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Family businesses are here to stay
The advantage of a two-family business is that you have two available bedrooms, which you can transfer into offices, and from which you can conclude a contract with a global US supplier. This is exactly what Miran Senčar and Albert Bene did when they concluded their first major contract in the 1990s. Today, Tenzor is a socially responsible company providing technical security services. Through its subsidiaries, the company is present in the markets of the former Yugoslavia, and by contributing to regional development, it takes care of entrepreneurial talents and the local environment.
Downlad Family Business Slovenia 2015
The first office was in the bedroom
The beginnings of Tenzor date back to 1989 when Miran, the present co-owner and then teacher at a secondary school of electrical sciences, established the company jointly with two of his colleagues. To get a real picture of the start, we need to go back to 1993 when after four years of the company being dormant, two of the founders and partners left the company and, after a split of the company's ownership, Miran was joined by Albert. “We met in the animal foodplant, where after leaving my teaching job at a senior school I worked as head of electrical maintenance. I provided entrepreneurial spirit, while Albert took care of practical solutions. We needed each other: I ran the company, development and HR, while he was in charge of the technical side and implementation,” remembers Miran of their first steps, when together with Albert they provided alarm system installation services for cars and housing developments.
Disappointed with the scope and growth of the business, they were looking for added value to their services that would give the company an advantage over their competitors. In 1995, they made their first contact with Sensormatic, a US company, at a small trade fair in Budapest. “Soon, one of their representatives called to say that he was coming for a visit. We were slightly embarrassed, as at the time we had no real offices, and we quickly transformed Miran's bedroom into an office using furniture that we had borrowed,” remembers Albert. An American supplier of theft-prevention equipment chose them as a representative office and in the next 15 years they focused completely on technical security and protection of merchandise. Only four years after that fateful visit, they invested in new business premises, a warehouse and a servicing workshop, as a result of increased scope of work and a large number of employees. They also established subsidiaries in Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia and Albania.
From motorway tunnels to a non-family professional manager
Today the Tenzor Group provides comprehensive technical solutions for retail and shopping centres, industry, traffic infrastructure, libraries as well as hotel and swimming complexes. They offer products that are fruits of their own development in countries where they have subsidiaries, as well as directly or indirectly through an established partnership network in Switzerland, Austria, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Belgium and Bulgaria. Their success is the result of appropriate segregation of duties of both owners and excellent integration of the company's new director. “Neither of us have ever interfered with the work of the other: I did not get involved in technical areas and he left the company management to me. We have never had any major differences of opinion and neither of us ever overrode the decision of the other. We have respected each other's decisions although there were times when one or the other would do things differently. We have successfully cooperated over the past 23 years and intend to do so in the future,” is Miran’s confident assessment.
After intensive construction of trade centres in Slovenia, their main market, they redirected their attention to their own development and design department and the acquisition of major transactions at public tenders. In 2007, they successfully bid for the reconstruction of motorway tunnels. Due to their lack of experience with such large-scale projects, Miran and Albert decided to reorganize the company's structure. They withdrew to positions of consultants in their own fields and appointed Bojan Petek, a non-family professionalmanager, as the company's director. “Despite the fact that the past eight years have been marked by economic crisis, the business has performed successfully, which shows that we have found a suitable company management model and achieved the necessary operational level that ensures good performance,” explains Bojan, the company director. “It was important to appoint an outsourced director, as my father was emotionally too closely tied to the company. He had a fatherly approach to all employees; however, you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise things may get out of hand,” believes Miran's son Miha. Last year, the company employed 48 staff in Slovenia alone and generated €4.9 million of revenue compared to a total of €6.7 million generated by the entire Tenzor Group, which employs 30 staff in its subsidiaries. In 2014, profits amounted to €404,000.
Unwavering family support
However, things were not always perfect. “In the first two years, the survival of our families depended mainly on the income earned by our wives. Despite the fact that we seldom saw our families, as we left early in the morning when everyone was asleep and came back when everyone was already in their beds, our families have been a constant and unwavering support to us,” explains Albert. Today, the second generations of both families are involved in the company. Miran's son Miha joined the company seven years ago when he was gradually introduced to the entire working process until finally taking over as director of sales in 2012. Last year he was joined by Miran's daughter Taja and Albert's daughter Jana, both as heads of sales. “Being aware that my father's slow retreat from active participation in the company could mean the loss of contact with something that is in fact an important part of my childhood, brought me to the point where from being a passive observer I decided to become an active member of the working team,” explains Jana. Miran has unwittingly been preparing his son for integration into the company since secondary school, instilling in him the first sense of responsibility with a birthday gift of a 23% stake of the company. “It was then that I decided what I wanted and where I wanted to end up. Undoubtedly my father has influenced me with his entrepreneurial spirit, as I myself am much less enterprising. While we may have a different perspective on things, we never fall out,” eagerly points out Miha.
“Being aware that my father’s slow retreat from active
participation in the company could mean the loss of contact with
something that is in fact an important part of my childhood,
brought me to the point where from being a passive observer I
decided to become an active member of the working team,”
explains Jana.
Sponsorships worth half a million
“In Slovenia, family businesses are the ones that will prosper. A family is a close unit, and although there may be differences of opinion, quarrels are never a solution,” points out Miran. When families are directly dependent on the performance of the family business, this increases the likelihood of better wages for workers and increased investment in their careers and personal development. The company's performance is always based on the quest for responsible, honest, frank and cooperative relationships with customers, suppliers, and particularly, employees and the environment.
In the first 15 years, more than half a million euros was donated to charities and sponsorships of artists and athletes: “If the environment contributes to your success, then it is only right that you give something back. If companies fail to take their social responsibility seriously, culture and sport will decline ever further,” thinks Miran. Perhaps it is because of the environment that the company has developed into an integrator of technical systems that is able to implement the entire electrical project from start to finish, based on their knowledge and without the need for any subcontractors. “It is important to employ flexible employees and good engineers who put the system together. Our employees' salaries are 20% higher than those of other employees in our industry; however, they also contribute more,” Miha is quick to point out.
The future belongs to the second generation
Whilst during the crisis their turnover was in decline, they invested in development so that today they have to focus on growth. Their goal for the next four years is to achieve the level of comprehensive services that they are currently delivering in the Slovenian market in foreign markets, and surpass €1 million profit through increased sales of their own development products as well as provision of services in the specialized field of intelligent systems used in traffic infrastucture. “Currently, I am the only active owner and I know exactly what I am aiming for. Each week when I check the results I know exactly where we stand and what this means for the bottom line at the year-end,” says Miha. “If we consider thatMiran, 10 years my junior, found a new challenge in the realm of politics and was in 2014 elected the mayor of the municipality of Ptuj, and I have another three years before I can retire, I believe that we have in fact handed over the reins to the next generation successfully and without any major hiccups for either the company or the employees,” concludes Albert.
Albert Bene, Miran and Miha Senčar, owners
Company name: Tenzor Group
Number of employees (2014): 78
Net sales revenue (2014): €6.7 million
Interviewees:
Albert Bene and Miran Senčar, Founders and cp-owners
Miha Senčar, Commercial Manager and co-owner
Jana Bene, Hospitality Leader
Taja Bezjak, RFID Department Leader
Summary
Tenzor in five words: “Flexible integrator of intelligent solutions and electrical installation.”