Krzysztof Oleksowicz. A philosopher who gained millions on automotive spare parts

 

Comes from Warsaw, born in 1951.  Graduated philosophy, and automotive market came to hum a bit by chance.  After graduating studies he went to Hamburg and there started repairing cars.  - If I graduated law, I would be a lawyer. If I graduated engineering school, I would be an engineer constructing bridges or skyscrapers.  But because I graduated philosophy and I had nothing to do, I started repairing cars - says Krzysztof Oleksowicz. 

 

Later he started importing used crashed cars to Poland and spare parts for them, and further on also spare parts for garages.  In 1990 he got a trade credit from one of the suppliers and launched his own company.  He was helped by two partners.  - Calculating profits on selling used cars and those on selling new spare parts for those cars, the conclusion was that one can earn much more, without getting his hands dirty, on importing and selling parts - K.O. states today. 

 

For the next years Oleksowicz was distributing spare parts to neighbouring markets of Middle and Eastern Europe, among others, to Ukraine, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic; later to Lithuania and Latvia, and also to Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia.  The choice was not accidental.  Western Europe, where there is one car on every two people, was strongly saturated.  Central Europe with stable economic situation and quite small fleet of vehicles, i.e. number of cars in comparison to number of citizens, was a market of dreams - he says. 

 

In 2004 he made Inter Cars go public on Warsaw Stock Exchange.  Four years later the company merged with JC (Japan Cars) Auto - a leader in segment of spare parts for Japanese and Korean cars.  Three years later - after twenty years - he gave away the post of a president of the board, and moved to the position of vice-president and member of the board (in Inter Cars he has over 30% of shares). Despite becoming a back seat player, he does not dream of becoming retired.  And in his free time he takes part in car races. 

 

Product range

 

Currently Inter Cars has a full range of spare parts for all kinds of vehicles: passenger, commercial and trucks.  The company also imports parts for motorbikes and tuning parts, as well as garage equipment.  It can also satisfy the needs of people driving old-timers, i.e. unique cars with long history.  Spare parts are stored in four regional distribution centres, which deliver to chain of sales outlets - branches.  At present Inter Cars S.A. has 168 branches in Poland and 162 branches all over Europe.

 

Besides selling spare parts, the company also sells legendary Triumph and Ducati bikes in a chain called Inter Motors.  Moreover Inter Cars owns two manufacturing plants:  Lauber (dealing in remanufacturing of automotive spare parts) and Feber (manufacturer of trailers and semi-trailers). Finally, the company owns a nationwide chain of garages - Perfect Service and Q-Service. 

 

Competition stays behind 

 

In Poland, Inter Cars is an unchallenged leader of new spare parts distribution market for vehicles.  - The fact that Inter Cars left the competition far behind is a result of a strategy, which is composed of predictability, accepting changes of the market and consequence in activities.  Also trust is much important, in relations with customers, as well as with suppliers - explains founder of Inter Cars. 

 

The basic sales market for Inter Cars Capital Group is Poland, but the company is doing very well also in other twelve foreign markets, especially in Latvia and Romania.  Weaker results were recorded in Ukraine and Slovakia.  Generally sales revenues of the company are growing.  In 2009 the annual revenues of the distributor reached the level of PLN 2bn, in 2013 - PLN 3.5bn and in 2014 they can be beyond PLN 4bn. 

 

Source: onet.pl

2015-01-13