Experience 2023
After a long time back to work...
Having had three years of video-meetings we will come back to normal work. As in 2015 - 2019 we are travelling from all over Europe to a new target company to give them ideas to make a better job.
Up to oct. 2022 we had five candidates and our leading-team will reassure with theses companies the potential dates in 2023; then end of 2022 we have decided
"The winner is YORK from Poznan, Poland..."
Our meeting dates:
- March 31st 09:00 until april 1st 2023 Get-to-Know Workshop in Poznan, PL
- Sept. 23rd 09:00 - 18:00 Exchange Workshop in Mataró, Spain
- Oct. 27th and 28th Results Workshop in Poznan, PÖ
Get-to-Know Workshop: What a reunion - at York in Poznan
For three years, we in the English-speaking international work group of the ICV met only by zoom because of Corona in 2020 and 2021 and because of the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022, but now the common, finally analogous work in personal togetherness started again:
On Thursday, 30.03.2023, all 13 participants arrived at the hotel in Poznan in the evening, arriving by plane or car. The dinner lasted so long, we had so much to tell each other - a circle of friends that has grown over the years!
But also our new working group member Olga, who comes from Kiev in the Ukraine, was immediately warmly welcomed; we in the international work group, like the EU, are growing together...
On Friday, 31.03. in the morning, according to our work group motto
come together,
work together,
learn together,
develop together.
we drove to our "target company", the family business York, which had won our tender. Together with eight colleagues from York, we set ourselves the task of producing ideas for York - ideas and approaches to solutions that would then be further processed or implemented by York employees after our visits to Poznan from the end of the year.
Filip Makowski, York CEO, showed us around and introduced us to the company, which produces cleaning utensils (see: york.global/). Especially in the production area, we were shown how to produce in an innovative and sustainable way.
Visiting the YORK-production
After getting to know each other personally, we exchanged suggestions for topics from York. The following topics were chosen:
1. profitability analysis for (operational as well as strategic) projects
2. setting up a responsibility-oriented budget process
3. developing a contribution margin system for decision making
4. successful strategy implementation to increase staff motivation
Teamwork
Our four team leaders:
Team 1: Johannes Vollmer from the Netherlands,
Team 2: Karol Sikora from Poland,
Team 3: Axel Ehberger from Spain and
Team 4: Peter Janžekovič from Slovenia -
a truly European team leader selection !
The team leaders went into retreat with their staff, two other AK members and two York staff members each and started with organisational clarifications:
- what are our team rules?
- when and how do we organise our 6 to 8 virtual meetings until October?
- what is our work programme?
- what will be our first main topics?
Then we started to look at the technical questions and to draw up a first working paper, which was then presented to the plenary on Saturday and discussed.
Presentation of the work-program
The highlight of the first meeting in Poznan was an invitation from York to spend an evening together at the Delicja restaurant in Poznan. It was a great atmosphere: there was a lot of laughter, a lot of discussion and also some technical discussions...
At the last meeting on Saturday evening, even our colleague Luiza from Warsaw came just to be with us. What a joy!
Having had a good start with our collegues from York
Internal meeting in Mataró, nearby Barcelona, September 22nd to 24th 2023
On 23rd September 2023, we met for a one-day meeting in Mataró near Barcelona to present, comment on and coordinate the results of the individual work group teams.
We had been extremely happy that even our collegue from Russia came for a stopover from Dubai to be with us! And one evening our collegue Xavier Subirats, who helped us in 2019 to work with TUSGSal in Badalona joined us.
Many hours of discussion, but also nice moments, having lunch or dinner together in this vivid town. And of course some of us used the nice weather to have a bath in the mediterranean sea!
York results workshop
End of october we met again in Poznan to present the results of the four teams - and also having many talks, discussions, dinner and a guided tour in Poznan.
dinner in the first evening
lunch at the first day
guided city tour in Poznan, but quite cold as you can see
dinner with CEO Filip Makowski
Presentation of the four teams
Several meetings in between
To have an impression about the intensity of work, here are the meeting dates of team 4:
Teams-meetings, not longer than one hour with topics
1. March 31st and April 1st in Poznan – Starting in York
2. April 20th 18:00 - ideas for staff-motivation
3. May 25th 17:00 - recommendations for mgmt-leadership
4. June 21st 17:00 - needs for basic responsibility
5. July 27th 17:00 - figures for more effectiveness
6. August 22nd 17:00 - ideas for product innovation with new methods
7. September 15th 17:00 - first discussion of final presentation
8. September 23rd Internal meeting of ICV in Mataró (near Barcelona)
9. October 5th 18:00 - discussion of final presentation
10.October 27th and 28th in Poznan – Back to York
… and many subgroup-meetings in between
At the final meeting end of October at our target company York in Poznan, the individual work group teams have put the finishing touches to their presentations. In the evening we had another dinner together.
On the second day, everyone, really everyone, presented their final presentations to the owners, the CEO and his management team - followed by a discussion.
Result
Of course, we cannot publish the things we have learned, the ideas we had at York.
But: some of our ideas have already been implemented during summer / autumn 2023 with success!
Filip Makowski, the CEO seemed to be very satisfied with the results:
"Last week we finished a project we started in March 2023 in cooperation with controllers from ICV which was an interesting and exciting journey. It was a great occasion to exchange experiences and know-how with people representing different countries, cultures, and industries. I am sure that the implementation of the recommendations worked out by each team will bring positive results to the efficiency of our processes."
But surely the coworking collegues from York have got many ideas to change processes, to get better decision-information.
We hope that York, that the whole staff will be happy about the common results!
According to our experience in the previous projects:
1. 2015 near Zabrze in Upper Silesia
2. 2016 in Zielena Góra (Lower Silesia)
3. 2017 in Ljubljana
4. 2018 in Berlin and
5. 2019 near Barcelona
more than 50% of our ideas / solutions are implemented.
Our workload for each of these is about 10 days, plus flight and travel costs. Not a small amount though:
It's great to learn with and from each other. We are a great team, have become real friends, meet privately on trips through Europe and thus live up to our motto:
we come together,
we work together,
we learn from each other,
we develop together.
Working together is a lot of fun; if you want to join us next year, please contact our work group leader
Axel Ehberger, mail: axel.e{bei}elexa-controlling.com or Mariusz Rzeźnikiewicz, mail: mr{bei}mr-con.com