Success written in the stars
Their business strategy based on fairness, persistence, honesty and loyalty has created one of the most successful Slovenian companies in the field of IT retail, realizing the vision of its founder Martin Zelinka when he established the company at the age of 41. “In socialism, you could only work for salary. Even if you worked more than you had to, your payment was the same. When it became possible to open your own company, even before Slovenia became independent, I immediately took the chance. I believed that if you started out on your own with the intention of working all day doing what you knew, then you had to succeed. But if you open a company simply because you lose your job, because you don’t know your business, you will fail sooner or later,” explains Martin.
When founding the company 30 years ago, Martin read a horoscope by chance that said that the company he founded should keep growing for eight years. “I was afraid of what would happen in year nine, but look, we are still growing,” he laughs. In 2020, they increased net sales revenue by €2 million, bringing them to almost €13 million and the Slovenian market supplies 90% of their revenue. They also increased their profit by half a million, to €1.2 million. Despite this growth, they remain firmly grounded. “You must not be greedy and overly ambitious; your growth has to be smart,” says Martin.
Unbroken entrepreneurial line
ZELINKA & sinovi, founded by Martin as soon as legally possible, successfully passed to the next generation in 2012. “Many entrepreneurs, but also farmers, have a problem because their sons don’t want to take over the family business. My strategy was to not force them. I encouraged them to focus on school. If they passed all their classes, they could work with computers during the summer,” says Martin. When he retired, both sons took over the company. Today, Luka manages Zelinka & sinovi, and the younger son Jurij manages the company Zelinka LS (Library Systems) that emerged from the mother company. Zelinka LS mainly focuses on planning and selling library IT systems, magnetic media carriers and touch screens. The companies enjoy fraternal collaboration and continue to help each other.
Avoiding risks
Luka says he felt an immense responsibility when he took over the company: “Before I could go to my father with a problem and we solved it together. Now I’m the one people come to.” He adopted his father’s philosophy of never entering risky business agreements and inherited his sense offairness. “We always did what we agreed to, even if it did not bring us any profit in the end. I firmly believe that one must stick to what was agreed, even if something else might bring more benefits. A promise you give is more important than a written contract.”
The company currently employs 20 people, with some additional staff through contracts and student work. However, they are convinced, says Martin, that the knowledge students gain at Slovenian universities is only partially useful. “Education is not everything; when they start working, they start learning in practice. Sometimes education is not as important as openness to new knowledge, flexibility, readiness to help and ability to collaborate with others. You have to be very flexible to work in our field and our company; sometimes even a business graduate must fix a lightbulb,” explains Martin.
Leo Zelinka, the founder’s grandson, has been working for the company for three years and began as a student. First, he worked in the warehouse, next in repair and maintenance and then in accounting. He learned accounting from his mother Mateja, who took over finance after her mother-in-law, Martin’s wife Nada retired. “I believe you have to know all the processes if you want good development. You cannot tell others what to do, if you don’t know what it’s about,” says Leo, who now works in sales.
If you set out on your own to work all day doing what you know, you must succeed.
“I’m very happy I had the opportunity to start working early and to learn serious things, not everybody has that,” explains Leo modestly. “Today, things are set up differently. Especially now, in the era of cryptocurrency, many of my peers want to get rich quickly, or are funded by their parents. I don’t agree with such things. I’m convinced that you can make money if you work, and if you don’t work, any ‘gifted’ money will quickly disappear.”
The future is in services, not products
Their plans for this year fit their business model; they want to increase sales and establish a risk-awareness culture. Because the market is so dynamic and unpredictable, they want to control negative factors that could influence their performance. They believe that setting up a culture of risk awareness will give the company more control, allowing them to make decisions more quickly and helping them to recognize market conditions.
Luka explains that they shifted from gaining a large percentage of their revenue from selling paper and consumables, as a classical office supply store, to offering more services. “We moved almost completely away from that. We sell printing as a service and when it comes to IT solutions, we not only sell them but also implement them.”
Only if you have goods in the warehouse can you meet customer demand
Today, technology moves with incredible speed, and the field they operate in is changing daily. Even though their IT business is still growing, Luka believes they must adapt effectively, keep their eyes open and be ready to grab any opportunity. This way they can respond quickly and start selling new products or services. Many companies are moving their operations to the cloud, and cloud services compete with hardware sellers, but Luka remains optimistic: “Not everything can be moved to the cloud. Our business is drastically changing, that’s true. But not all predictions come true. I’m sure we won’t run out of work.”
Currently, their greatest challenge is a lack of supply. “One of our main suppliers had three times as many orders as planned in the first quarter of 2021. They could not supply as much as two thirds of our orders. This is our largest problem right now,” says Luka, describing the situation. As an example, he adds that they could only now supply computers to an organization that placed an order last October. “We lost some contractsbecause of this. We try to avoid such situations by increasing our stocks. We are ordering today what we plan to sell six months ahead. Today you can meet customer demand and sell things only if you already have things in stock.” This year’s growth will be limited because of this situation, adds Luka. He also believes this period will be followed by a crisis, as the situation is too much like a balloon that must burst at some point.
Summary
ZELINKA & sinovi in a nutshell: fairness, persistence, flexibility, loyalty, entrepreneurial spirit.
