With the advent of the Internet and digitization, the entire global business is increasingly revolving around data, and data centers need to be built to create, transmit and store as needed. It is this that is built and supplied by the domestic company Altron , the number one in the Czech market that has been operating on it for thirty years, during which it grew into a business of almost a billion.
For the fiscal year ending in March, Altron’s turnover reached 917 million crowns and there is no shortage of other orders. “Digitization was the subject of discussions before the pandemic, but covid significantly accelerated the whole field,” describes the founder and owner of the company Milivoj Uzelac in an interview for CzechCrunch.
Altron is now preparing to conquer global markets through so-called container data centers. You can imagine them as LEGO cubes, which can be connected and disconnected as needed, so that they can meet the needs of individual clients flexibly and also relatively cheaply.
about our know-how and we are convinced in the world that such a product has something to offer, we want to become a world expert in this field, “ reveals its vision Uzelac, whose company offers such solutions to hundreds of clients in Czech Republic, including ministries. In the interview, he describes the state of the domestic state data infrastructure, but also Altron’s business, internal transformation, other development plans and the situation on the labor market.
Altron was celebrated 30 years after its founding, and at the same time there were reports in the media that you were going to sell the company…
I wouldn’t say I’m going to sell Altron, even though it may have sounded like that. I’m not finishing and I feel like I still have a lot of ideas and energy. Our results are perfectly fine and we are very profitable. However, our long-term goal is to conquer the global market, which is probably best achieved in conjunction with a strategic partner. But we will definitely not go into force. Thanks to cooperation, we could immediately get what we would otherwise do by trial and error. And I don’t have time for that anymore, at my age I don’t want to go this method. (laughter)
) Milivoj Uzelac, founder and owner of Altron
Photo: Nguyen Duy McLavin / CzechCrunch
But there have been a lot of changes in your group in recent years. What’s happening
In the long run, we have had the ambition to grow by expanding our reach abroad , therefore, for the last ten years, part of our business has taken place in subsidiaries. Four or five years ago, I realized that I was not satisfied with our development, and I decided to deal with failures, to make order and to sweep.
What exactly did it lead to?
We looked which does not work effectively with us. What could be sold, I sold, for example, my daughter Altron in Slovakia and the United Arab Emirates. We closed a holding company in the Netherlands, which only cost us money but didn’t really bring us anything.
Does it affect your results as well?
The cumulated financial statements for the whole group still looked more or less the same with a turnover of 800 million crowns. Before that, however, we paid significantly higher costs, which led to lower profits. All the changes were reflected in the fact that revenues were transferred to the income statement of Altron as and at the same time our profit increased, because we did not need so many CEOs and heads of IT and finance and the like. We will be satisfied with relatively economical management.
The most important change is now helping us to grow, namely the concentration on one business direction. We have one company in which we concentrate all the potential and people, which also has a positive effect on the results.
We all a little naively promised ourselves that the labor market would be relaxed and cleared up, and in the end it’s exactly the opposite.
How are you
We have enough business, numbers for this year ( Altron’s current fiscal year ends in March 2022 – ed. Note) will be approximately the same as this year, a similar prediction is for next year. We will be just under one billion crowns.Why don’t you actually grow faster?
We are facing a problem on the personnel side, we lack quality people from technical fields, they are not available. We could do more business, there are business opportunities, but we are hampered by a shortage of people, after all, the whole of Europe is suffering. The workforce is extremely expensive, which, in combination with inflation, brings additional risks. Governments across Europe did not want to give the market a free hand at any cost, and there was no restructuring during which people moved to the sectors where they were most in demand. To the west of us, it’s not so unusual, in America people change their field and move for work, we don’t wear it at all.So, on the one hand, there is a shortage of people in the market, but on the other hand, is the growing demand for data centers and related infrastructure?
Digitization was the subject of discussions before the pandemic, but covid significantly accelerated the whole field. Over the last ten or twenty years, transport infrastructure and logistics centers have grown on the market, and thanks to the globalization of the economy, transport has become the bloodstream of business. Today, the internet and the digital environment are at the heart of the economy, all the more so since the beginning of the pandemic. Data is clustered into data centers, every area of the economy needs a data infrastructure because it needs to create, transmit, store and provide some data.Growth in the area will certainly continue when and how it stops, I dare not predict. We see this trend as an opportunity and want to be involved in creating the infrastructure of the digital society, even though it sounds terribly screwed. (laughs)
Do you feel that the market itself would change over time?
The field of data centers originally grew in telecommunications. The first turning point came with the advent of companies like Google or Facebook, which began doing a huge and different type of business on the Internet. Their data centers have changed the market and the architecture of the solutions themselves. When one of these services doesn’t work for a few hours , the whole world is slowly panicking.The industry is now dominated by service providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google and then companies such as Facebook. But there is still a market down with medium and small solutions and it is still evolving. For example, each hospital builds its own data center, and simple and fast distance communication allows them to make a huge difference in business. The situation is similar in the state administration and user comfort. We can talk about automation and robotics in an industry that struggles most with a shortage of skilled people. All this leads to increased demand, the boom will still occur.
How are you preparing for this boom?
We offer Czech customers a wide portfolio of services related to data centers – from consulting to implementation, including service, operation, staff training , audits or certifications. We provide all this only on the domestic market, due to legislative standards, availability and qualification of the workforce, its language skills and the desire to travel. This is, after all, our lesson from the Emirates, where we started with great ambition and wanted to do everything. In the end, however, we stayed with the products we produce in the Czech RepublicThese are container solutions for data centers and their modifications into larger units. In layman’s terms, these are “boxes” that we make here, send to the place, and we or our partners put them together. It is our know-how and we are convinced in the world that such a product has something to offer and we are well on our way to becoming a world expert in this field. Interest is clear in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. This is our first goal.
What is the next goal?
We want to get to America, where similar solutions are made as on a treadmill. Containers can be quickly manufactured and moved, easily and quickly assembled. Businesses don’t have to plan much when they’re done, they just take things apart and move them on. Our goal is to be able to produce in a warehouse similar to the automotive industry, but we do not have enough numbers for that yet.It does not negatively affect the demand for these local solutions. cloud? Is it a competitive solution or rather complementary?
I believe that it is complementary. Due to latency and risks, companies want to have the most important data with them and then have a backup somewhere in the cloud, which increases the certainty that nothing will happen to the data. Ordinary office work will remain in the cloud on Google, Teams and Zoom, but when a company produces on robotic machines, it simply has to have the data with it locally. For example, a large automaker will have all the data at the global headquarters, documentation for individual production and then distribute the specific two or three models to local factories.The world of the cloud will develop with this. Legislative aspects come into this, where countries try to protect the data of their citizens, which creates a breeding ground for local data centers. On the other hand, smaller companies cannot afford to develop protection solutions such as Microsoft or Amazon, they will be better protected against global threats.
Individual ministries, ministers and other people do not want to centralize digitization, which is the only effective way.
Altron’s client is, for example, the Ministry of the Interior. How would you assess the government’s approach to the data infrastructure?
The first aspect is political, that is, whether the current establishment perceives the digitization of state administration as a fundamental idea. At a certain time, thanks to gentlemen such as Ivan Langer (among others, also the former Minister of Informatics – editor’s note) or Stanislav Gross (former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic – editor’s note), we were in the international forefront. Then came governments that did not fully exploit the potential. But we certainly have a robust infrastructure here, the state has good data centers. . Individual ministries, ministers and other people do not want to centralize digitization, but this is the only effective way – for example, the Ministry of Finance would have one data center package, the other package inside and they would back up each other. But no one wants that, each individual office wants its own center.Should data be more centralized?
Certainly, but we still have a long way to go before everything comes to an end and, most importantly, that digitization processes are set management. For example, we must praise the government for the electronic tax return. But then you often come across a counterpart where you fill in the same data several times, while the authorities could exchange them and use centralization more. The authorities do not want it, and the “defenders” of rights and freedoms oppose it, saying that everything in the digital space is dangerous and that governments will misuse the data.To some extent, technological progress allows for enormous control of citizens, for example, China…
We probably wouldn’t want to work like in China. But if I had my digital track with uniform data to apply for new driver’s license, citizen, passport, I wouldn’t have to go anywhere and they would come to AlzaBox by courier by the next day, I would be happy and not afraid. The data should be about me anyway, they’re just fragmented.When can we see such centralization? Does it also matter about technology?
This is a political decision, not a technical one. From a technological point of view, the state is more or less ready, the availability of solutions will not limit the horizon of when we will reach the ideal state. We have to wait for the political representation to accept that some of their competencies will be lost somewhere. It is important that there is a change in thinking in the state administrationThe partner of the article and the whole CzechCrunch is Altron . Within CzechCrunch Premium, we cooperate with selected partners with whom we prepare tailor-made content. You can find more here .
Note: This article have been indexed to our site. We do not claim legitimacy, ownership or copyright of any of the content above. To see the article at original source Click Here
HUIFU Wireless Earbuds Bluetooth Headphones, Ear Buds with Deep Bass, 40H Long Playtime, Power Display, IPX7…
$19.99 (as of March 11, 2025 19:45 GMT +00:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Personalized Musical Easter Egg Shaker 2025, Wooden Easter Eggs, First Easter Gifts For Baby, Easter Gift For Kids, Birthday Gift Idea
$5.99 (as of March 11, 2025 19:45 GMT +00:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Pet Steam Brush for Dog & Cat – 3-in-1 Spray Hair Removal Comb – Steam Brush for Shedding & Grooming –…
$24.99 (as of March 11, 2025 19:45 GMT +00:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
Fruit of the Loom Men's Undershirts, Moisture Wicking & Tag Free, Short Sleeve Crew T-Shirts
$18.48 (as of March 11, 2025 20:21 GMT +00:00 - More infoProduct prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.)
