Expertise and Continuous Progress. Interview with Przemysław Janiszewski, Member of the Management Board, Director of Power and Industrial Construction, Unibep SA

You have been developing the power and industrial construction segment at Unibep SA for the past two years. What is your initial assessment of the results of your work?

Przemysław Janiszewski: These two years have passed very quickly, because of the hectic pace of the work I used to do by myself at first, and afterwards – with my team. It may be that the time when I started my work at Unibep and worked within its organisational structure virtually alone was probably the most difficult in my career. I worked with people who were still not part of our firm, but we prepared the first sales proposal for a new segment. They are professionals, who trusted both Unibep and me, so that together we can create a great project with the potential to be developed over the coming years. Coordinating the work of the dispersed team that we were, back then was a real challenge. But we did that and when our first bid was accepted we went on to build the structure to operate within our organisation.

Another major task was to talk to the company owners, and the management, to convince them that investing in the power and industrial sector was the right thing to do. We managed to do this too, and we are now working to prove that it was a good decision.

At the same time, we had to deftly handle team building and competition in the market. To sum up, these past two years have involved a lot of work, a lot of stress, a host of talks, but on the whole, my assessment of how the new construction segment has been implemented at Unibep SA must be favourable.

Not to mention the economic hardship that hit at this time, caused by the Covid epidemic and the war in Ukraine. How did they impact the development of the power and industrial segment?

When I first met Unibep SA executives, I talked about co-generation projects and incineration plants, my intention was to avoid renewable projects that would use PV, energy storage, and so on. And suddenly, what is the market today? Over the two years, the market has had only one co-generation project, which we actually bid for, but the competition won it by a whisker. The market changed dramatically and we had to adapt to this. As a result, we were able to win four biomass projects that we had not considered before. We have entered the renewable market, as we are running PV projects, with one energy storage project already completed. We are obviously proud of the project we recently signed with Anwil, because it shows that we have the capacity and expertise to build a new boiler house for a major client.

What do you think is the market outlook today?

The energy sector in Poland is set to undergo a huge transformation. Combined heat and power projects are back on track, we have received enquiries for waste incineration plants, which shows the market is recovering after the slowdown in new projects. Importantly, in addition to institutional clients, private clients have also started to invest serious money in the energy sector. But it must take time.

The industrial segment, on the other hand, experiences stagnation, as no new projects are emerging, with many others being postponed. What’s more, we have noticed that competitive struggles in this segment are on the rise, which dramatically drags down the profitability of delivering a project.

What is the number of employees at Unibep SA Power and Industrial Construction segment today?

Over these two years, we have built a large and competent team of what is now about 200 employees. We have a good engineering team and the increasing number of contracts in the power generation segment allows moderate optimism on our part – our contract portfolio should be growing. Importantly, our business brand perception in the power and industrial construction segment is solid, which brings major business partners to us, and we have an increasing number of competent specialists in the organisation. It is not a coincidence that we work with the Orlen Group, Viessmann, Mondi and the like. That is to say, our concept for their projects, our expertise and our commitment worked for them. This bodes well for our future.

Przemysław Janiszewski – has over 20 years of experience in management positions domestically and abroad. At Unibep SA, he is responsible for the development of the energy and industrial construction segment, as well as the broadly defined green building segment.

Last Updated on November 16, 2023 by Anastazja Lach