÊi >Vi`ÊLÞÊà >Ài`Ê>ÀiÌÊ Üi`}i]Ê `ÃÌÀLÕÌÊ >`Ê «À`ÕVÌÊ ÃÃ°Ê "ÕÀÊ ÃâiÊ >`Ê ÃÌÀi}Ì Ê i>ÃÊ ÜiÊ V>Ê «ÀÛ`iÊ ÃÕLÃÌ>Ì>Ê LiiwÌÃÊ iViÃÊ vÊ ÃV>i°Ê 7iÊ >ÃÊ ÀiV}ÃiÊ Ì >ÌÊ ÕÀÊ V«iÌÌÛiÊ >`Û>Ì>}iÊ iÃÊ Ê Ì>À}Ê V>Ê ÃiÀÛViÃÊ ÌÊ V>Ê ii`Ã]Ê ÀiëiVÌ}Ê>`ÊiÛiÀ>}}ÊÌ iÊ`vviÀiViÃÊÌ >ÌÊ iÝÃÌÊ>VÀÃÃÊÕÀ«i° / ÃÊ ÕµÕiÊ « ë ÞÊ >`Ê i>Li`Ê ÕÀiÊ ÌÊ LÕ`Ê >Ê iÝVi«Ì>ÞÊ ÃÌÀ}Ê LÕÃiÃÃÊ Ü V Ê VÌÕiÃÊ ÌÊ }ÀÜÊ >`Ê i >ViÊ ÕÀÊ «ÃÌÊ >ÃÊ >Ê i>`}Ê «ÀÛ`iÀÊ vÊ w>V>ÊÊ Ê ÃiÀÛViÃÊÌ ÀÕ} ÕÌÊÕÀ«i° A shared first place at this year’s Dutch - Polish Trade Award page 6 Football mission visits Warsaw page 11 ÜÜÜ°iÕÀi°iÌ Randstad becomes the biggest staffing agency in Poland ÕÀiÊ°6°] >`iÃÜi}ÊÓ]ÊÎÇäÇÊ Ê<iÃÌ]Ê °Ê/i\ʳΣÊÎäÊÈÎÊÇäää Understanding of the organizations’ culture is a key to successful merger page 12 mairomem nI In memoriam Bulletin Summer 2008 4 Word of the Chairman 5 Chamber events 6Report Dutch - Polish Trade Award 11Interview Trade mission aims at European Championship 2012 6 12Cover story Randstad merges with Active Plus 16 News 19 Interview Nijwa and CoBouw are this year’s winners of the Dutch - Polish Trade Award Crowdsourcing: using the knowledge of your employees 20 Interview TB Trucks looks back on its first year in Poland 23 Career tracker 24 Column Paweł Wojciechowski 25Q and A 11 26New members 27 Annual report 28 Interview 29 I nterview New board member Eric van Vliet 30 I nterview Thoughts on the Chamber by Marcel Boer Football mission takes advantage of European Championship 2012 New board member Remco van der Kroft 12 “In the Netherlands it is normal to start your first job as a flex worker. In Poland this is different”, says Kees Stroomer, General Manager of Randstad Poland WWW U E . E C. OTTOWORKFORCE R O F K R O W O T T O . W W. EU W Bulletin 3 Netherlands - Polish Chamber Chamber of Commerce Warszawa events From the Chairman Dear members and friends of the Chamber, Krakowskie Przedmieście 79 00-079 Warszawa Tel.: + 48 22 828 06 21 Fax: + 48 22 828 04 59 E-mail: [email protected] Poznań Piekary 6/16 61-823 Poznań Tel.: + 48 61 858 67 80 Fax: + 48 61 851 62 14 E-mail: [email protected] Gdańsk Długi Targ 46/47 80-830 Gdańsk Tel.: + 48 58 324 88 72 Fax: + 48 58 324 88 73 E-mail: [email protected] Kraków Rynek Główny 6 31-042 Kraków Tel.: + 48 12 431 24 75 Fax: + 48 12 428 03 01 E-mail: [email protected] The holiday season has arrived and we see our friends and colleagues leaving for or returning from vacation. If you are still looking forward to your holidays then I wish you a nice vacation. The Polish economy is still doing well, however growth is less than last year. Unemployment decreased further, while incomes are showing a steady rise. Combined with the appreciation of the Złoty we see Polish people that worked abroad coming back to find their future again in their own country. In the past period we had a number of events for the Dutch and international community. Our Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank Heemskerk, together with the Chairman of the Dutch Social Economic Council Alexander Rinnooy Kan, headed a successful trade mission in the beginning of July. Many participants from Holland came over to meet with potential trade partners. Before going to Poland, the mission visited Ukraine. From this combination, you can see that the main goal was creating business around Euro 2012. Another nice event took place in Amstelveen in the premises of KPMG. The ceremony regarding the Dutch Polish Trade Award, took place in a pleasant atmosphere, where the very enthusiastic companies that were nominated presented themselves. The event was visited by more than 100 people from Dutch and Polish businesses and the Polish government. We also organised the yearly “Jobmarket” together with our Belgian colleagues and the Embassy. Because it is more and more difficult to get the right staff on board, this event proves to be very worthwhile for the participating companies, and of course, the people that visited the market to find a job. What I should not forget to mention are the evenings that the Dutch football team played in the European Championship 2008. Together with the Dutch Embassy, the Nederlandse Vereniging, and Punt NL, we organised well-attended meetings in the Lolek Pub, where people could watch the games on a big screen. The evenings were not only visited by the Dutch, but also our opponents were invited as well as our Polish friends. Besides articles and interviews about the above-mentioned events, you will find the usual columns and articles about the combination of Randstad and A-plus staff agency, DAF and about crowdsourcing. In addition, our new Board members Eric van Vliet and Remco van der Kroft presented themselves. I hope you will enjoy reading this Bulletin. Fred Hoogerbrug, Chairman of the Netherlands-Polish Chamber of Commerce. Bulletin is a quarterly magazine published by the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce that aims to provide important information on bilateral business relations and activities between the Netherlands and Poland. Please e-mail any of your comments and helpful information to [email protected]. Editor-in-Chief: Concept and Production: Columnists: Photos: Elro van den Burg ([email protected]) Providentia Invest Sp. z o.o. Tel.: + 48 22 551 75 85 Paweł Wojciechowski Jacek Turczyk Elro van den Burg NCHB Bulletin 4 Creative Problem Solving workshop by Healthy Growth On May 5, Marc van den Steen, Managing Director at the Belgian based consultancy company Healthy Growth, ran a workshop on Creative Problem Solving (CPS). This event was the first in a series of workshops organized in cooperation between the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce and Belgian Business Chamber. Business participants from Polish, Dutch and Belgian companies were joined by representatives from the Dutch and Belgian embassies and trade councils. The CPS concept starts from the wisdom of non competing industries which can learn from each other and make it easier to solve their strategic issues. Obviously it is up to each of the participants to choose their own hot topics. During the session, a question tour was made among the participants and it soon became clear that an issue shared by all was the question of how to be more successful in staff retention. It is difficult to hire good staff, but even more challenging is to keep them. Simply paying more money is definitely not the best approach. Healthy Growth will organize three-day workshops on CPS in September and December 2008. Participants of these workshops can be both HR managers and business unit managers. Chamber agenda The Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce activities September 2 Dutch Business Drink L ocation: Polonia Palace Hotel, Bar Bojangles, Al. Jerozolimskie 45, Warsaw, 18.30 - 20.30 Sponsored by: Athlon Car Lease Polska Sp. z o.o. September 24Workshop - Real estate for foreigners in Poland in particular agriculture land More information will be provided on www.nlchamber.com.pl Prepared by: Fortis Intertrust Polska Sp. z o.o. October Workshop – Changes in VAT More information will be provided on www.nlchamber.com.pl Prepared by: Deloitte October 7Dutch Business Drink International Job Fair Location: Polonia Palace Hotel, Bar Bojangles, Al. Jerozolimskie 45, Warsaw, 18.30 - 20.30 Sponsored by: Nyenrode Business Universiteit The idea of International Job Fair in Warsaw is to promote the most enterprising companies that create jobs and assist them in finding suitable candidates for the jobs. This year’s fair is dedicated to such countries as the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. During this fair employers can present job vacancies and information about opportunities on the regional labour market, living and working conditions in countries of the Benelux. EURES network staff will assist employers to recruit candidates for work. Last year, this fair gathered about 9.000 unemployed and job seekers. Organization’s participation in that event will raise the event’s prestige and importance. Organizers of the V International Job Fair – Warsaw 2008 are: The Office of the Warsaw City – Department of Social Policy, The Labour Office of Warsaw, The Voivodship Labour Office in Warsaw, The Military Centre of Vocational Activity, The Warsaw University, The Centre for Vocational Development in Warsaw, Polish Association for Persons with Mental Handicap. Don’t miss the chance and register your company, participation is free of charge! Soon more information will be provided on websites: www.mtp.um.warszawa.pl and www.nlchamber.com.pl. October 29V International Job Fair Location: Palace of Culture and Science, Pl. Defilad 1, Warsaw, 10.00 - 17.00, 4th floor November 4 Dutch Business Drink Location: Polonia Palace Hotel, Bar Bojangles, Al. Jerozolimskie 45, Warsaw, 18.30 - 20.30 Sponsored by: Dehora Consultancy Group For more information visit www.nlchamber.com.pl Bulletin 5 Dutch - Polish Trade Award CoBouw Polska: won by two Dutch companies “A reward for six years of sheer hard work” During a crowded meeting, representatives from Nijhof - Wassink and CoBouw Polska received the prize from the Polish Deputy Minister for Regional Development Jarosław Pawłowski. Both companies ended up with exactly the same amount of points. In the next few pages, we will have a closer look at the winners: Nijhof - Wassink, CoBouw Polska and the winner of the 2nd prize, Ponetex. After a few years, the Dutch construction company CoBouw Polska is finally harvesting from its investments on the Polish market. It is constructing ever-larger buildings and it receives more assignments than it is able to construct. The icing on the cake came earlier this year when CoBouw, together with the transport company Nijhof - Wassink, won the Dutch - Polish Trade Award. for warehouses in the areas of the main transport corridors of the country. Poland is developing itself more and more as a transport country and this is where we benefit from as well.” What is the impact on your company of the hampering economic growth? “We haven’t felt much of it yet. We are still receiving many offers from our clients from Poland and abroad. I think that for construction companies in the industry that I work in, there is still a lot of work to do.” Another topic is the low unemployment rate among construction workers. How do you cope with that as a construction company? On the left at the photo, Chairman Mr. Dutilh, of the NPCH with the winners and nominees receiving the award from the hands of Minister Jarosław Pawłowski Jos Amsing, one of the founders of CoBouw The Dutch - Polish Trade Award was established to bring the success of Dutch entrepreneurs in Poland into the spotlight. The initiative for the DPTA was taken by the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce and the Netherlands Polish Council for Trade Promotion (NPCH). The winners of 2008 The company CoBouw Polska that was founded in 2002, constructs industrial buildings in Poland, by using building materials from the Netherlands and Belgium. Over a short period, they have grown into a company with 60 employees and a production of about 25 industrial buildings per year. Besides this, CoBouw has advised many Dutch entrepreneurs that were starting business in Poland in the process from purchasing of a plot, to the completion of the building. The other winner, Nijhof - Wassink Group, has two main activities, both in the Netherlands and in Poland: international transportation and Volvo Truck dealership. Nijhof - Wassink Group is already 18 years on the Polish market and employs 250 people. It is active with five offices on the Polish market. In addition, Nijhof - Wassink advises many starting fellow entrepreneurs. A second prize was awarded to Ponetex logistics. This company was established in 1995 by the Dutch company Timmermans and offers a complete range of services in the field of logistics. The importance of the DPTA is underlined by a large group of Dutch entrepreneurs that showed up during the awarding of the prize at the KPMG building in Amstelveen. Good trade relations between Poland and the Netherlands have been shared for a long time. Every year the Netherlands show up in the top-10 of trading partners of Poland. After Poland’s accession to the EU in May 2004, the trade between both countries have grown considerably. Winners Dutch - Polish Trade Award 2008 - CoBouw Polska, a constructor of industrial buildings and Nijhof - Wassink, an international transport company and dealer of Volvo Trucks. 2007 - Addit BV, a contract manufacturer, started greenfield in 1996 in Węgrów with the production of technical components like chassis, frameworks and other sheet metal work parts. 2006 - Goossens Flevoplant, a producer of strawberry plants has been operating for 50 years. Goossens Flevoplant has offices in the Netherlands, Poland, and Ukraine. 2005 - Raben Group, an international transport and logistics company, operating on the European market for 70 years and on the Polish market since 1991. The company provides a network of 19 own terminals and employs 2,600 people in Poland. Bulletin 6 Asked about the roots of the company, Jos Amsing, one of the founders and owners of CoBouw, explains that his company is not focusing anymore on clients from the Netherlands and abroad. CoBouw is attracting more and more clients from Poland thanks to strong złoty combined with developments on the local market. Jos Amsing: “When we were founded I chose the name CoBouw, in order to be recognized easily in the Netherlands. However, since the Polish companies are developing fast, CoBouw managed to obtain an important share of the local market as well. “You see that many Polish companies are becoming stronger and stronger and are looking for new buildings too. Therefore, Poland itself is a huge and interesting market.” “An important factor is that you reward your staff with a good salary. We are paying our construction workers between 10 and 14 PLN per hour and so they can earn a good salary with us. We see that many Polish construction workers are still abroad. This uncertainty in the labour market inspired us to establish a recruitment company in Ukraine. Currently already 20 to 40 percent of the workers on our construction sites in Poland come from Ukraine.” How big is the gap in the salaries between the Poles and the workers from Ukraine? “There is no difference; we pay the Ukrainians who work in Poland exactly the same as the Poles. We aren’t providing the construction workers from Ukraine to Poland on a huge scale yet. I am though very satisfied that we started this business. We now have a database of skilled labour in the East that we can make use of, in case the situation on the Polish labour market gets worse. We also see that many of our clients move to Ukraine and Russia and we are thinking of doing the same. Due to our present cooperation in Ukraine, it will be easier for us to set up a branch office for CoBouw in the future to serve our clients in Ukraine.” What are your strong features on the Polish building market? “CoBouw takes care of the complete building project, so from the beginning when our client is looking for a building plot, by preparing architectural concepts and impressions, organising the building permit, completing all building works and finally achieving the permit for the use of the building. Thanks to these attitudes, especially new clients on the Polish market may take advantage of choosing CoBouw as the general contractor of their new industrial building in Poland.” Are you happy that you won the DPTA? “I feel like it was a very nice surprise. When we were asked to send in the application form, I didn’t expect to hear anything from that anymore. Now we have won it, I personally feel this is a reward for the last six years of sheer hard work.” What are the latest trends and developments in the warehouse market? “We are getting a lot of work from companies that are starting their business in the economic zones in Poland. These zones are very popular because they offer a return on investment costs of up to 60 percent. This sometimes builds huge interests in our products. For example, in the economic zone in Wykroty in the southern part of Poland, we received three orders after successfully completing a first building. Furthermore, there is a huge demand Bulletin 7 Nijhof - Wassink Poland: “Persevering and not getting nervous” For many drivers that pass by the building of Nijhof - Wassink, prominently situated in Kutno, is just a landmark during a trip from Poznań to Warsaw. Not many of them know the history of ‘Nijwa’ that belongs to the first Dutch companies that were established in Poland. Ponetex Logistics: “From a wholesaler in straw to an international logistics provider” Timmermans Transport & Logistics is celebrating its 75th anniversary. Since the establishment in 1933 as a wholesaler in straw, the company has developed itself into a medium size logistic service provider. Above all this, in this anniversary-year, their Polish logistics daughter company Ponetex Logistics was awarded the second prize in the Dutch - Polish Trade Award contest. What I noticed is that you work almost completely with Polish staff. What are your experiences with that? What kind of services does Ponetex offer? “If you look at the companies we serve, we have a great variety of clients. We have stored chocolate, tobacco, and fertilizers. The companies that we work for have very diverse demands. Some of them simply want us to store their products. Others want us to repack and bundle, and other clients want us to arrange everything. For some of them we deliver the goods, pick up the returns, and store this again.” “We started with a clean sheet here in Poland. We didn’t take over a company and so we recruited our own people, which was an advantage. When we were searching for new staff, we looked for young people who were ambitious and flexible and who wanted to build their own future. Under our current Polish management, I come here one week per month, but I leave the responsibility to the local management. I have shown them the upper target line and the lower target line and if the situation stays between those lines, than they can leave me out of it. When it comes to investments or human resource issues at a management level or when there is an extraordinary situation, then I want to be informed. Of course you have different cultures between Poland and the Netherlands, but in the end we all cook eggs in water.” What is the position of Ponetex and Timmermans in Europe? But haven’t you experienced problems by delegating so much? Albert Hendrikse managing director of Nijhof - Wassink “It is tough to make money in the transport business in Poland at the moment.” When I arrived in Kutno, I noticed that Nijhof - Wassink is located at Holenderska street. What is the story behind this? Albert Hendrikse: “In 1990, one of the two founders Herman Nijhof transferred his shares of his transport company Nijhof - Wassink to his children and went to Poland to establish a business there. Right from the start, he had a good relationship with the major of Kutno where we have our main office for Poland. Herman Nijhof not only invested in his own company but also had an eye for the local community. Kutno didn’t have a police office, so we built that here on our land right next to our security building. Until today, this is still in use for the Kutno area. We are also supporting the football club in Kutno and we are the main sponsor for the Polish Speed Skating Association. So we have always wanted to do something for the local community here in Poland, and in recognition of what we have done, they therefore named this street after the Netherlands.” “I don’t know if this came down to culture, but there was one big disappointment in 1995. We had the situation that the management of the dealer operation left and started their own activities. But apart from that, we are very satisfied.” Over the years, Nijhof - Wassink has expanded the operation to four locations in Poland. What are the prospects for the future? “If you look at the Polish transport market, it is a bit shaky at the moment, to be fair. We have the bank crisis, the strong złoty, and high fuel prices. So it is tough to make some money in the local transport business. But at the end of the day, goods have to be transported, so what we do, is we include this in the transport prices. And if I look at the near future, there are still a lot of activities. So I hope that in September or October the market will pick up, and if not, then I foresee a heavy year in 2009, but if that happens then we are ready for it. That is a part of life. It is important not to get nervous and to see that you stay financially strong in order to persist when times are getting tougher.” Nijhof - Wassink is one of the pioneers in the transport business in Poland. What were the problems and challenges for conducting business in those early days? “When we established ourselves in 1990, we not only founded a transport company but also started a Volvo Truck dealership which we also have and still keep in the Netherlans. The transport company is specialised in storing and transporting dry bulk and liquids. Our main product that we handle is PETS (Polyethylene). The biggest issue in the beginning of our Volvo business was financing. So what we did was to establish a finance company. In that way, it was easier to sell new trucks. But it was an insecure time. Clients couldn’t present a history of payment, so we had to look for other ways to limit our risks. Therefore, we asked for large prepayments and we kept in touch with our customers. We also involved our expertise in transport in their business and in that way we stayed in closer touch and followed their financial results.” Ms. Timmermans - Van Alphen of Ponetex Logistics in Poland and Timmermans Transport & Logistics in the Netherlands Timmermans holding has been active on the Polish market through their Polish logistics daughter company Ponetex that opened its doors in 1996. The idea for the Polish operation actually started much earlier, when the company was sending relief goods to the city of Rakoniewice. After this, Jan Timmermans and the major of this Polish city kept in contact and that was how the Polish operation of Timmermans Logistics came about. In December 2004, your husband, the company owner Jan Timmermans passed away. As a result of this, you immediately took over the company. Was this a big step? Henriëtte Timmermans - van Alphen: “In a way it was natural change. Until one and a half year before that, I was actively involved in the daily operations of Timmermans. When we started the business in Poland in the nineties, I scaled down my involvement because Jan was away a lot of the time and it was difficult to combine this with our family life. In 2002, when we opened our new office in the Netherlands, I decided that I didn’t want to have a desk for myself anymore. After my husband passed away, it turned out that it has been an advantage that I was involved in the company from the beginning. I found it too much of a big step to sell the company and my husband never had the urge to sell the company anyway. That is why I wanted to take over the management by myself.” “We have a distribution network with partners that cover most of Europe. We currently are negotiating with new partners in the Scandinavian countries. We want to work with partners that we can completely trust and with whom we can have a long lasting cooperation. That is why this takes time. I think it is better to make good use of strong partners than to try to set up your own businesses in all those countries yourself. After Scandinavia, we will start looking for a partner in Great Britain and after that in Ukraine. In finding new partners, we have a lot of advantage from the connections of our Ponetex in Poland, which has already good connections with partners in the central eastern European countries.” The Timmermans family is also the owner of the temporary workforce agency Axell Polska. What are the activities of this company? “Axell Holandia started in Poland in 1999 with three offices in Gliwice, Opole, and Racibórz. When Poland became a member of the European Union, we foresaw a problem with lack of Polish labour force. That is why we started Axell Polska in 2004. Axell Polska is a company that also recruits for Polish companies with its offices throughout the whole country. We have seen Axell Polska develop at the same speed as our customers. We usually open small offices in the area of the companies that we work with. When the reach of this office is too small or when there is a demand from our clients, we open new offices. We are investigating the possibilities of opening offices in Ukraine in the future as well.” Did you have any doubts about the activities in Poland? “No, Jan liked those activities enormously and thought that this had a huge potential. The current managing director in Poland, Waldemar Osmólski, has all the freedom that he needs. Jan gave him complete responsibility for the daily management. The idea was to start up a business and to create a good manager responsible for it, and then to look for something else to invest in.” Bulletin 8 Bulletin 9 High expectations from the so-called ‘football-mission’ Unfortunately for Minister Heemskerk, the dinner with football trainer Leo Beenhakker, to which he had looked forward so much, was cancelled. Despite this small disappointment, the attending Dutch companies made fruitful contacts during the Dutch trade mission, the so-called ‘football-mission’, to Poland. Dutch Minister Heemskerk has a sportive meeting with Mirosław Drzewiecki, Minister of Sport and Tourism of Poland Security company Event Security was the first firm that could announce a successful agreement during the trade mission in Poland and Ukraine. The Dutch company will support the organisation of Euro 2012, in dealing with hooligans and supporters from different countries attending the tournament. Event Security also will educate the stadium stewards and will train the local police officers. HOTEL POD RÓŻĄ – THE OLDEST HOTEL IN CRACOW Hotel Stary, Szczepańska 5, 31-011 Kraków, +48 12 384 08 08, [email protected] Hotel Copernicus, Kanonicza 16, 31-002 Kraków, +48 12 424 34 00, [email protected] Hotel Pod Różą, Floriańska 14, 31-021 Kraków, +48 12 424 33 00, [email protected] Hotel Monopol, Dworcowa 5, 40-012 Katowice, +48 32 782 82 82, [email protected] BE PART OF THEIR HISTORY The ‘football-mission’ to Poland and Ukraine in July consisted of 25 Dutch companies. The 5-day visit aimed to evaluate the chances and the possibilities of Euro 2012 for Dutch businesses. Participating companies had a diverse background, from producers of lighting and grass-fields to companies in the field of tourism infrastructure. The high interest in the mission should not be surprising. The two organising countries have earmarked 38 mln EUR for the tournament. Minister Heemskerk was very positive about the possible results of the mission. “I always say that for many companies the end of a trade mission is only the first start for doing business. But I do expect many of the participants to this mission to continue with their Polish businesses they have contacted in the last few days.” When you look at the number of investors, I have the impression that especially small and medium sized companies are less interested in Poland than a few years ago. Do you share this impression? Are Dutch companies stimulated and facilitated enough by the Dutch government to invest in Poland? “We are doing a lot for the Dutch companies that are investing in Poland. The embassy in Warsaw plays a part in that and the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce as well. Besides this, there are also the measures from the ministry of economic affairs. We have the regulation ‘Prepare to start’ which aims to support conducting business outside of the Netherlands. For us Poland is an important trading partner, and that is why we are here with this mission. We aim to put an emphasis on the Dutch companies in Poland, but we also want to show the Netherlands how fast Poland is developing. I was amazed when we were in the shopping centre Złote Tarasy. When I was young, we supported the Poles with humanitarian aid; however, here you can see a firsthand example of why those days are long gone. The Poles are doing very well.” And what are the accompanying Dutch companies thinking of Poland? “I think they are very positive. What I saw for instance, when we were in Złote Tarasy, was the producer of jacuzzi whirlpool baths who holds a licence for the whole Europe. He was smiling because he saw people buying big Cuban cigars in the shopping centre. He thought that if the Poles were buying these luxury products here, why couldn’t they smoke those cigars in one of his jacuzzi’s?” Minister Heemskerk: “I think that there is a lot of activities here. There are some major investors from the Netherlands in Poland. Philips for instance is producing lights and is still very competitive on the international market. Perhaps the growth figures of Poland are hampering a little; however, don’t forget the impact of the structural funds from the European Union. Besides this, the organisation of Euro 2012 is really an accelerator for the growth in this country.” www.hotel.com.pl Bulletin 11 Merger of Randstad and Active Plus creates biggest staffing agency in Poland Earlier this year the staffing companies Randstad Polska and Active Plus have announced they are merging. The new Polish combination is part of the worldwide merger between Randstad and Vedior and creates the leading player in temporary staffing in Poland. When Kees Stroomer, general manager of Randstad Poland, enters his office building, people start to yell and applaud. This is not caused by his popularity, but by the unexpected success, the national Dutch football team obtained the night before, in the Euro 2008 match against Italy If you look at the orange decorations in the office of Kees Stroomer, this certainly must be a popular topic at work. However, it is not only football that Stroomer is concerned about these days. Active Plus and Randstad are two different companies with different portfolios, clients and backgrounds. How have you bridged these differences in the merger? After the completion of the merger, what will the new company look like? “We started to get to know each other between December 3, when the announcement of the international merger was made in the Netherlands, and the approval of the European Commission on May 16. Both companies had formed a small integration group together. We started with this in Poland at the end of March. We then defined the similarities and the differences between the companies. The good news was that we have many similarities. We found that we had differences as well, which is good news, because it makes you more complementary to each other. The merger gives us a broader range of products and services on the Polish market than before. One of the differences between Randstad and Active Plus is the cross border staffing in which Active Plus is quite strong and Randstad is not. There is a wish and a need on the Polish market for this service and now we have this in the total product range, which makes us as a combined partner, stronger.” “I hope pretty much the same as it used to be. The merger takes place in a few steps. The so-called operational merger has been effective as of May 16, 2008. Since that date, Randstad is officially “in charge”. Nothing has changed for the outside world until that moment. From July 1 until the end of this year we work on what is called the legal merger. This is the period of the complete change and rebranding of everything from Active Plus into Randstad. Following that it will be possible for Randstad for instance to send invoices to an Active Plus client. We are putting a lot of effort into continuity. This means that if a client has been in contact with us before the merger, we are very strongly focused on the fact that the client keeps the same account manager. I am also very happy to say that during the merger nobody has been discharged. In case of double functions, we offered the people a new or a comparable job and everybody accepted this.” How much do the two companies differ from each other? The two companies have a completely different culture. How do you manage to mix these cultures into one company? “What you see is that Active Plus is quite strong in call centres, where we are not. Randstad, on the other hand, is quite strong in search & selection, which is a high-level recruitment search. We also have a special product in Randstad that is called Randstad Invest Solutions, where we support foreign investors in Poland in finding the best place in Poland to start their business. The aim Bulletin 12 of this product is to get in contact with companies before they actually decide to move to Poland. Therefore, we have good cooperation with Special Economic Zones, government agencies supporting investors and local investor’s centres in city halls. These examples are just a few of the differences, which make us stronger. And on top of that we have many similarities, for instance within the general temping business. By merging the two companies we will create wider database of candidates and a bigger volume of job offers which is important in an emerging market like Poland.” “This is quite an intensive process. When, as a new company, you create a new combined vision, you also define the values and the behaviour of the new company. Firstly, you have to define the values from both individual companies that are the same and the ones that are different. Furthermore, you Bulletin 13 do the same with the behaviour behind the values. Then you have to find in the new combined organisation a new joint belief set. To organise this complicated process on a personal level, we had a very intensive meeting with all the managers in the beginning of July getting to know each other’s background and personal beliefs.” So this must have been an important meeting? “Culture is very important for your organisation. It is very easy to give people information, but that is just the tip of the iceberg, some say only 10 percent. The 90 percent below is all culture, principles, behaviour, and key beliefs, these kinds of issues. If you don’t have a very good understanding of those people issues, it will never be a successful merger in the end.” One of the problems in your market is that it is not for everybody clear what temporary staffing exactly means. “That is an issue in Poland. People in general are not very aware of the possibilities of temping. That is one of the reasons this is still an immature market. You can see this for instance from the penetration rate. There are just over 15 million people working in Poland and there are 150,000 full time flexible workers working every day, which is only 1 percent. Compared to the Netherlands, where this amounts 2.5 percent, this is relatively low. In the Netherlands however, temping is more a part of the society. There it is normal if you started with your first job as a flexible worker, while in Poland it is different. We as Randstad are anticipating on that in Poland. Our offices are on the ground floor, because we want to be open and visible. We also want people to walk in whenever they want and not on an appointment base. But it will take time before we see changes in the attitude in Poland.” But this probably also means that you have a different approach to your clients than in the Netherlands? “That is partially true. The differences are that we normally get three different questions when we approach possible new clients. The first one is ‘I don’t understand what flexible workers are’. Then we have to explain this. Another one is, ‘it is too expensive for us’, which is actually not true. It is cheaper to work with flexible workers than doing your own recruitment. What kind of company is Randstad is another story to tell to the clients. The similarities are the concepts we use in Poland which are applicable all over the world. The quality demands from clients and the high service from Randstad are exactly the same.” at companies who have incorporated the HR strategy on the highest level in the company, for most of them, cooperating with a temping agency is part of the HR strategy. Then it is not a threat anymore, but it’s a corporation model. I think this is still a step that has to be made for a lot of companies in Poland.” How do you manage to get enough temporary workers under the current low unemployment rates? “One of the important things is that in the new structure we are bigger than before. That means that we can offer more jobs, and with more jobs, you can attract more people. We see that unemployment is getting lower, but Randstad is used to working with low unemployment figures over the years and in various countries, so we do have our way of working with this given fact. What is very important is that you make sure that your flexible workers are very happy. Seventy percent of our candidates come in by recommendation. It is important that you explain to the companies that they should treat the flexible workers right, and if they do that, and if you offer the right jobs, then this makes our job a whole lot easier. On top of that, we have a clear strategy for finding people. So I think under the current situation it might not be easy to find people but it’s doable.” What do you think about the labour market in Poland in general? “One of the topics is the labour code in Poland. The current situation is that companies are not allowed to lay-off people that have 4 years to retirement age left. Usually it concerns people who are 55 - 60 years old. As a result of that, in Poland we have a huge problem with people who are over 55 years old. Many of them are professionally inactive; we see for instance that the professional activity of people at 55 years of age declines by 50% in comparison to 50-yearold people. There are two main reasons for this situation. In the first place, there is a decrease of professional activity as the result of the possibility to benefit from earlier retirement. Secondly, there is the fear of the employers to employ people that cannot be fired 4 years before retirement age. If the government changed this, it would create a lot of possibilities in terms of availability. Solving this problem would help in keeping the right balance between the unemployed and the job vacancies on the labour market.” We have the best solutions for your business Randstad is the number one on the Polish market. We provide our clients with the customized solutions within temporary staffing, employee leasing, professional recruitment and HR services. We concentrate our activity on offering new, innovative value added solutions which improve employment productivity and reduce costs. The company mission is to match people and work the best and to maintain the leadership on the market. Our activities are based on the philosophy ”Good to know you”, which is a core value that differentiates Randstad from its competitors and constitutes a foundation for the organizational culture of our company. The high quality of our services is proved by: • the second place among temporary and contract staffing organization in the world • ISO 9001: 2000 certificate How fast do you expect the penetration rate of flexible workers to climb in Poland? We invite both Clients and Candidates to cooperate! “If you look at the European average of the penetration rate it is just over 2%. In Poland now, it is around 1%. That gives possibilities for growth. How fast it will grow in reality depends on the speed in which the Polish government will change in their legislation.” Randstad number one in Poland. I also understand that some of the HR departments of companies do not see the added value of temping agencies like Randstad? “There is a reluctance in some companies. However, I think that is unnecessary. HR departments should be able to focus on developing their HR strategy and not spent time on recruiting (flexible) labour. In some companies, we see room for improvement to develop the HR strategy, to be incorporated in the corporate strategy. By formulating how to organise yourself, you also need to have a binding strategy about in what direction you go with your own people. If you look Kees Stroomer: “In quite a number of companies in Poland there is room for improvement as regards to the HR strategy” Bulletin 14 Randstad sp. z o.o. Al. Jerozolimskie 56 c 00-803 Warszawa 022 462 25 00 T, 022 462 26 00 F [email protected] www.randstad.pl News News News News News News The Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce supports Deltion College students Is there a market in Poland for plastic glasses from the Netherlands? Do Polish farmers need Dutch milking robots, or how successful would an herb liqueur be on the market in Poland. Students of the Deltion College in Zwolle in the Netherlands prepared an export-marketing plan on these particular products. Afterwards they went to Poland to actually see the market conditions with their own eyes. In Poland, the Deltion College received support from the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce. Press officer Van der Vegte of the Deltion College: “We received a lot of help from operations manager Agnieszka Lemańska of the Chamber, who helped the students with the ins and outs of the Polish businesses. Thanks to the Chamber, we received personal answers we couldn’t find ourselves on the internet.” Out of three nominations, the exportmarketing plan of Alain Luxembourg and Alex van Putten received an award by Deltion for being best prepared. The students prepared a strengths and weaknesses (SWOT) analysis for the Dutch herb liqueur ‘Schrobbelèr’. Van der Vegte: “The only problem with the product was the alcohol percentage of 21 percent. This was a little low for the Polish respondents.” Web Power enters Grontmij incorporates Polish KPI System Grontmij has taken over KPI System. With the acquisition of this Polish company, Grontmij obtains larger access to the Polish transport sector. KPI System employs 40 people and has an annual turnover of around 1.2 million EUR. KPI System has a strong reputation in the south of Poland, especially in the cities of Katowice, Kraków, and Wrocław. The company has completed 55 projects in the last three years, in the area of the design of highways and bridges. According to Grontmij the transport market in Poland will be worth around 20 bln EUR in the years 2007 - 2013, which is partly caused by the grants from the EU. Grontmij wants to achieve a leading position on the Polish market in the field of consultancy and engineering services. Recently it incorporated Roger Preston & Partners in the United Kingdom, which also has a design department in Warsaw. This takeover strengthened Grontmij’s position on the Polish construction market. New railway service the Polish market of Nijhof - Wassink in Poland The Dutch online marketing company Web Power has entered the Polish market. By the end of 2008, Web Power wants to have a portfolio of 20 clients, and it wants to reach a turnover of 1 mln PLN at the end of 2009. Web Power is a marketing software company that delivers knowledge, products, and services in the field of online marketing and communication applications. Jacco Bouw, president of the board of Web Power, believes it is currently the right time to launch its operation on the Polish market. Until the end of the year, the Polish company that consists of four people will be assisted by an employee of the Dutch headquarters. Email marketing is the most widely used form of interactive marketing in Polish companies. According to a 2007 report from IAB Poland, the organisation for interactive advertising offices in Poland, regarding the Polish market for email marketing was worth 44.3 mln PLN. Web Power was founded in 1999 in the Netherlands. Today the company has offices in Shanghai, Stockholm, and Stuttgart. The company works with local and global clients, including British Telecom, Johnson & Johnson, Air France, TUI, Lotto, Heineken, Land Rover, and Jaguar. Linguella Alain Luxenbourg (Deltion College), Fons Koopman (de SCHROBBELÈR B.V.), Alex van Putten (Deltion College) News News News News Survival Polish Barbara van Litsenburg, a Dutch expat, has set up a Survival Polish language course together with the Linguella language school. The course was born out of a need Van Litsenburg had five years ago when she came to live in Poland and couldn’t find a course for her needs. The new Survival Polish language course is given by Polish teachers and will be held three mornings a week. This course will be given in their office space in promenada shopping centre. More info on www.linguella.pl. Tangled up in words? For all of the Dutch who have difficulties in communicating with their Polish employees, employers or business partners, there is now an effective solution available. Recently the handbook called ‘Business Polish for the Dutch, business vocabulary’ has been published on the Dutch market. The author of the book is Beata BruggemanSękowska, an academic teacher, journalist and a sworn translator. ‘Business Polish for the Dutch, business vocabulary’ can be used as a selfstudy book and at the same time for courses and private lessons. It consists of versatile vocabulary lists such as jobs, days of the week, numbers, but you can also find a financial vocabulary and examples of job contracts and job ads in it. Business Polish for the Dutch, business vocabulary is available at several online bookstores. Excerpts of the book are available at www.communications-unlimited.nl. Bulletin 16 The Dutch logistic company Nijhof - Wassink starts a regular train connection between Rotterdam and the Polish city of Kutno. The service offers five departures per week from the PCT terminal in Rotterdam, the combined terminal of the Dutch companies Nijhof - Wassink, Den Hartogh, and MCS. The departures will take place on weekdays and on Saturday. It takes two days for the train to arrive. The service has been started in July. “The train connection is as equally quick as transportation by truck because of the regular departure times”, says President Frans Schuitemakers of Nijhof - Wassink. The new railway service is based on a large freight contract with the chemical group Sabic. It uses the Polish terminal Nijhof - Wassink in Kutno, as the trans-shipment location for their products that have been made in Saudi Arabia. Entrepreneurial Leadership Program 2008 begins in September On September 7, fourteen participants will begin the first module of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program. The program will be performed under the responsibility of the Executive Centre of Nyenrode Business Universiteit from the Netherlands, with the cooperation of the Koźmiński Academy from Warsaw. Those Universities are both number one in the field of management education. The program staff consists of Polish and Dutch coaches with a broad experience in personal and business coaching in Poland. As a part of the program, the participants, all directors of Polish - Dutch companies, will meet people from theatre, music and fine arts who will help them to look a different conceptual vision of business and inspiring leadership. Besides this, there is also an extensive team of academic coaches from Nyenrode and Koźmiński, who will supply custom-made knowledge. They will help in solving actual case studies of the participants’ own businesses or jobs. In so-called ‘interventure teams’ they will work on complex, future oriented questions about the development of their companies and themselves as ‘entrepreneurial leaders’. Through this approach you can see the difference with other leadership programs that focus more on ‘managerial leadership’ and that are characterised by a teaching approach, knowledge transfer and skills training, while staying in the comfort zone of the class room. Program Director Otto van Veen: “Strictly speaking the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program is the third step in leadership development after MBA and managerial skills training. Our selection of candidates is rather critical. This program should be a place where ‘succeeders’ can drive on at full speed.” The program is bi-lingual: Polish and English. The total program consists of three modules, of which two are in Poland and one is at Nyenrode. The Polish modules take place at the beautifully situated Stadnina Koni Walewice near Bielawy in the Łódzkie region. This is the former palace of Countess Maria Walewska, Napoleon Bonaparte’s mistress. The second edition of the program will begin in March 2009. More information about the ELP can be found at www.nyenrode.nl. Miffy comes to Poland at last Miffy (in Dutch: Nijntje), the famous little rabbit from Holland, will come to Poland. The Miffy series will be introduced in November by Format publishing house in cooperation with Magda van der Kroft, who has also translated the books. The first three titles include: “Miffy”, “Miffy w zoo” (“Miffy at the zoo”) and “Urodziny Miffy” (“Miffy’s birthday”). Miffy is known all over the world. The stories about her have been translated into more than 46 languages and sold in more than 85 million copies worldwide. Miffy, fruit of imagination of Dick Bruna was born in 1955. The Bruna family were on holiday in Egmond aan Zee. Dick Bruna would then tell his oldest son bedtime stories about a white rabbit and soon began to make sketches of the bunny. This was the beginning of Miffy. Her creator gave her an enchanting personality: uncomplicated and innocent, enthusiastic and positive whatever the circumstances. Miffy remains a child to her readers. She encourages them to develop in her world where the simplicity of the storylines and the drawings give full rein to the imagination. In Miffy’s world, every day is a little adventure. Dick Bruna was born in 1927 in Utrecht here he still lives and works as a graphic designer, author and illustrator. With his work, the artist supports many humanitarian organisations including UNICEF, Terre des Hommes and the Red Cross. The Centraal Museum in Utrecht has housed a permanent exhibition of his work since 2000 in recognition of his artistic achievement. Raben Group increases the number of its branches in Germany Part of the Raben Group, Birkart Systemverkehre (BSV), which has its head office in Mönchengladbach (Germany), has increased the number of its terminals. BSV has purchased two sites from Cordes + Simon which belongs to the Kühne + Nagel company. The sites are located in Mittenwalde (Berlin) and Prenzlau (near the Polish border). In both locations, a combined total of 63 people are employed. The tran-shipment warehouses has an area of ca. 5,500 sqm and are equipped with 60 loading gates, a crane of 5 ton loading capacity – in Mittenwalde and a video monitoring system that is also located in Mittenwalde. At present BSV has eight terminals in Germany located in Berlin, Prenzlau, Mönchengladbach, Nuremberg, Aachen, Regensburg, Wuppertalu and Würzburg. The Polish and Dutch team with interventure coaches of the Entrepreneurial Leadership Program Bulletin 17 From Employee Idea Management to Crowdsourcing “Every large organisation has a number of employees who have a gift for identifying better ways of doing things. Just about everyone else, have good ideas from time to time as well. The question is: does management encourage everyone to contribute their ideas and then implement the best ones?” More and more companies are using the knowledge, experience, and creativity of their employees in overall business development. Some companies ask their employees to fill out a form when they have an idea; others ask their employees for feedback via an annual questionnaire. Fellowforce BV helps companies to take employee idea management into the 21st century. ‘Our approach makes an organisation more efficient and improvement driven,’ says Jack Allerts, Director Operations of Fellowforce in Warsaw (www.fellowforce.com). How is crowdsourcing developing at the moment in Europe? Why Employee Idea Management? How is this going to help my company? I can see that there are benefits for the companies, but what is in it for the employee? JA: “Where do you go when you have a good marketing idea but you work in Operations? What do you do when you thought of a new product or service? We work around a web based software tool called Webforce that can be hooked up to any internet or intranet website worldwide, allowing employees to post ideas online, any time, and for any functional area. It stimulates creativity, thinking over the borders of departments, and increases employee motivation. There are a lot of good ideas out there.” “All the large international companies are interested in open innovation. Some of these companies really do it for the ideas, like John de Mol with Talpa, asking people worldwide for television formats (www.talpacreative.com). Other crowdsource projects have a mere marketing objective, inviting consumers with a fun challenge to a fun website that is full of product or company messages.” “The best ideas get rewarded with money or special recognition awards. However, most of the consumers are not doing it for the money. They do it ‘for me’. It is fun when a company picks up on your idea. It is fun to communicate with company experts to further shape your idea.” What will be the future of crowdsourcing? So, instead of filling out a form or talking to your boss, an employee can post an idea on the company intranet site? “Yes, but there is more. The ideas are visible for employees to further develop, improve, and co-create. Employees can vote on the ideas they believe in, and management can ask employees specific questions, like: ‘How to improve customer services?’ or ‘Think of a name for our new product’. It is all about involving the employee to shape the future of a company together. It is part of the company’s internal communication strategy and can be fun as well, like: ‘Come up with the theme for our Christmas party’. Ideas are reviewed by experts or focus groups and the best ideas are implemented.” What kind of companies are currently running such programs? “We have some financial services providers in our portfolio, companies with employees and partners in Poland and the Netherlands, but also manufacturers and sales organisations. We recommend every company to start with Employee Idea Management to gain experience in managing ideas and communicating with an active innovation community. In later stages, a company can invite partners or ask their consumers to post ideas. Then a company is moving into crowdsourcing e.g. by asking their consumers worldwide to participate in product development e.g.: ’What functionalities would you like to have on your next Blackberry?’.” “Most companies run Employee Idea Management programs, gradually moving towards involving their partners and consumers. The next phase is to invite certain consumers to participate in projects, e.g. to develop products and services together, to use their specific expert knowledge and pay them for it as well. The internet allows knowledge to be shared. In the future, we will see consumers transform into ‘prosumers’ (producing consumers). Another trend that will continue to grow is the use of crowdsource business models, allowing a large group of people to participate and invest, as well as running a company together and sharing profits as well. Brewtopia is a good example of this. An Australian guy called Liam Mulham asked people all over the world to think of the ultimate beer recipe in exchange for shares in the company. When they had prepared the recipe, they put it into production with a minimum investment. They are now starting to compete with the larger beer manufacturers.” Jack Allerts started his career in Russia. With the fall of the iron curtain, the East was full of opportunities. For almost ten years he worked as a change and project manager for Philip Morris International with assignments in Kazakhstan, Romania, Poland and Australia. Jack currently works and lives in Warsaw, Poland. Jack Allerts is the co-founder and chief operations of Fellowforce, a company that connects any organization worldwide with all experts and enthusiasts worldwide for outside-in innovation and problem solving. Bulletin 19 The sweet taste of success After a highly successful first year in establishing a branch office, TB Truck and Trailer Serwis in Poland now faces the harsh reality of tougher market conditions in the Polish transport market. However, Marc Koenders, Managing Director of the TB Groep, based in the Netherlands, sees this as a learning curve. “It’s good to be brought back down to earth from time to time.” The market for trucks is not as good as last year. What have you noticed of that? This kind of investment plans reveal that you have huge faith in the Polish truck market. MK: “The transport market is currently stagnating and that is something everybody has to deal with. I have every confidence that this is going to be all right with the team that we have here in Warsaw. Besides, it’s good to be brought back down to earth from time to time. It is however sometimes difficult to find clients that want to invest and if you already find one, then there is a lively battle between the truck brands that may supply a client. We also see that companies are delaying their investments. We noticed this through some cancellations of orders. This is something we haven’t experienced in the Netherlands. Here companies can easily change their minds when it comes to booked orders. They are not aware that they put us in a lot of trouble if they cancel an order a few weeks before the delivery date. We have learned from this and we have had to change our purchase agreements for this reason.” MK: “There is a rough calculation that we use in the truck business, which makes good sense on a European scale. If you take the amount of inhabitants of a certain country and you divide this by 10,000 then you have more or less the demand for new trucks in that country. This works for the Netherlands where the market is 16,000 trucks. In Poland, we expect this level in a mature situation to reach between 33,000 and 36,000 per year. If we project this to DAF, we expect them to sell 6,000 to 7,000 trucks and so our share of that should be 20 to 25 percent. This means that we want to sell 1,500 trucks on a yearly basis, which is three times as much as in the Netherlands.” Besides that, the clients do not seem to have scruples to resign from an ordered truck. In what way do Polish clients differ from those in the Netherlands? Marc Koenders (right) Managing Director of the TB Groep and Marek Ostojak (left) Managing Director of TB Truck and Trailer Serwis Poland Why did the TB Group decide to open a dealership in Poland? Marc Koenders (MK): “For several years the TB Group in the Netherlands had the ambition to expand. In Europe, we are one of the largest DAF dealers with six DAF dealerships in the Netherlands. We discovered that it was difficult to do this in Western Europe. Therefore, we consulted the DAF Company, and after examining the map of Europe, we ended up in Poland. Not that Poland wasn’t developed yet, but because in this region there was a dealer that was not functioning very well. DAF proposed that we should take up this dealership and that is how we started with our activities in this country.” By setting up a dealership, what were the problems that you faced? MK: “We took over the location of our predecessor; a dealer that was not very well organized. After we arranged the location, the next step was to find the right people. We were very glad that part of the previous staff wanted to stay with us. However, the problem was where to find a qualified managing director for our Polish business. We had some specific demands for his profile. We wanted a Pole who knew enough about the truck business. However, we also wanted somebody who was oriented to Western Europe, when it comes to directing the company. That was difficult and it took us a long time to find Marek Ostojak. Unfortunately, he couldn’t start on 1st January. However, since April last year, Marek is the Managing Director for all our activities in Poland.” It is the first foreign activity of the TB Group. Did it work out as you planned? MK: “Yes it did, even more than we expected. However, we did bump into Polish bureaucracy. I must say that I haven’t signed so many countless documents in my entire career, compared to the period that we established the company. I think one is always alert that things might fall short, but I consider our first year in Poland as very successful. This was due to a very good preparation from our side. We have made a very thorough business plan, consulted banks, institutions, and so on and so on. Therefore, we knew what we were up to But I have to be realistic and say that we also profited from a huge expansion in truck sales in the overall market over the past year.” And how much did this growing demand in the market account for your success in the first year? MK: “I think that half of our success depended on this factor. In our business plan, we aimed at a sales target of 400 trucks, which we would sell and deliver to our clients. However, we finished the year 2007 with an order board of 1,300 trucks of which we delivered 850. Therefore, this is more than double the amount that we planned. This is a good indicator that we have done a really good job in our first year.” We are now halfway through the next year. How did you continue after this first success? Marek Ostojak (MO): “The past year we have experienced a tremendous demand for trucks and that took us by surprise. This year is getting more challenging and much more will depend on our management capabilities. I want to put more time and energy in additional services that we as TB Truck and Trailer Serwis provide. For instance, we can supply spare parts of other brands of trucks. We also want to sell more specialized trucks, like fire-trucks and tow- and tank-trucks. This is a very interesting market. Polish companies used to buy these vehicles only second hand. This has changed due to EUfunding and now companies and local governments have the budget to buy these types of trucks new. TB Trucks can provide the clients with a DAF chassis and finish it completely to the customer’s demands.” Bulletin 20 MK: “I think there is still a distinction in professionalism between transport companies of the two countries. Dutch transport companies calculate much better on how many trucks they will have to replace. They really sit down, analyze the figures, and calculate if they are still able to drive another half year with a truck. Their administration on the rolling stock is calculated in decimal places. Given the current situation and the small margins, this is a necessity. Looking at the Polish businessman, I think they have overestimated the possibilities in the market. With a growing economic market, they were willing to invest without really calculating the consequences of buying a truck. They see the lease rates and don’t count the additional costs and in that sense, they are a little too wild and do not have the long experience in changing economic environment. I really think that the average Polish businessman doesn’t know enough what his costs are per km. Another example is the choices the Poles make on their repair and maintenances of the trucks. The Poles still thinks that it is cheaper to repair and maintain the trucks themselves. However, they forget that in doing so, you have to send your staff out to shops to buy spare parts, which in itself costs a lot of time. Therefore, I think it is fair to say that there is a lack of focus and professionalism in the market. And because their market position is under pressure, the Poles still have to catch up with their calculations in order to hang on to their current position in the market.” MO: “We are considering how we can help our clients with that and provide some extra added value in the process of a client. For instance, we want to organize a seminar on the benefits of repair and maintenance contracts. The benefits of this really need to be explained before the Polish companies pick this up. Nevertheless, I think that Polish businessmen are more eager to learn from us when we provide them with this information.” Are there any plans to expand the reach TB Trucks has in the Mazowieckie area? MK: “We are not planning to expand the reach, but we want to improve the coverage of our region. We already have a dealership in Warsaw and a second one in Łódź. Two months ago we bought 30,000 sqm of ground in Biała Podlaska where we want to start with a new Service and Sales dealer in March 2009. After that, we want to develop the Northern part of Warsaw and we are currently looking for a location. After that, we want to develop in the area of Płock, because of its central location. And I don’t rule out the possibility that we will be developing in the future in the area of Radom and Siedlce.” And does TB Trucks have any ambitions to expand further to the east? MK: “There are reports that forecast if the market in Russia is mature there will be a replacement market of 150,000 trucks on a yearly base. Therefore, Russia is a very attractive market. Ukraine is also interesting for us, but we first want to develop our business here in Poland. When it comes to dealers, the area of central Europe has been covered quite well. But further to the east, we expect that DAF needs professional partners to cooperate with their expansion. And we are more than willing to help DAF with that.” Contact details Marek Ostojak, Managing Director TB Trucks and Trailer Serwis Sp. z.o.o. Office: +48(0)224589591 Mobile: +48(0)605957000 Email: [email protected] Internet: www.tb.eu The history of the TB Group In 1934, Mr. Van Tilburg and Mrs. Bastianen took over a small garage operation in the centre of Breda. In 1947, after the Second World War, they acquired their Volkswagen dealership. Not only the demand for cars grew, but also the demand for commercial goods vehicles. A separate company was then set up which focused on providing comprehensive services for commercial vehicles, in particular for DAF vehicles (having been a DAF dealer since 1950). The TB Group acquired its Audi dealership in the 1970s, and in 2007 added the DAF dealership in Poland to its list of activities. The company has developed from a small garage operation into a flexible, innovative, and leading organization with six branches, all of which offer the highest standards of motor vehicle service. TB Group shares are in the hands of the Bastianen family. In the intervening period, the TB Group has developed into a leading international company in the motor vehicle and truck sectors. The TB Group’s interests extend well beyond purely financial interests. For this reason, the TB Group shapes its business by striving towards a balanced regard for ‘people’, ‘planet’ and ‘profit’, in other words through ‘Socially Responsible Enterprise’. Bulletin 21 DHV POLSKA Consultancy and Engineering An independent consultancy and engineering design company in Poland (a member of FIDIC) Being part of the DHV Group Has been providing services for public and private clients in the following elds: - transport and infrastructure; - water and environmental protection; - building and industry. Career tracker Career tracker Career tracker Career tracker Dirk-Jan de Groot The scope of services rendered by DHV POLSKA covers the following items: design services in all stages of engineering, i.e.: studies, conceptual design study, basic designs, nal designs; management and supervision of construction investments (including international projects using FIDIC conditions of contract); execution of economic analyses and feasibility studies; elaboration of technical and technological specications; preparation of tender documents as per the requirements of International Financing Institutions (Phare/ISPA, World Bank, EIB, EBRD), public administration and commercial companies; preparation of environmental impact assessments; provision of expert opinions and independent advice; technical assistance to clients regarding procurement and tender organization. As of July 1, 2008, Dirk-Jan de Groot (32) began working in the Polish Philips organisation as senior marketing manager responsible for the Business Unit Shaving & Beauty. In this role, he is responsible for defining, executing, and reviewing the marketing strategy and planning for products like men’s shavers, men’s grooming products, female hair removal products, hair care products and products for tanning. In his previous position, Dirk-Jan worked in the headquarters of Philips in Amsterdam as global product manager. Dirk-Jan is very happy with this new challenge in Poland, and looks forward to explore the country and all its riches. In his spare time, he enjoys sports like field hockey, golf, squash, skiing, scuba diving, and sailing. Ronald de Romph Ronald de Romph has been appointed as the head of the technical office for Ghelamco in Warsaw, for the Warsaw Spire - Chopin Tower project. Ghelamco develops offices and houses and is the largest office developer in Poland. Ghelamco’s new flagship development is the Warsaw Spire in the city centre. This project consists of a five storey underground parking for approximately 2,500 cars, two 55 metre high office buildings, an office tower of 220 metres high, and a residential tower of 160 metres high. The total surface of the building is 285,000 sqm. The execution of this project will start at the beginning of 2009. Ronald worked for the last 10 years in Amsterdam where he was involved in one of the largest building projects in the Netherlands. DHV POLSKA Sp. z o.o. 41 Domaniewska Street 02-672 Warsaw, POLAND tel. + 48 22 606 28 02 fax + 48 22 606 28 03 e-mail: [email protected] www.dhv.pl DHV POLSKA offers its customers the highest class consultants, experts, specialists and designers from various disciplines. Gateway to solutions Walter van Ditmars Walter van Ditmars has been appointed to the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Warsaw as the new deputy head of the Economic Department. In this position, Van Ditmars is responsible for economic and commercial relations between Poland and the Netherlands and more specifically, he deals with sectors like energy, environment, infrastructure and water management. Since mid-July, he is the successor of Joanne Doornewaard who held the position for four years. However, Van Ditmars has been already in Poland since last October in order to develop new networks and was posted for four months at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Dutch Embassy is very active in supporting and organising seminars, missions, study visits and exhibitions in cooperation with (Dutch) companies, Dutch and Polish ministries, as well as in the framework of Memoranda of Understanding, which have been concluded between the ministries of both countries. Every year a number of market surveys are being made by the economic department of the embassy for Dutch companies looking for opportunities on the Polish market. Van Ditmars comes from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, where he has been dealing with regional policy, relations with countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Common Social Responsibility (CSR) regarding international operating companies, and EU affairs. Robert Niczyporuk Akinkayode Robert Phillips The partners of DZP are pleased to announce the appointment of two new partners: Robert Niczyporuk and Akinkayode Robert Phillips. They have both worked since 2002 in DZP which now forms a team of over 140 lawyers including 21 partners at Poland’s largest law firm. Niczyporuk specialises in mergers and acquisitions, company restructuring (both tax and legal aspects), securities trading and capital market operations. Phillips advises on business law, specialising in corporate advisory in the form of complex legal due diligences of business entities for merger and take-over purposes. Arno Ruijtenbeek Arno Ruijtenbeek (47) has been appointed as chairman of the management board of Tebodin SAP-Projekt. Ruijtenbeek has been working for Tebodin since 2006 as office director of Tebodin Hengelo in The Netherlands. Before joining Tebodin, Ruijtenbeek has worked in the Netherlands for the AVR, in different managerial positions with the latest position as Director of Industrial Waste. In 2004, he started his own management and consultancy firm and worked for a various number of multinationals. Ruijtenbeek is married and has two children. Tebodin SAP-Projekt is currently the leading consulting and engineering company in Poland that employs over 400 engineers in Warsaw and in its seven branch offices located in Kraków, Katowice, Wrocław, Poznań, Łódź, Szczecin and Gdańsk. Ben van de Vrie Ben van de Vrie has assumed the position of the European Head of Mid Corporate Banking. Ben has been working for ING Bank Śląski since August 1, 2004. Van de Vrie has been a board member of the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce between 2005 and 2007. Małgorzata Kołakowska Michał Bolesławski Effective as of July 1, 2008, Małgorzata Kołakowska has been appointed as executive vice-president of the management board in charge of the Strategic Clients and Financial Markets. From 1993 to 1996, she was working for ING Bank N.V., Warsaw Branch. She was CFO at McDonald’s Poland and director for Poland & Baltic countries of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development. In October 2006, she returned to ING Bank Śląski. Michał Bolesławski was appointed executive vice-president of the Management Board in charge of the corporate sales network division, serving mid corporate clients and small and medium sized enterprises. Michał Bolesławski has been connected to ING since September 2001. Bulletin 23 Possibilities Questions of the Special Economic Zones & Answers Column by Paweł Wojciechowski This page answers to questions most frequently asked to the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of commerce, and features a few hints for doing business in Poland. displaying an unflagging interest in the SEZ-connected opportunities. Similarly, local authorities expected new regulations making it possible whether to enlarge existing zones or create new ones. The persistent interest on the part of both the local self-governments and prospective investors, made the inclusion of new land in the existing Polish SEZ indispensable. In July 2008, a new amendment to the SEZ Act took effect. At the moment, the amendment makes it possible to enlarge the Polish SEZ jointly from the current 12 thousand hectares up to 20 thousand hectares or create new zones. The possibility of the SEZs expansion, contributes to the country’s capability of attracting direct foreign investment. An unceasing interest can be observed due to an array of business incentives and well prepared investment land offered by the zones. Among other attracting enticements for investors, there are exemptions from Corporate Income Tax (CIT), real estate tax (selected communes), and free of charge assistance in completing investment related formalities. Paweł Wojciechowski President of the Board of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency I also positively assess the possibility of making the Agricultural Property Agency’s (APA) reserves and private land, after fulfilling all the required criteria, available for use in the enlargement process. The new Act extends also the potential of the PAIiIZ’s cooperation with the Polish SEZs that would consist in promoting exceptionally attractive investment land as well as in informing about the overall SEZs activity. New regulations make new investments conditional on fulfilling one of the major criteria e.g. a creation of a certain number of workplaces, the innovative elements of the undertaking or, a matter that has been a standard issue thus far, on the investment value i.e. a minimum of one hundred thousand EUR. The criteria are to be strictly customised to a given region’s needs, which in turn, will make the SEZ more effective in propping up the region’s economic development, in reducing unemployment and in supporting the competitiveness of the Polish economy. You can take advantage of the programme 1.2. Support for Small and Medium size companies. The expense for the plot one can rate as a qualified cost provided that: • cost of purchase is not higher than the market price • the property is only used according to the co-financed agreement • the property is necessary for implementation of the project • subsidisation for small and medium size companies is 50%. Q Which factors have to be fulfilled by the company to be ranged as a small or a medium sized? 1)Micro company is an enterprise that: employs less than 10 people; aggregate year sales do not exceed 2 mln EUR; balance sheet does not exceed 2 mln EUR. 2)Small company is an enterprise that: employs less than 50 people; aggregate year sales do not exceed 10 mln EUR; balance sheet does not exceed 10 mln EUR. 3)Medium company is an enterprise that: employs less than 250 people; aggregate year sales do not exceed 50 mln EUR; balance sheet does not exceed 43 mln EUR. Q I am interested in information about structural funds, where can I find it ? Basic manual for entities interested in structural funds is available at: www.funduszestrukturalne.gov.pl/english/ Other sources are: www.europa.eu.int - EU Internet portal, www.ukie.gov.pl - Internet portal of the Office of Committee for European Integration, www.cie.gov.pl - European Information Centre (Polish only), www.mpips.gov.pl /english/ - Economy and Labour Ministry, www.mos.gov.pl/index_main.shtmlMinistry of the Environment (Environment Information Centre), www.mnii.gov.pl - Ministry of Scientific Research and Information Technology, www.minrol.gov.pl /DesktopDefault.aspx - Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, www.mi.gov.pl/en/ - Infrastructure Ministry, www.parp.gov.pl - Polish Agency for Enterprise Development, www.nfosigw.gov.pl/site/index_en.php - The National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management, Marshal’s Offices, Voivodship Offices, regional financing agencies, advisory and consultancy outlets, www.zporr.gov.pl - IRDOP program (Polish only), www.konkurencyjnosc.gov.pl - SOP-ICE (Polish only), www.efs.gov.pl (Polish only), www.pap.com.pl - Polish Press Agency, www.gazeta.pl.ue - Gazeta Wyborcza Internet portal. Proven to be the best! The Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency closes the record sixmonth PAIiIZ’s performance for the first half of 2008 with 31 completed projects worth 1 billion EUR. Seven and a half thousand new workplaces are to be created as a result of the investment programmes. One third of the investments are to be carried out in the special economic zones, which thanks to the recently passed amendment to the SEZ Act may now expand in size. Over the last years, the Special Economic Zones (SEZ) have been doing very well and achieving ever better results in terms of both investments’ volume and the number of newly created workplaces. According to the latest report on the Polish SEZs, published by the Ministry of Economy in 2007, within the area of the 14 Polish SEZs investments worth 10 billion PLN were initiated and completed with 36 thousand workplaces resulting from the investment projects. The highest rise in employment rates could be noted in the Łódź, the Kamienna Góra and the Pomorska Special Economic Zones. In the first six months of 2008, the SEZs issued 99 new business activity permits forecasting investment of a joint value of 6.7 billion PLN. Until recently, the majority of the Polish SEZs’ land seemed to have been taken and almost entirely distributed. At the same time, investors continued Q I represent a small company and I want to buy a plot. Can the costs related to buying a plot be considered eligible? Leading car-fleet management provider in Poland Full Service Operational Leasing – for every size car fleet • Tailor-made solutions for optimal costs • Complete package of services: maintenance, tyres, substitute cars, insurance, road assistance, fuel cards • Effective car-fleet management with advanced reporting The Special Economic Zones in Poland Bulletin 24 Business Lease Poland Sp. z o.o., ul. Marcina Flisa 4, 02-247 Warsaw, Phone: +48 0 22 577 41 00, Fax: +48 0 22 577 41 01 E-mail: [email protected], www.businesslease.pl The Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce invites new members Annual Report of the Chamber On May 6, the Annual General Meeting of the Netherlands -Polish Chamber of Commerce took place. After opening, we held a moment of silence in memory of our Board member Ed de Koninck, who passed away unexpectedly on September 7, 2007. CEF International HRIB Central European Finance International Ltd. has been specializing in the international debt recoveries since 1992. CEF have been collecting debts on behalf of exporters and insurers from all over the world. We work solely on the success fee basis. We operate in many countries of the world the list of which you may, please, find on www.cef.com.pl We will be happy to cooperate with you in order to solve your problems. HRIB is dynamical, Dutch consultancy company, with activities both in the Netherlands and in Poland. Established in the year 2005, HRIB offers the following services in real estate and building industry: process management, project management and feasibility studies. Since 2005 in Poland we have proven experience in coaching and controlling Polish projects from a client or investor point of view. Focus on people, time, costs and quality is one of our most important characteristics. Our flexibility, knowledge of Polish real estate and building market, together with Dutch way of working guarantee the client high quality service. CEF International Ltd. HRIB ul. Miodowa 12/11 00-251 Warsaw Tel: +48 22 636 09 41 Fax: +48 22 635 83 16 www.cef.com.pl [email protected] Postbus 307 7600 AH Almelo, The Netherlands Tel: +31 (0) 6 19860609 Fax:+31 (0) 842 206621 www.hrib.nl [email protected] After this, the Treasurer presented the financial report for 2007. After some questions were answered, the report was accepted with no votes against. The Chairman gained positive reactions on his request for nominating a financial audit committee. Paweł Mlicki and Anton van der Wardt will take seats in this committee. Then we went through some of the events that were organised by the Chamber in the last year, often in cooperation with other Chambers. This has two reasons: we are not sure nowadays how many people from our Chamber will show up, after they made their subscription to join an activity. By cooperating with other Chambers, we avoid the problem of a lack of participants, which is always a disappointment for the speaker or organiser of the event. Also for the rest of 2008, we have a number of activities in our calendar. Recently we created together with the Nederlandse Vereniging, the Dutch Embassy, and Punt NL, the possibility to watch the European Championship Matches of Holland on a big screen in a Dutch environment together with other nationalities. In the Board, we had two vacancies to fulfil and two Board members’ term ended. Newly elected to the Board were Remco van der Kroft, Partner at the law firm Domański Zakrzewski Palinka and Eric van Vliet, CEO of Athlon Car Lease Polska. Both new members, each with their specific experience, are a welcome strengthening of the team. Re-elected were Bob Kruijsse and Fred Hoogerbrug. During the next point in the agenda, the Chairman announced that the ways of the Chamber and Providentia Invest, who has been executing the operations for the Chamber for many years, will separate on the September 1, 2008. Marcel Boer, Board member of Providentia Invest, created many new activities in his firm and felt that the time was there to concentrate fully on those (new) activities. We owe Marcel and his team many thanks. After this last subject, the meeting was closed and the people present went to the monthly business drink. During the first Board meeting after the Annual General Meeting the Board split the tasks among them. As normal, a representative of the Dutch Embassy will be present during the board meetings to keep the communication between the Embassy and the Chamber on a high level. Fred Hoogerbrug, Chairman of the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce. The board members of the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce will have the following tasks: Fred Hoogerbrug Chairman Michel Zuidgeest Secretary and Vice Chairman Camiel van der Meij Treasurer Maarten Goslings Member will concentrate on events and members communication Remco van der Kroft Member will concentrate on IGCC (the International Group of Chambers of Commerce) Eric van Vliet Member will take the lead in sponsoring and new members acquisition Bob Kruijsse Member will take care of a smooth takeover of the functions, formally fulfilled by him by the new members and will use his experience where needed Bulletin 27 Introducing the new board member Introducing the new board member This article presents Remco van der Kroft, a Partner in the law firm Domański Zakrzewski Palinka (DZP), who advises both foreign investors operating in Poland and Polish companies looking to expand to the Netherlands. His main areas of interest are real estate and mergers & acquisitions. Eric van Vliet is the managing director of Athlon Car Lease Polska. Prior to this, he worked for Lucent Technologies and was the general director of Business Lease Poland. Remco van der Kroft Can you tell us something about your work as a partner? “In DZP, my main specialisations are real estate law and M&A. In addition, in many cases I am the logical contact person for Dutch clients. I also support many Polish companies with legal issues abroad, not only in the Netherlands.” Eric van Vliet that the Chamber has to do things that are interesting for Polish management in Dutch companies. Also, I think that the Chamber needs to cooperate more with other Dutch representations of the Netherlands in Poland, which are the Dutch Embassy, the informal Dutch business group in Poznań, the Dutch business community in Kraków and the business community in the Tri-City. I would also like to see a closer cooperation with the Nederlandse Vereniging, the Dutch Society and to open these events for the Polish business community to share the Dutch party occasions with the Polish business community. One of the first things that the new board did was that we agreed with Marcel Boer of Providentia Invest, who was running the Chamber for the past ten years, that we would terminate that cooperation and that we would try to create another way to run the Chamber with a more active board. It looks like we also found a very capable new director for the Chamber.” What will the members notice of the changes? What will the members notice of this new structure of the Chamber? In your opinion, should the Chamber change something about the breakfast sessions and the monthly business drink? “I hope not too much in the sense that we will continue to organise events as we have done in the past years. What we won’t be doing anymore, and that is why we have terminated the contract with Providentia Invest, is providing hands-on support to newcomers. I think that the Chamber should be there for Dutch companies in Poland and as far as newcomers are concerned restrict itself to providing useful contacts. I think that the board will become more active and that they themselves through their network will attract interesting speakers and maybe some of the board members will speak themselves. The transfer of the Chamber from Providentia Invest will take place later this year and until that time, the board is brainstorming how to make the Chamber more vibrant. Apart from the monthly business drinks, I think what we need to do is to organise more high profile networking meetings like dinners and lunches. Again, this is something that is not set in stone yet. I would like to have a series of meetings with Polish managers from Dutch companies. We are also looking what other Chambers are doing to be attractive for their members.” What will be your task in the new board? How long have you been in Poland? “At the end of 2004 I came to Poland to take up the position of board member in a French shopping centre development and management company in Warsaw. The first time I came to work in Poland was in 1992 when I worked for a French law firm. I left in 1995 and as said came back a little over three years ago.” Why did you join the board of the Chamber? “I will take the responsibility of representing the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce in the International Group of Chambers of Commerce (IGCC). The Chamber is an active member of this organisation and the contacts with the other chambers have been so far coordinated very well by Bob Kruijsse, who for the past nine months fulfilled the function of president of the IGCC. However, apart from that, we are also talking to other chambers to organise bilateral meetings. These meetings will make it more attractive for Polish counterparts to show up, and are therefore very important events for the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce.” “The reason that I joined the board of the Chamber is that I believe that there is still a role to play for the Chamber, but I also believe that after 10 years of activity the Chamber needed a change, a new approach to make it more attractive in the current Poland. Ten years ago when the Chamber was founded, there was a big need for first line assistance. Today Poland is part of the European Union and also a lot of Dutch companies do not have Dutch management anymore. This means that the Chamber needs to adapt. Firstly, I think that the Chamber has to become attractive for all Dutch companies in Poland, which also means Bulletin 28 “I think that it is very important that we as Dutch companies intensify our network. I also think that we should help each other with business and that we should assign more business to Dutch companies. It is strange to see that in football, we are very chauvinistic, but when it comes to business, we are not. You can see this with the French or the German companies. They all assign business to each other. For instance, I don’t get any car leased from a French company, because they all go to their French leasing companies. And that goes the same for other nationalities in Poland; they are all very strongly connected to companies of their own country. We are not very good in this. We would rather give business to a German or an English company instead of a Dutch firm, which can offer a product or a service for the same value.” Can you tell us something about the company that you are working for? “Athlon Car Lease Polska is the Polish subsidiary of Athlon Car Lease International, an international provider of operational full-service car leasing and fleet management. Athlon is currently active in eight countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Poland with more than 200,000 cars leased. It is also a founding member of Fleet Synergy International (FSI) and via FSI active in another 35 countries. The company is 100 percent Dutch and fully owned by De Lage Landen International, which is part of the Rabobank.” “I think that we should organise this kind of meetings for our members more often. The business mixer, organized once a month, is an important factor in bringing businesses together. It worked like that for me, and there are more companies that are conducting good business in this way. The more people attend the business mixer, the better it is for doing business. Besides this, we need to organise more seminars for our members. The topics for the seminars can be requested by the members, for instance on the taxation law in Poland or problems concerning human resources. I find that breakfast sessions are very popular . They enable us to give our opinion to members of the government in Poland, so I think we should continue with that as well. Apart from that, I think it is important that we keep representing Dutch companies in the International Group of Chambers of Commerce (IGCC). This organisation represents more than 1 million workers in Poland, and through this organisation you can have quite some influence on what the government plans to do. So I think it is one of the key issues of the board to take part in the IGCC.” What is your opinion on the recently elected board of the Chamber? “I think that it is good to have a board with fresh members. There were some complaints from members about the Chamber that it was too laid back and not active enough. In the past the Netherlands – Polish Chamber of Commerce has fulfilled too much the role of a helpdesk for new companies and was not enough focused on helping their own members. The new board can help to provide new impetus for the Chamber. I also think that it is important to mention that the board has decided to coordinate all the Chamber’s activities by itself, and therefore, we will not outsource this work anymore to Providentia Invest. The new board will also define a value proposition. By doing so, we will re-position the Chamber and give it a new appeal, which is necessary to persuade new companies to become members.” Bulletin 29 Athlon Car Lease Thoughts of parting executive director Marcel Boer offers on the Polish market a unique tool which allows you for an on-line quotation of all car brands and an access to eet reports. After eight years, Marcel Boer of Providentia Invest will step down as the executive director and contractor of the Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce. To Boer this comes as a logical step under the current situation where companies have different expectations from an organisation like the Chamber. “The Netherlands - Polish Chamber of Commerce will transform into a business club that can do with a smaller back office”. future. The high prices also have had an impact on all kinds of financial structures. What you see is that people have compensated the higher prices by taking more consumer credits. This, combined with the strong currency, will limit the spending power of the Poles in the years to come.” What will the members of the Chamber notice from this situation? “The focus will be more on the relations and the representation”, says Marcel Boer How did you become involved in the work for the Chamber? “I started working for the Chamber after the organisation had already been established for a few years. The Chamber was not well located and the board had different expectations from the executive director. In 1998, I took over the Chamber and contracted two employees. In that time, we did a lot of preliminary work. We helped entrepreneurs and wrote reports for the Embassy on all kinds of topics. Over the years, there has been a huge change in Poland. It has been much easier for entrepreneurs to set up a company, and a lot of information is digital available with many more people speaking English.” Is it still necessary to have a Chamber in Poland? “You can say that the old style Chamber had its prime time in 1997. Now there is more need for a kind of business club organisation, and this is also the direction that the present board is currently steering towards. The focus will be more on the relations and the representation of Dutch businesses in Poland.” “The Dutch companies will feel the consequences on the labour market. There is a very low supply and a lot of mismatch in respect to the labour that still is available, and there is no strategy from this government to do something with this problem. I personally see that a lot of our members have problems with obtaining their staff.” Do you also have any possible outlooks on Poland? “What I see is that the administrative burden is lighter than five years ago. Getting all the connections in place, things like that, so that is a positive development. There are still a lot of companies that invest in Poland. But I think that they do this because they have no other option in the region. If you look at the Baltic countries, they are too small and have big financial problems, and have no people available. In Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia there is no room for new businesses anymore. There are no free people, no free places, nothing. Romania and Bulgaria, although being EU countries they are considered to have a higher risk for investors than Poland. So actually, the only country in the region with possibilities and a normal risk environment is Poland. You already see a lot of companies go to Ukraine, so the question is how long this will last.” The better solution • What can you say to the members of the Chamber? Looking at the economical situation of Poland. How interesting is this country from an investors’ point of view? “I think that a lot of investors are overlooking how fast the prices are rising in Poland. This cannot continue in this way. I already consider Poland an expensive country. There is a difference of 30 to 40 percent compared to the prices just a few years ago. Next to that, given the present rate of the złoty towards the euro, this causes very serious problems for companies to export. Although existing contracts do go on, it will have a knock-on effect in the “I have good contacts with a lot of the members. I have seen a lot of them become very successful in Poland, mainly because of their hard work. They took the risk, so therefore they deserve the success. I sense a lot of good spirit and entrepreneurship among our members. I think that for other companies it can be very beneficial to become a member because they can learn from that. I foresee a good future for Dutch entrepreneurs and the Chamber in Polish society. The Dutch and the Poles have already kept good relations for more than 500 years and I see no reason why this should change.” Bulletin 30 ... for all your Car Fleet Management needs info@ athloncarlease.pl www.athloncarlease.pl +48 (022) 653 78 85