Posted on: Jun 29, 2021
Interview with Krystian Bestry, President of the Management Board of Adaptive Solutions & Advisory Group, just after receiving the award in the competition “Manager of the Year 2020 of the Łódź Region” organized by Dziennik Łódzki daily and Business Center Club.
EK: Congratulations on the award, especially for such a challenging and unpredictable year as 2020.
What, then, does it really mean to be an effective manager/leader today?
Krystian Bestry: In my opinion, an effective manager, first of all, recognizes and uses all business opportunities, takes risks, sometimes puts the entire operational or financial capacity of the company on the line. He also creates the team’s engagement, not only to perform tasks but also to think creatively and co-create a strategy and company’s plans. An effective leader must not forget about providing the company with the right resources and the employees with the skills to meet business challenges. This is how we do it at Adaptive!
What does ‘effective management’ mean in pandemic days?
KB: I think the pandemic is a good example in the field of ‘providing resources’ – understood both as the ‘ability of switching’ at the company, not only to the necessity to work from home, but also to a virtual system of recruiting and onboarding employees, or providing technology for remote work, videoconferencing, using data held in the ‘cloud’. In Adaptive, we introduced these solutions long before the lockdown.
What are the biggest challenges for a manager in times of pandemic and remote work?
KB: I have no doubts that the two biggest ones are the growth or the risk of drop the business and keeping your employees engaged. In terms of the risk in running a business, the intensified communication and the closeness of the relationships with clients allow for a better prediction of the level of orders or the number of contracts, while there is still no chance to establish closer business relations to attract new clients.
Those who shifted their marketing strategies towards sales and building an image and good relationships with clients online definitely won on the market. On the other hand, employees’ involvement is a more long-term issue, both in terms of managerial competencies in the field of organization and supervising of remote work, building mutual trust between different levels of the organization, but also very, very intensive and regular communication of the business situation to all employees.
What made Adaptive’s business success in 2020, what factors have determined it?
KB: First of all, patience and effectiveness in achieving agreed goals! The greatest success was to sustain the company’s growth in a very difficult pandemic consulting market as well as to increase employment by more than a half, from less than 40 to nearly 60 people last year.
We see this employment growth as an investment in the future, especially since the main factor generating new orders is the quality of services delivered to existing clients who recommend us to their partners and cooperators.
What are your plans for this year and beyond?
KB: We are changing the classification category, due to the employment growth in 2021 we are already a medium-sized enterprise! But most of all, we are growing even faster – we have been intensifying our marketing activities in Western Europe and the United States.
We are also thinking about doubling the number of employees within 12-24 months.
Now we present a newly designed comprehensive offer to our clients with over 20 business solutions dedicated to BSS and BPO industry.
Adaptive on the map of Łódź region
KB: In 2020 we also celebrated our 5th anniversary so this was a good time to summarize Adaptive’s contribution to the development of the services market in our region. We are pleased to say that over these 5 years we are not only more than 50 people but also hundreds of new jobs created in SSC in Łódź thanks to our support, often directly because of creative work done by our managers and consultants while carrying out job transition programs from Western Europe and the rest of the world.
Thanks for the interview.
EK
