Cleaning boss no fly-by-night success story
Krzysztof Dziewulski would probably categorize himself as an achiever. For almost 30 years he's pushed himself to accomplish his goals, whether as a jobber in New Jersey, a company boss in Manhattan or as a runner in the Sydney marathon. Dziewulski's philosophy has always been: he who dares wins.
Dziewulski is the head of a burgeoning business empire that deals with commercial cleaning and interior design. From its base in Warsaw, DC System has business tentacles stretching throughout Poland, wherever there are real estate projects that need his one-stop shop services. But life hasn't always been at the top flight for Dziewulski.
"I lived in Warsaw and emigrated to the United States in 1972 when I was 20," he said. "I never expected to come back." As with all emigres, life was tough, but he eventually found work with an industrial cleaning company called Allied Ogden where he became the night operations manager by the early 1980s. He loved the work.
"That was my greatest year, I loved every minute of it," he said. "When you work with a large company everything fits in. You fit in. It was a great team to work with and my superiors taught me everything about the business.
"For a time, I was responsible for three quarters of the high-rise office buildings in the Wall Street area of New York."
With his experience at Ogden's behind him, Dziewulski set up his own company in 1985 Continental Group Services. Initially it focused on residential cleaning. "We were the biggest company in the northern part of New Jersey," he said. With this success, he started a construction division working on anything from small building jobs to sandblasting bridges.
A few years later when Dziewulski was beginning to sniff around for a new challenge, he got wind of the political changes happening in Poland. "In the late 1980s I read about Solidarity ... and by 1991 I started doing business here on a part-time basis," he said.
Soon Dziewulski shifted his business interests from the United States to Poland. He knew it would be tough, but he sold his company and using his own capital headed for Warsaw.
"I started by selling equipment and providing training," he said. "I worked with the Labor Ministry and organized courses for the unemployed. The training was mainly for small companies of two to three people who were doing small cleaning tasks such as carpet shampooing and window washing."
It was through this training program that Dziewulski saw an opportunity and set up DC System in 1995.
Since then, his company has gone from strength to strength. DC System is now present in most A-class office blocks in Warsaw, the most recent being in the Focus Filtrowa building Deutsche Bank's new home.
Dziewulski admitted that commercial cleaning is not everyone's ideal way to make a living but that every building needs a cleaner. "In the old days, they had the wrong crews to maintain buildings," he said. "Every building had a cleaning woman employed full time. The new trend is to bring in an outside contractor.
"Our policy is based on quality. Cleaning is not a popular division, but it's one of the main functions of every building.
"Cleaning makes such a huge impression on the client and the investor. It's so important for potential clients to come into the lobby and see that everything is nice and shiny."
Dziewulski said cleaning is also far more complex than most clients imagine. "Each building is different, with different services and different needs," he said. "With each building you have to estimate the degree of difficulty and that affects prices."
The company now has 400 employees and is operating in 25 major locations around Warsaw. Along with the cleaning division, the company has also started a repair and interior design arm that works with outside architects.
"We want to be a company that fulfills every function in the building," Dziewulski said. "We're now doing a number of these jobs. We work for Smyk, for instance, taking out dry wall, painting, etc."
His latest plans are to market DC System in the capital's suburban areas. The company has already won a contract at Janki, a French-run shopping mall outside Warsaw.
And marketing has been a key to DC System's success. "With our marketing plans, we hope to maintain our existing clients and win over new ones," he said. "Our first goal is to maintain the highest-quality service possible, and we want to be one step ahead in showing clients what they need."
Overall, Dziewulski, who sees Poland as one of the most dynamic business locations in Europe, has no plans to go back to the United States saying it's a closed chapter in his life.
"Right now I don't think about my American past," he said. "I understand the people here and we're doing great business together."
But he does want to impart some of his American experience to Poland and this includes values such as dependability and quality. "People treasure those," he said. "We don't want to be a fly-by-night operation. We want to be one step ahead."
