Changes create opportunities. An interview with Paweł, Solution Architect
For over a year, we have been undergoing a major change, not only in terms of image. However, this is not the first time that AUCTANE has reorganized itself. Paweł, who works at the Solution Architects team, discusses how we have changed over the last decade and what these changes result from.
Pawel, first tell us what you do in the solution architects department.
Our main task is to talk to customers and determine how they will use our systems and for what purpose. This information is important for subsequent departments that are already dealing with specific system integration.
As an employee with 10 years of experience, you took part in various stages of the company’s development. How would you sum up the past decade?
How would I sum it up? As one great transformation. When I came to the company 10 years ago, there were 30-40 people working here. Today, there are over 200 of us in Poland alone, many more in Europe, and around 2,000 in the world. So the development is amazing and basically, everything has changed except for the address in Zielona Góra, because we are still at Kostrzyńska 4.
You have gone through many transformations. How do such large changes in the company usually proceed and how does the latter differ from the previous ones?
The changes are always a bit similar. At first, there is a big unknown for the first few months. Everyone is wondering what will happen, what will it look like, and what will happen next. There are many questions that remain unanswered for several months. The recent reorganization certainly brought a lot of changes, I think for the better. We started operating more as an international company. And that also pushed the whole company to grow.
Earlier, even before we were Metapack, we conquered the German market. At some point, a wall began to appear on how to proceed. Because, on the one hand, the company was too small to go further, and on the other hand, it was too big to operate in Germany alone. Thanks to reorganization we were allowed to enter new European markets. The recent change was a similar case. We’ve already been operating in European markets, and in order to go further, we had to retake a big step to achieve it. Certainly, changes and reorganization must take place in the case of companies such as AUCTANE. In this process, companies come together, and that always entails change. Both are for the better.
How does your department feel about these changes? Have there been any challenges you’ve faced yet?
Certainly, there are also changes in the organization of work. I think it was nice that we were considered in this process. As employees, we could take part in talks about what we would like, and what changes would be important to us. We gave our ideas, proposals, and suggestions and we can see that something is actually happening in this direction, it has been noticed. It was an excellent opportunity for us to make changes for the better.
Are you already working with other departments in Europe and the US?
We’re definitely starting to work more closely with the US as our products begin to connect and work together.
How do you evaluate these first months of cooperation? Is there a big difference in dealing with teams from Europe and the United States?
The biggest difference is time zones (laughs). If you’re contacting someone, you have to factor in the 6-hour time difference unless someone is on the other coast, then there’s not even a chance to catch up during business hours, you have to do it off-hours.
Besides that, we all have a common goal, so we work together. There is a slightly different understanding of this goal because it must also be said that the courier market in Europe is completely different from the market in the United States. There are a lot of couriers here, there are several or several dozen in Poland alone, and several hundred in Europe. Whereas in the US there are 3-4 big players. There are smaller ones, operating locally, but there are much fewer of them and it is the bigger ones who rule and dictate the conditions of the market.
Back to your work at AUCTANE. Do you think that over the next 5-10 years you will develop here at a similar pace and in the same way?
I think the pace will not change, we will continue to develop dynamically and everything will be OK, but in what direction it is still difficult to determine. The development strategy for the coming years is still being clarified, there are many business decisions to be made based on the latest trends in the e-commerce market. One thing is for sure, it will be interesting.
