An optimist is always beneath the peak

 

It is no use making a business guru of yourself, preach definite judgements, build a nimbus of profit genius.  Let the numbers speak for themselves.  

 

- I did not realize that it was really a big business for quite a long time.  I was doing my job day by day and everything was growing, going forward - says Krzysztof Oleksowicz just after his Inter Cars, by the votes of "PB" readers, was chosen a company of the year. 

 

Then, in 2014 he was a multimillionaire. Today, after growth of share value of Inter Cars, he is a billionaire - his package of shares is worth exactly PLN 1.03bn. Is the Warsaw entrepreneur aware of this?  Maybe, but as far as we know him, he does not care.  The most important is European, global odyssey, to which the distributor of automotive spare parts went. 

 

A penny in a war. 

He was not like a typical billionaire.  At the beginning he was ignoring learning, and not for the benefit of small business.  Being in love with judo, he wanted to become an Olympic champion Until his parents put him back down to earth.  If so, he ran away from them, at the beginning of 70s to study a KUL - philosophy.  This is useful till today, it was also useful during his first global attack - when in Chicago he was washing dishes and disputing with his colleague on the shift.  Or later, when dirty in grease, he found about the secrets of German automotive garages.  The main shareholder of Inter Cars is a good example that globalization is not a sudden invasion, but a process which is being born slowly.  And if finally you get to the point where you are building another logistics centre, negotiating a giant contract with Amazon and building star-ups in another countries, you are number four among European distributors, and at the same time - looking at every euro-cent - you worry about the war in Ukraine, this means that you got globalization.  And what is left, is laborious, but creative going up.  

 

- Just do not write, that we are already on the top.  As this would mean that there is no other way than going down - emphasises Krzysztof Oleksowicz, who on 10th June at the National Stadium, within the conference "Develop business with the best", will be talking about creating a global brand. 

 

A flight over an armchair

He has been learning a global brand for over two decades.  An also literally - when he was working at Harlald's garage, reading books about mechanics and car repairs.  When in the 80s he was organizing for 8 seasons the biggest high-mountain excursions (and trading in spare parts imported from the West), he knew the topography of the Himalayas not worse than a construction of a transmission in VW Passat.  He still works the same way - he knows exactly which machine is used for what and he looks wherever he can, examines, corrects and develops.  Here every piece of margin matters, just like size.  

 

In the past, we aimed for billions of zlotys revenue, later for billions of euro.  Now we have another aim - smiles the 64-year-old entrepreneur.  

 

We are going for EUR 4bn.  This means that we are fighting for the seat of a leader of the industry in Europe.  How to reach it?  This will be discussed on 10th June at the National Stadium.  As an invitation we would like to recall Krzysztof Oleksowicz from interview with "PB Weekend":  

 

- Philosophy taught me looking at life from a different perspective - one should not worry about small things.  It will always be somehow.  And usually it is better than I assumed. 

 

Source: Puls Biznesu 

2.06.2015