Elbląg's investment diversity

Elbląg is a city of many successful domestic and foreign investments. The business are thriving, among others, due to their location, Elblag’s growing infrastructure potential, good university base and support for investors from the local authorities. We asked representatives of two entities that make up the city's business fabric: the Polish geoinformatics Research and Development Center OPEGIEKA and the global BPO leader – Transcom Worldwide, about how they perceive their presence and development prospects in Elbląg.

MADE IN POLAND – OPEGIEKA

FOCUS ON Business: OPEGIEKA in Elbląg dates back more than 30 years. How has the company's activity evolved during that time?

Adam Augustynowicz, President of the Management Board, OPEGIEKA: Thirty years ago, we were a branch of a geodesic and cartographic company from Gdańsk. In 1989, through its commercialisation, the present OPEGIEKA in Elbląg was established. At that time, we were involved in land surveying, land register maps, master maps, maps for design purposes, divisions of land plots. We still carry out many of these activities, but in a more modern form of course. In the 1990s we started new activities such as IT, cartography, photogrammetry and GPS measurements. It was a result of the development of IT and measurement techniques.

In 2009, we decided to transform the company into a research and development centre. It was a breakthrough moment not only for our company, as it was the time when the opportunity to benefit from EU funds arose. The first grants were used to create a base for future innovation activities. In the following years, we invested in airborne platforms, cloud computing, drone technologies and machine learning. To date, we have completed a total of 20 R&D&I grants co-financed from national contests of the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR), Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), Regional Operational Programmes (ROP) as well as H2020 and ESA European contests. Since 2013 we have maintained the status of Research and Development Centre granted to us by the Minister of Economy.

In 2021, by the decision of the Commission for the Evaluation of Science, we were recognised as a scientific unit belonging to the system of higher education and science in Poland, just like universities and institutes. The research and science element has become our trademark on the market and drives our innovative approach. It is also an opportunity for those who would like to pursue not only a business career but also a science career path.

What is the company currently focusing on and what is the significance of its location in Elbląg in this context?

We currently focus on remote sensing, information technology and land surveying activities in business and scientific context. We are involved in the capture of airborne data, the construction of information systems and the digitisation of map resources. We have three photogrammetric aircrafts, with the fourth one taking delivery in March this year. We have the latest airborne laser scanners, large-format aerial cameras, oblique cameras, thermal cameras, our own datacenter-tier processing centre, a confidential office, and we are developing our own technologies using geographical information systems, big data and artificial intelligence.

We have IT specialists who develop complex systems using geoportals, e-services or mobile applications. We have land surveyors who handle investments and create geodatabases. We use really high-tech, advanced and automated technologies on a daily basis, but the essence and advantage in our business is the creative work of people and their competences. Technology can be built or bought. But how to attract and keep interesting and talented people to work in Elbląg is the key issue for us. Of course telework is possible, but direct contact, creating new ideas in teams, creating innovations are important in our work, because they translate into work efficiency and company competitiveness.

 I think that a common saying is still true among Elbląg residents: 'The grass is always greener on the other side'. I think that the opinions of outsiders, people who come here for a while only, like our customers and subcontractors, but also those who decide to stay here for longer, like some of our employees, are more unbiased. The first group appreciates easy access via the S7 road, the greenery in the city and of course the boat trip along the slipways. The second, i.e. our employees, appreciate the peaceful life, lack of traffic jams, proximity to the sea, the Tricity, lack of problems with access to schools or kindergartens, and competitive real estate prices.

We are glad that we are able to provide a very interesting and modern workplace here, which makes people even from big cities decide to move to Elbląg, sometimes with their whole families. A communication barrier for our aircrafts is the lack of a paved runway at our airport.

What are the company's further development plans? What else will it surprise us with?

It is not easy to answer the question about future plans, because the environment in which we operate is changing rapidly. Technology is changing, competition is growing. All this affects the directions of development of the technology company that we want to be. For our plans the ability to adapt quickly to new conditions is fundamental. In recent years, we have invested a lot in technology, while putting aside soft matters such as organisation, promotion and HR. I hope that this year we will complete a number of activities addressed to internal needs of the company and we will work on our corporate image and building international relations.

We are also looking for further development opportunities in the fields of IT and ICT, as well as aerial and satellite remote sensing. In my opinion, the role of geospatial information will continue to grow. Location and navigation are already commonplace today. We use them in business, administration and everyday life, they are built-in in our phones. But the most interesting is yet to come. Until recently, we were talking about the idea of a smart city. Today we are talking about digital twin, that is, accurate and digitalised models of the reality around us, digital models of entire cities or even countries.

This is a result of the development of Industry 4.0 concept, and the increasing digitalisation of our lives. In order for robots or autonomous vehicles to move, digital spatial awareness and precise 3D models are necessary. They are also necessary for public administrations to optimise management, development and implementation of e-services. We are working to ensure that our data, images and maps are understood not only by humans but also by machines, so that they can be retrieved, processed and analysed automatically. In Poland we are already an interesting place to work, where you can ‘touch’ the latest technologies in the field of obtaining and processing aerial data, creating IT systems, building mobile applications, cloud computing technology, big data or machine learning. It is time for the company from Elbląg to be heard more about in Europe and beyond.

Thank you for the interview.

INTERNATIONAL ACCENT – TRANSCOM WORLDWIDE

FOCUS ON Business: Elbląg is another location for your operations in Poland and the second one in the Warmińsko- Mazurskie province. What convinced Transcom to enter Elbląg?

Piotr Ćwikliński, Client Service Manager, Transcom: That's right, Elbląg is the fourth location of Transcom Worldwide in Poland (after Olsztyn, Gdańsk and Białystok – currently works are underway to build our fifth branch, this time in Poznań), but in a way it has a pioneering and unique character.

As a result of the dynamic development of our projects, we have decided to modify our current strategy of choosing the cities in which we want to establish our offices – we have decided to use the model of the so called satellite branches – in cities with approx. 100,000 inhabitants, located no further than 100 km from one of the already existing branches. We have analysed a few different cities in Poland that would meet the above criteria and finally we have chosen Elbląg. Today, after almost two years in the city, we can only confirm that it was the right choice.

Our decision to locate the future of Transcom Worldwide Poland in Elbląg was largely influenced by excellent connection via the S7 road with our branch in Gdansk, access to a wide selection of job applicants available on the local labour market, the proximity of several universities, which is of course also important for us, since an important element of working for Transcom is the flexibility of working hours, especially appreciated by pupils and students. We also appreciate great support and responsiveness we have received from the local Town Hall and Labour Office.

What is the main scope of your activities and how does the city fit into your business strategy?

Transcom Worldwide is one of the global leaders in the sector of business services outsourcing that operates customer service centres for clients in various industries in 25 countries worldwide. We provide support in 33 different languages from over 60 branches, where we employ over 28,000 consultants. As I mentioned earlier, we currently have four branches in Poland, with a fifth on the way. In these branches we run projects for leading brands from the telecommunications, e commerce, banking, automotive, household appliances and many other industries. It is also worth mentioning here that, like many other companies in the industry, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic we have been implementing our projects in a hybrid model, with a large part of our consultants working remotely.

Elbląg fits perfectly into our business strategy in Poland, because we see a great demand for this type of work here – our job offers are very popular from the very beginning and we find here a lot of talented and ambitious people who we teach from scratch how the work of a professional customer consultant should be like – no previous experience is necessary, what we expect is willingness and involvement.

Considering the development path of Transcom in Elbląg, what can we expect in the short and long term?

The goal we set ourselves before entering Elbląg was to quickly build a strong base of qualified and satisfied  employees in our company. And I am pleased to say that we have more than fulfilled this goal: We are currently using our available office space in almost 100%, we employ about 80 consultants guided by four excellent team leaders. As for employee satisfaction, I can also proudly say that Elbląg stands out in this respect among all our locations – in our regular employee satisfaction surveys we receive a lot of satisfied votes here. Usually the percentage of employees who express their satisfaction with work in our Elbląg branch is over 90%.

Time will tell what the future holds, but one thing is certain – the experiment with building satellite branches, which we have just started in Elbląg, can be considered a big success. It will certainly contribute to choosing other potential locations of new Transcom Worldwide branches in Poland.

Thank you for your comments.

This article comes from magazine:
FOCUS ON Business #3 March-April (2/2022)