Start IT business in Poland

I know this has been covered in an earlier post but the information in that post wasnt exactly what i wanted.

I am a highly experienced IT Consultant and have been working for myself as an IT Contractor for some time now. I would like to start an IT business in Warsaw catering for the small to medium enterprise, primarily supporting the Microsoft product platform.

I realise there will be a degree of market research required but some of the more rudimentary questions are:

Is there room in the market for another IT Solutions Provider??

Would my lack of Polish be a hindrance?? (I do intend to employ one engineer to begin with)

Thanks.

I'm not sure if Microsoft is very popular in Poland; people use Linux now as it's for free. What would you exactly be doing as a consultant?

I realise that demand for MS products isnt quite as high as for the open source stuff for the obvious reason......COST!!

That said MS have now opened a centre of operations in Poland and i daresay MS and its marketing machine will manage to make some headway. Personally as a consultant i would look to implement IT solutions from the ground up, Mail, File, Print, Security, Mobile etc etc. This would typically be for small to medium enterprise but i do have on my CV some of the major government and financial organisations here in the UK.

I would say there are a lot of other reasons why the opensource is better. Much, much, much better.

And, yes, I'm linux user.

I'm C++/DBA a programmer from Poland and the truth is M$ products are CHEAPER than OpenSource ones. Why? Because most of the people using computers, not only here, have no fu$#% idea how to use Linux! Almost all professionals here use Windows, I'd just say - Photoshop, 3DSMAX, Visual Studio, ASP.NET, .doc files, Outlook, MS Exchange, MSSQL etc. etc. It's much easier and cheaper to buy licence than to train all the staff.

Actually WINDOWS is INCREDIBLY POPULAR in Poland. Illegal versions, but who cares? Even Bill don't.

And BTW - the programmers in Microsoft Warsaw are probably the best payed in this country. Same MSSQL admins. Actually I do know a lot of programmers and over 90% of them write soft for MS OS. Yeah, maybe they are cool haxorz uzing Linuxz, but what?

Angry Duck - I don't think OpenSource stuff is much better. Many programs really are, many are just worse copies of commercial soft.

I'm also using Linux from time to time (last Slack and security distros, recently BackTrack, can't wait for full v3) but have never found any better OS for home/office use than Windows. Even if the OS was pretty easy to use like Ubuntu - the support was 10x worse than with MS. I'm not talking about device problems only, but about support on forums too. Maybe some people like to Google for 2 hours or wait 3 days for reply if have unexpected problem with sound card (like I had), but as You can see - 90% of people don't. And there's nothing wrong.

polishmaster, in my opinion, for those having tasted open source, there is no dilemma. It's like hell and heaven comparison. Well documented, good community (size depends of popularity however, but still you'll find enough smart geeks able and willing to help you-no matter what distro you choose) cross platforms, etc etc.

But I can agree with you (and can understand other people): closed/proprietary source is something most are familiar with. Learning them to use open source, oh yes, it could cost a lot of. Mental energy, as a first.

Must be true, I belive.
Luckily I am here with a company who has just one single machine with Windows :) (used for running some proprietry conference s/w). Each and every other task (except conference :) is done on machines running linux. I myself am using linux for the last 4 year and pretty satisfied.

These programmers are not hackers :), some of the best you can meet and working on products (yes linux based) which will revolutionize the market. (slight exaggeration only ;O)

Actually people are used to windows that anything else looks strange and imperfect which is not true.
Consider replacing a front line actor (read windows) from a long running television drama, however good the replacement (read linux) may be, ppl are bound to feel the transitions "shocks". (weird analogy :)

Merged: Starting an IT service business in Poland.

I recently moved to Poland and want to set up an IT computer service/repair business, any suggestions on business models what people are looking for in terms of IT, etc?

Hi tomldac,

Please drop me a mail at: sps.strategy.consulting@gmail

I may be able to help you conceptualize and develop your idea and than launch it off.

Cheers

hey tomldac,

What city are you planning on opening your buiesness. Email me at plboczon@gmail

Peter B.

Do you speak Polish?

In my opinion, the marketplace is saturated with such businesses. You might be able to get a niche if you can deliver incredibly fast turnaround times and back it up, as many of these companies have a dreadful attitude towards actually getting the things repaired quickly.

If you don't speak Polish, forget it. It's simply not a business that you can do without the language.

Not necessarily true – depends exactly what type of IT business they want to start…

ss13 is right, He could easily start a business and use polish/english people to run the store and customer support.
If i was a client and need IT help, i would look for quick cheap and good repiars, using parts that wont die in a week or of low parameters then what i had.

Good true advice on what to buy for my needs.
And you should treat me like a computer is an alien ;)

Most people who would come to you for help are not computer talented in the hardware department or advance OS operations, I treat the people i help with computers like they haven't even touched it before. Like my gf and her friend always say when im fixing there comps, "speak English please".

Then i know to slow down and use words like slurp-slurp fr describing a usb drive to there mom :)
Or writing instruction on how to reset a program with out restart.

I think your best market would be quick fixes and data loss recoveries, these people need the most. and some home to home setup help or course for a fee.

It depends on what he wants to do. From the sounds of things, he wants to set up a small company - in which case, it's pointless if he can't communicate.


No no no. This is what's wrong with the entire IT repair/sevice industry in Poland - people promise quick, cheap repairs and then can't deliver. It's far more important to deliver on what you promise - if you tell someone "two weeks, guaranteed, or you pay nothing" - then you'll get business. It's also incredibly difficult to use good parts and yet a cheap price.


NO. This is the other big problem in Poland - treating the customer like an idiot. The 'specialist' IT sales places are absolutely dreadful for this - and they're always prone to sulking if you walk in (especially if you're female!) and tell them exactly what you want.


And for this, he'll need Polish.

Incidentally, there's no money in quick fixes. Everyone and their dog is doing this in Poland - if he's got the money, then it makes sense to go into more high end things - such as guaranteed 24 hour repairs and so on for businesses where time is money. There's just no point trying to compete with people who will work for 5zl an hour.

Well good points, but just started a computer servis buisness out of my house, i get lots of call to help with installations and repairs throught internet (its one of my free offers) and then they use me for there friends who need help and usally buy computers from me and ask me to go to saturn of media market with then and give advice. I charge 10zl for an hour and free over the internet help (with remote computer). and ive been pretty busy this week and will be for a while.

The thing is, 10zl an hour isn't bad money if you don't have much rent/any rent to pay and can live according to how many Poles live. But if you're from the West and want to have at least an okay lifestyle, you'd have to work 50 hour weeks (not including free assistance/travelling time/etc) in order to have a hope of a comparable lifestyle. It's just not realistic - even if you assume 2000zl, you'd be down to 1670zl after ZUS comes off and then 19% of that, so even if you can get creative with taxes, you'll still only get about 1400zl in the hand. For a foreigner, they'll struggle to live on such.

Hi tomldac
if you would like to start this sort of company
have you thought of a strategy how your services would benefit your customers,
do you know what gap is missing in this industry/market in poland

Regards
aoteg