Why We Like to Work for Slovak Companies (and What is Frustrating About Many Czech Companies)

When does being careful, or “conservative”, become simply being “afraid”? Our recent experience with a new Slovak client shows a sharp difference between how Slovak and Czech companies operate. In our experience Slovak companies are more courageous and open to new ideas than Czech companies, who seem to function mostly on fear of loss.

A Recent Example:

A few weeks ago we met with the Slovak company Palma, which produces and sells cooking oils. And, frankly, their courage and foresight stand in contrast to the fear that seems to underlie decision making in Czech companies.

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Packaging design and branding are changing rapidly. New trends come and go, and are often counter-intuitive––what appears to make sense to pre-digital thinking, often does not in the digital arena. We are no longer in an age where waiting for a new process or trend to prove itself is wise.

Once a trend is proven, the window of opportunity to benefit from it is usually past. Copying is no longer a viable business model. Courage in the face of risk is necessary to survive.

Palma had us over to Bratislava because they wanted a design company that is creative, forward thinking and innovative, and not only aware of the new trends and possibilities – such as Customer Centricity, Sustainability, Brand Story-Telling, and style trends like the UnDigital – but actively working on incorporating them into their products and packaging.

Things Palma understand that we don’t see very often in Czech companies:

They believe in their project, and know that that it needs to be revolutionary, and have a strong brand story.
They understand that much of the way consumer testing has been done is backwards and is not customer centric.
They do not underestimate their customers, or look down on their ability to accept new things.
They put good teams together, that have young people on them.
They have personal approach that involves everyone, even the managing director goes to presentations.
They understand that to survive in the 21st Century a company and brand must remain agile, and be able to quickly accept and adapt to new ways of thinking.

Dear Czech Republic, we love you, so please get the spiders out of your brain!

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As evidence, we offer the following blog posts about these design and brand world leaders who presented at The Dieline Summit in Paris last year, and who have done and read a lot of research on these topics: