Monday, 01 December 2008 14:32
KUVERT POLSKA Sp. z o.o.
PRESIDENT: Waldemar Sobczak
OPERATIONS: Paper & Packaging
ESTABLISHED: 1995
EMPLOYEES: 203
REVENUE: 11.500.000 Euro (2008)
www.kuvert.com.pl
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Despite a clear growth in the number of electronic mail sent for business as well as private purposes every day, traditional correspondence remains an important aspect of our lives. It is connected first and foremost with the dynamic technological development and an ever growing number of advertisements, statements and bills sent to us by various institutions. Due to that, companies specializing in envelopes’ manufacturing can be more than sure that their products will find their buyers. One of the companies is Kuvert Polska, a leader in the Polish envelopes’ market with share amounting to thirty per cent.
Plucky decisions
The history of the company started twenty years ago with indoor production of envelopes, which made Zbąszyń, a little city in the western part of Poland, to a real “Envelope Basin”. Without doubt, the company would not be where it is at the current moment if it had not been for the plucky decisions undertaken by its owners. Twenty years ago, the nowadays President of the enterprise – Waldemar Sobczak – invested all his savings in the business and started the activity with manual production and execution of insignificant orders. The first machine appeared no sooner than after three years of operations. Funny enough, it turned out that it was bought from one of the nowadays German associates of Kuvert Polska, Ms. Barbara Wessner. The then customers of Kuvert Polska, named at the time Polkopert, would include Polish wholesalers with the largest client being Prószyński i Spółka publishing house, one of the largest institutions of its type in Poland. The fact propelled the company and helped it to develop. Another crucial moment in the history of the company was establishment of Grand Style Poland company and a printing house Zaczarowany Ołówek (Magic Pencil) in 1993. Owing to the changes, the management of the company increased by two persons – Jacek Paczóski and Artur Misiak. Two years later, in 1995, thanks to an accidental meeting of Jacek Paczóski with Barbara Wessner during trade fairs in Frankfurt/Main, the company started cooperation with her German enterprise. The company got its nowadays shape and form – on the basis of Grand Style Poland, Kuvert Polska was established and the three Polish associates were accompanied by three German counterparts. The company has been functioning as a Polish-German plant since 13th June 1995 and the shares have been divided in fifty-fifty proportion. In the very same year the first production hall was constructed. During the first phase of business operations, the company invested a lot in the equipment necessary to increase the efficiency of the plant as well as the quality of the products. In fact, the results became visible very quickly – in 2000 the production grew by 200% and sales increased by 300%. All that was achieved with a little more than 162 employees. Further extension and investment decisions took place in 2005. Thanks to significant build-up and modernization of the plant and production lines, the manufacturing process became less energy-intensive and more environmentally friendly. The build-up of the plant included in turn a new storehouse, which allowed to adapt the old one to a production hall with five state-of-the-art production halls operating in it. The investment included as well a modern office and social back-up as well as a fully automatic waste paper collection mechanism. All the improvements caused that at the current moment Kuvert Polska can boast a well functioning works with modern production lines.
Competitive advantage
The factor which differentiates Kuvert Polska from other envelope producers is undoubtedly that the enterprise belongs to Mayer-Kuvert-Network, a Group of 30 enterprises located in 22 different countries. Each of the Group’s members is encouraged to present their experience and best practice to the other companies constituting the circle. The party which gets the most from the know-how exchange is the customer. The reason behind that is that the clients receive a much wider product assortment thanks to a significant extension of the individual companies’ sample spectrum. What is more, thanks to the exchange of technical knowledge, the companies are one step in front of the competitors. It allows them to introduce new products, machines as well as work strategies and optimize the old ones. This is another aspect beneficial to the customers – it is them who take advantage of the new products and new standards delivered by the Group’s members. What is more, at the beginning of 2008 Mayer-Kuvert-Network Group signed a strategic agreement with leading producers from Spain, Japan as well as the United States. The initiative named Global Services Group is responsible for supplying international concerns, which in turn aim at being the central supplier of all global customers. The settlement boasts 65 production units, which allows to service the customers in an optimal way without any greater administrative outlay. The four of the renowned and acknowledged Global Services Group’s companies are to introduce new servicing, quality and assortment rules and determinants. The agreement of the companies is unique on the global scale. Membership in the association allows Kuvert Polska to think about the future in an optimistic way and is one of the areas where the company perceives its strategic potential.
Product offer
The assortment offered by Kuvert Polska is quite impressive. Next to traditional envelopes, the company has decided to incessantly extend its product offer and make it up to date with the requirements and needs of the customers as well as changes in their lifestyle. Owing to that, the product offer includes: traditional envelopes (wet-adhesive, self-adhesive, with silicon stripe), window and no-window envelopes, non-standard envelopes (for carnets and occasional postcards), envelopes for automatic packaging, untypical envelopes for direct marketing, envelopes with air and foil protection, Prestige Envelopes with intensive, dark underprinting for confidential correspondence as well as full spectrum of envelope overprint. The company is aware of the great changes that took place in the envelope market within the recent years. A few years ago traditional envelopes, either wet- or self-adhesive, were the main product ordered by the customers. Currently, the manufacturing focus is on envelopes for automatic packaging. The transfer derives from transformations in the needs declared by the clients. The answer of Kuvert Polska to the new requirements is Kuvermatic envelope. Thanks to a special excision of the envelope’s flap, the product series can be used in automatic packaging of correspondence. The envelopes are offered in two types: ASK (side flaps adhesive on the outside) as well as ISK (side flaps adhesive inwards). Next to that, Kuvermatic is an envelope series with corporate or advertising overprint in full printing. The high quality of Kuvermatic envelopes is connected with regular cooperation and contact with the clients. The company is always eager to listen to their remarks or improvements suggestions. Without listening to their proposals, it would be difficult to maintain the high quality of the product and to meet their requirements. It must be added that the quality of the manufacture is additionally verified by enveloping machines of KERN, BOWE and PITNEY BOWES type. Their inserting efficiency is so large that even the smallest fault in the product’s quality could be a problem for the machine and the whole packaging process. In the production process of Kuvert’s envelopes, the best quality paper is used. Furthermore, fully computerized customers’ servicing and orders’ accomplishment, modern machine park as well as competent personnel guarantee professional attitude towards the customers and delivering them top quality products in line with what they expect and ordered. It is worth mentioning that the quality focus at Kuvert is so large that since the very beginning of the business activity, the company did its best to offer a product meeting the customers’ expectations with respect to quality. In order to live up to those expectations, Kuvert Polska decided to implement quality management system EN ISO 9001:2000. Next to that, the products as well as business ventures of Kuvert Polska have been acknowledged by many certifying bodies and competition organizers. The company has been distinguished with the title of Gazela Biznesu (Business Gazelle) for dynamic development figures as well as many other awards and prizes, e.g. Laur Konsumenta (Consumer’s Laurel), Lider Rynku (Market Leader), Przejrzysta Firma (Transparent Company). It was also the finalist in the competition Quality Forum Quality International in 2007 in the category QI Order.
Bright future
As far as the future of the company is concerned, colossal possibilities lie in mass dispatching. The action is still rather unpopular in Poland, yet in the American or western European markets it has been a common thing for many years. It is connected with the direction in which the marketing market has been developing. Intensive promotional and marketing activities practiced in western countries cause that the dispatch reaches almost every citizen. In Poland BTL marketing is still in its tentative phase. However, some interest has been shown by telecommunications, insurance and financial institutions. In order to reduce their costs, many of them decided to dispose of the whole dispatching process to specialized mailing companies. Unfortunately, the current economic situation slowed down the marketing ventures of a multitude of companies. However, once the crisis is over, the enterprises will get back to promotion, which will pose a chance for Kuvert Polska as well as other companies operating in the branch. The enterprise is not afraid to search for new possibilities outside of Poland. The goal is to strengthen the position of Kuvert Polska on the European market through expansion of international activity and cooperation with partners from Mayer-Kuvert-Network as well as other clients. At the current moment, the company is active in German, English, French, Swedish, Czech, Slovakian and Lithuanian market. Conquering of new markets is to be achieved through promotion, high quality, competitive prices as well as wide product spectrum. In order to do that, the company gains new technologies both in envelopes’ manufacturing as well as their reprinting. Lots of potential is also perceived in the cooperation with Mayer-Kuvert-Network and, going further, Global Services Group. However, the greatest strength of the company is its personnel and technological solutions as well as crisis experience gained during the turbulent years of economic transition in Poland. With all that and the support coming from the associates, the company can be very optimistic about how its future will look like.
