Enehano is going to Hawaii and changing its identity. Will anything remain as it was?

September 5, 2022
August 30, 2022
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Jiří Mach, CEO
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4
Minutes

He started from scratch and ran his business out of his living room. He had IT experience and fell in love with Salesforce, a platform that digitizes business, marketing and customer service processes.

He now employs 80 people and Enehano generated a turnover of over 100 million CZK after the first five years. Among the clients who have put their trust in Enehano are Česká spořitelna, the ČSOB group, T-Mobile, DPD, Zonky, Carvago and Productboard.

Jirka Mach has been fulfilling his dream for seven years now and he keeps the promises he made when he founded the company.

STARTUP TURNED INTO PARTNER

Jirka, Enehano celebrated its 6th birthday this summer. Have you had time to stop and summarize what has and hasn't worked for Enehano in its lifetime?

I had time to stop and reflect on the running of the whole company last June when Enehano was preparing to celebrate its 5th birthday. It was that period of taking stock, we were evaluating the achievement of the goals from the first five years and thinking about the direction we wanted to take next.  

When I founded Enehano, I had an ambitious plan – to build a company from scratch that in five years would become the number one Salesforce delivery company in the Czech Republic, with over 50 consultants and a turnover of over 50 million CZK. Back then I said that if we successfully reach all these goals, we will go on a teambuilding to Hawaii.

The result? The team had over 70 people, the turnover surpassed the magical 100 mil. CZK and we really became the number one Salesforce partner in the Czech Republic. We were overjoyed to meet our goals.

We'll get to Hawaii in a second. Can you describe how Enehano has changed in the first five years?

Enehano is a growth-oriented company that I founded in 2016. We have grown from a "one-man show" to a team of eighty, and from a punk startup to a trusted partner for transforming some of the country's largest companies, including its biggest banks. This already brings with it a great deal of trust from our clients, which not only pleases us, but most importantly, inspires a strong sense of responsibility.

We have gradually built up a management team. Co-founder and CSO Michal Peška oversees our efforts at home and abroad. The largest department, delivery, is led by Milan Bodlák, who has been with Enehano since the very beginning. We have made great progress in our financial management, which has allowed us to move away from a feelings-based management. Today, we are a stable business that manages cash flow, accounts payable and makes decisions based on reports, thanks to CFO Katka Alenková. What I like most about it is the fact that we run the company in Salesforce.

VISION FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS. A TRIP TO THE MOON?

You mentioned challenges for the next five years. Are you as ambitious in your plans for 2021-2026? And what will be the reward?
Following our growth strategy, we want to become the number one Salesforce company in the CEE region with a turnover of more than 500 million CZK and 250 consultants within the next five years.  

When we were creating our vision for the next five years, we naturally also thought about what the next team building will be like. We could go to the Philippines or buy an island. However, we have moved forward and those ideas are no longer aligned with Enehano values.

We realize that we are fortunate to work in one of the most profitable industries that is growing intensely. We have a long-standing commitment to supporting education, which is a big topic for me personally, but we are also helping to change our environment for the better. That's why we came up with the idea of giving 1% of our turnover to CSR every year. We see this as a big commitment, because Enehano made a turnover of more than 100 million CZK last year. This meant over 1 million CZK was donated to CSR activities.

That got us thinking about what to do in five years. It won't be a monstrous teambuilding, but if we meet the metrics, we want to donate 10% of the turnover, which means more than 50 million CZK, to CSR.

We would like to inspire others, especially from the IT sector.  We believe that companies have the power to help and change the world around them and we think that if just half of IT businesses joined this vision, it could have a major positive impact.

COMPANY VALUES – MODERN NECESSITY OR REAL PILLARS?

Let's discuss company values. Has the mindset of the team members changed over the years, have the values had to be reformulated?

Enehano is changing on the fly, a whole range of processes are being created. However, the values we live by are still the same. Last year, we decided to carry out a company-wide survey where we asked how Enehano is perceived by the Enehano people themselves. The results were surprising. All 80 people agreed on 4 values. One of them is "I grow" – symbolizing the personal growth of each team member and Enehano as a whole. The second value, "I care", I mentioned earlier – we care about each other. We invest time and money in programs such as Talent Coaching and therapy.io. We have a great People Hub that takes care of the whole team. We recognize that growing a company brings with it a downside, so taking care of the team is even more important in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. Another level is taking care of the world around us thanks to the CSR activities already mentioned.  "I share" is about total openness and transparency. In a team of 10 people, information is communicated easier than in a team of 80. Our know-how, successes and failures are shared with the whole company thanks to the platforms we created, such as business lunches, Q&As, tech coffees or delivery offsite. We also share our experiences externally – at our Digital Transformation Summit conference and by attending external events, including speaking at universities. And because we want all of us to enjoy our work and to form a compact team, we devote considerable space to the value of "I have fun". We enjoy spending time together outside of work – on the bike, rafting, over a beer or in a wine cellar.

TEAMBUILDING IN HAWAII – AN ECCENTRIC BENEFIT?

Teambuilding in Hawaii. This is probably interesting for everyone. Some people might see behind it a ton of money that such a trip will cost, others see fulfilment of commitments and promises. Now that the team is almost packing its bags, I wonder if you regret it and would set such a reward again.

There were fifteen Salesforce partners in the Czech Republic in 2016. That's why the goal of becoming the biggest partner and then going to Hawaii was very ambitious and for me at that time quite unimaginable.

But the name Enehano is a combination of the Hawaiian words technology and business, so the idea had a symbolic meaning. Although I still consider it a bit crazy, we lived the idea for five years and each year we got closer to making it happen, one step at a time. Interestingly, in the management training we attended last year, I did not earn any praise for this commitment. On the contrary, I learned that motivating the team with such a big benefit was not the ideal way to go. But for us, this is a commitment that we have been communicating for five years and we saw no other option but to make it happen. We just had to postpone it because of the pandemic.

And if I went back six years, would I do it again?

I would. I like challenges and overcoming them.

WHY IS ENEHANO CHANGING ITS IDENTITY?

It is logical that Enehano has a new image. Can you elaborate on why you decided to rebrand? What does the new logo symbolize?

The motivation for the rebranding was to conclude the five-year period we had associated with Hawaii. The original logo featured a Hawaiian wave.  

In the new logo, we wanted to reflect our values and the fact that we are no longer a startup, but a trusted and stable partner for our clients.  

The projects we work on affect a lot of people, departments and systems, so it’s extremely important to have a strong, reliable partner who has a lot of experience to guide the customer through the entire transformation.

Dark blue represents knowledge, wisdom, authority and reliability. Green symbolizes the growth of our clients and ourselves. Growth is also symbolized by the upward arrow. The bold font indicates our stability and credibility.

Anyone who knows you knows that Enehano is very close to your heart. We have discussed the changes and the challenges ahead. But is there something you definitely don't want to change, what do you wish to keep as it is?

Definitely. It's the company values. I see them as an anchor in the choppy waters of business. The vision gives us the direction we're going in, it makes us grow and change. Values are the stable cornerstones of Enehano, they allow us to maintain our current flexibility while keeping our sanity and a great team of people.  

Thank you for the interview.

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