Interview with Ondrej Maciak, managing director and co-owner of Betamont.
Q: Can you briefly tell us the history of your company and its important milestones?
OM: Betamont was founded in 1992. In 1996 we took over the executive unit of the Košice Signalling and Signalling Workshop from the Slovak Railways as part of the privatisation process. Since its inception, we have been involved in signalling and signalling technology on railways and in 1996, when motorways started to be built in Slovakia, we found that there was quite a lot of room for a company that had experience in building intelligent transport systems on motorways. Gradually we started to profile ourselves in two parts. For the railway part, we were looking for a way to get into signalling technology, because it has a bigger future than the signalling that is being pushed by the systems used in telephones today. In cooperation with a Czech company, we developed an electronic interlocking system (ESB1), certified it in Ukraine and started to implement the construction works in 2010. The biggest success in the field of interlocking technology is the construction of a section within the STRED Silk Road, which runs from Kazakhstan through Uzbekistan, the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan, Georgia and into Turkey. And it is on the section from the Georgian capital Tbilisi to the border with Turkey that we are participating in the reconstruction and construction of the new line, including a transshipment point, by supplying 17 stations with electronic interlocking technology, with the investor aiming to increase the possibilities of importing goods from China to Europe.
The second part of our profiling concerns intelligent traffic systems that are used to control the traffic flow. Back around 2003, we were building a station in Newcastle, in partnership with an English company, to control the right of way over an old historic bridge and its protection, which is over 150 years old. It was specified who could cross the bridge and with what ballast. Gradually we built something similar in Switzerland for their customs officers, who have several stations, 8 of which are still in operation. They check there the trucks entering Switzerland – what weight they are when they enter and leave the country, whether there is any tampering.
Q: During the Export Club panel discussion, you mentioned that in 2000 you were considering how to proceed?
OM: Yes, and suddenly the opportunity came up to go to Azerbaijan, so we spent two years building a fibre-optic cable for the Azerbaijani railways. As we were there we found out that they were starting to build something related to intelligent transport systems. And so we won a contract through a tender to build the technology on the section between the city and the airport in Baku with traffic management equipment – information boards. Over the few years we have been in business, we have made friends with our customers and when one of the leaders turned fifty, at his celebration, a gentleman of Tajik nationality sat down with me, who turned out to be the head of the organisation – the ‘Intergovernmental Committee of Road Workers’ of the Commonwealth of Independent States. We accepted the offer and became a member of this organisation, which then helped us to gradually open doors to other Central Asian countries.
Q: What are the specifics of the Central Asia region?
OM: You have to convince them that your company is real and has values because you are going into a relationship with the state. It’s not exactly easy. Imagine all those tendering organizations. For example, there was one tender in Kazakhstan and we were doing a conference in Slovakia at that very time, where we invited representatives from Central Asia and thus the Kazakhs. In the end, we won the tender together with a local construction company and we built 10 stations. In these countries, it is said that the local is right if the other is wrong. It is also important to find the right partner. We even teamed up with one and set up a company, which unfortunately we closed down after a bad experience, and we have been repairing our reputation in Kazakhstan for the last three years.
Q: Kazakhstan is a large continental country with huge differences between winter and summer temperatures. How does this affect you?
OM: Yes the temperatures there are 40, 45 and -40, -45 degrees. So the asphalt is soft in the summer and cracks in the winter. Our technology is just the right solution because it controls that overloaded trucks are not allowed on the road in high temperatures. Congestion is the biggest problem affecting road damage. To illustrate, I will give an example. When you are going against the air, air resistance increases quadratically with your speed. When the car is overloaded, the disruption is too great.
Q: Are you also active in Kyrgyzstan?
OM: Yes. In 2012 we had talks about building something there. And construction started in 2017. You see, it took 3 years to even start to do some kind of competition to make it all work somehow. To date, we have built 11 stations there thanks to the fact that we have been flexible… The tender was launched and financed by the World Bank. Initially it was 3 stations, but as the Kyrgyz side was unable to implement the World Bank allocation, we gradually increased our scope to 11 stations. Similarly, we also built one station in Tajikistan We are trying to offer our solutions in Uzbekistan. We have been going there for several years, presenting what we can build, how to protect their roads and at the same time give them enough data to plan the organisation of transport, the modification and rehabilitation of the road infrastructure. There are support programmes for these countries from the European Union through grants, which are also administered by the Slovak Republic. Eximbanka has a significant role in this, and we plan to participate in these programmes
Q: Please tell me what share export activities have in total sales?
OM: It’s quite volatile. We’re pulled once by the railways and once by the roads. If you want to have a turnover of, say, 20 million euros a year, a company with 130 employees must have potential contracts worth at least 150 to 200 million euros in the pipeline. So in some years the share is 30%, in others 20 or 40%. However, we would like to see that share rise significantly.
Q: Do you have a different business strategy for domestic and foreign markets?
OM: A complicated answer. Of course, when it comes to foreign markets, they are specific. Each one is completely different. With Slovakia, the business strategy doesn’t fluctuate much. It is influenced by elections, for example, because there is more work before the elections, nothing after the elections. The same is true for all foreign countries.
Q: Is it difficult to establish yourself in Western countries?
OM: Europe is very reluctant to let us into its markets. They have their space, their entrepreneurs. We have tried several times to get into some tenders to the west, but unsuccessfully. I’ll give you an example: you need a reference for the tender, a construction manager who has 10 years of experience, knows English, French, German, and has done 11 constructions over 100 km, and there is only one person like that in Europe.
Q: How do you rate the competition?
OM: We were pioneers, we went to new countries and the competition came after us. I don’t have a problem with that, it’s logical, everybody is trying, it just has to be fair competition. There are maybe 4 companies in the world that have similar quality technology as us, and three of them are from the former Czechoslovakia. We are still trying to move forward. Today, of the 130 people in my company, roughly 10% are in development. It costs a lot of money, but without looking for new products that are in demand in the market or are moving towards technological advancement we will not move forward.
Q: What is your long-term vision?
OM: People are very important for a long-term vision. You have to have a good team and good people who are willing to go do for the company and meet the planned goals. It is necessary that the vision of the company is also understood by the family. Its some members in the company are working in the field of development and finding products for the future. I also talk about people because there must be a generational change. I myself am already in that exit phase and if there was no one to continue there would be no long-term vision and I wish my grandchildren to work for the company.
Q: Can you tell me an interesting export situation?
OM: I thought of a funny story. I was sitting at the table with a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Kazakhstan, and he said to me, but the technology has to work like clockwork. Then he looked at me, but not like yours. I had such a cheap, simple one across from him.
Q: Are you also raising the younger generation?
OM: We support education. We have dual education in Košice, which everyone here is raving about. And we have been doing it for years. Students from the secondary vocational school come to us for work experience. We train them, even though only a few of them stay with us. When they learn, are capable and get experience, they leave. We also have a strong cooperation with the transport industry in Zvolen. We are encouraging them to have the subject of intelligent transport systems in transport and industry as a teaching subject in the future. And we also supported our clever colleagues when they needed to go to university and provided them with an evening university at the University of Žilina. This is a strong and long-term role. When I took over the Signalling and Signalling Workshop from CSD in 1995 there were about 120 of us and I was the only one of them with a university degree. Today the company has about 130 employees of which almost 60% are university graduates.
Q: Who do you think is a good leader?
OM: A good leader is one who people follow, who can draw people into the process, who can make people understand that something has to be sacrificed, because not everything can be just for money. We’re quite lucky in the company to have people like that who can do that, and I don’t just mean in directorships, but also in construction management positions, and staff positions as well. A leader should also be an owner who sets an example to people of where to go and what to do and not be afraid to look for new challenges. Example is always a good thing.
Q: Do you have any recommendation for those who want to export?
OM: You have to have the courage to go export, but I have to be aware that I have something, a product, a service, that would be or could be of interest or is prospective for the needs of the company.
Thank you for an interesting interview.