A good plan and good communication are key to transforming the company – said Bogusław Oleksy, acting president of Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa, on Wednesday at the European Economic Congress in Katowice. He particularly emphasized the importance of building crew awareness in this regard.
During the ECE panel devoted to business transformation, Oleksy was asked about the vision of the future of JSW and its surroundings. As he replied, transformation is either an opportunity or a necessity, while JSW puts more emphasis on necessity than on opportunity.
He explained that this was due to, among other things, from market relations and the situation in Europe, where when it comes to raw material supplies, although coking coal is on the list of critical raw materials, there is no preference and this coal is mainly purchased from outside, including from the United States. This means that, given the technology that JSW has at its disposal, it is very difficult for it to cope with competitiveness issues.
– We are also dealing with an industry that is extremely complicated when it comes to employee structure. I'm talking about a certain demandingness here and what lies ahead is a matter of building a new awareness. We need to build a new awareness of our employees, and this can only happen through good planning of transformation, regardless of whether it is a search for market opportunities, coping with competitiveness, or a bit of a fight for life – Oleksy illustrated.
He emphasized that without this, JSW would not survive, hence a number of elements related to change planning and its communication, which he considered the golden key to the success of the transformation. He specified that this communication must be conducted both internally and externally so that, apart from employees, the company's stakeholders also know what the company's idea for this process is, in what direction and at what pace it intends to conduct it.
The head of JSW stressed that the entire process must serve to improve profitability and efficiency. He declared that the current activities at JSW are an attempt to meet this challenge. Part of this is to define costs so that they can be competed with in the global market. JSW's customers are mainly foreign entities.
He considered flexibility as another important factor, needed, among others, in the face of uncertainty, complexity and variability of the environment. As he admitted, companies, financial institutions and people cannot cope with it today. – They don't understand that it was good and it is bad. Hence, proper communication and motivation are extremely important in these processes. Is this enough? Probably not, but it is one of the main elements, said Oleksy.
In his opinion, the transformation cannot be delayed, especially since mining has so far been subject to cyclical market conditions.
– Here, in the example of my company, when we had accumulated funds of several billion, which were supposed to be a factor in the company's resistance to the market situation, it turned out that these funds were eaten up in a short time. Why? Because the transformation was not launched at the right time, Oleksy pointed out.
The labor crisis, called the PESEL problem in the mining industry, also attracted attention. As he explained, it is not so much about replaceability, but about quality, which depends on experience, and experience is time. – So this human aspect is extremely important to involve people in transformation or restructuring. All this must be people who trust each other, know that they can rely on each other, have an idea, have a plan, know how to scale it and finally how to convey it in an effective way to get what is expected – said Oleksy.
JSW Group at, among others, unfavorable market conditions, as well as guaranteed employment and remuneration conditions for the staff, had a net loss of PLN 7.3 billion in 2024, and after three quarters of 2025, a cumulative loss of PLN 2.9 billion. The company announces the publication of the annual report for 2025 on April 28 this year (PAP)
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