Jancura: no free ride in bus travel

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Jancura: no free ride in bus travel	2006-07-20 12:27:01
autor: Jaroslav Schejbal, 26. 06. 2006
Entrepreneur of the Year and Student Agency founder Radim Jan?ura claims to be apolitical, but when it comes to business, he?s locked horns with the liberal party he favors and joined forces with another ?monopoly-busting? minor party on principle. Jan?ura officially founded Student Agency in 1996, following a year of organizing au-pair programs abroad. But he?d actually started the business a few years back, with just a single employee, while still a student at the Electrical Engineering Faculty at the Technical University (VUT) in Brno, South Moravia. Years later, employing a hostess, showing onboard films and offering free drinks, the company was a cut above domestic bus lines. A week after Jan?ura began running a bus line to London, household name ?ebus went bankrupt and Czech National Express (?eský národní expres) soon followed suit. Student Agency now has a fleet of yellow buses serving over 25 domestic and international routes, and offers both work and study stays. The company operates lines connecting Prague with Ostrava, North Moravia, and Vienna, Austria (both via Brno, Student Agency?s base), Plze?, West Bohemia, and elsewhere. The most frequently used is the Prague?Brno line with its round the clock time schedule. There are several less frequent international lines as well; it also sells airline tickets and package vacations. From the outset Jan?ura, the sole owner of Student Agency, has focused on customer satisfaction; while on the one hand he implemented a bonus program meant to motivate employees to fight for every customer, on the other hand he employs paid ?spies? to report back on their performance. Jan?ura credits his somewhat unorthodox approach with the rise of the company; in 1998 Student Agency received the International Au Pair Association (IAPA) award as the world?s largest au pair agency. By 2004, the company had 368 employees and a turnover of K? 1.55 billion (? 56 million). That performance helped earn Jan?ura the title in 2005 of Czech Republic Entrepreneur of the Year, in an award program run since 2000 by consultancy Ernst & Young. Jan?ura says he isn?t interested in politics and hasn?t voted in over a decade. Although he leans toward the liberal policies of the center-right Civic Democrats (ODS), a run-in with an ODS mayor and regional officials over a monopoly on a bus route soured him on that party. Even though Jan?ura steers clear of politics, he recently joined a lobbying initiative of the European Democrats (SNK-ED) on principle: politicians shouldn?t get a free ride at the expense of entrepreneurs. Q: Your bright yellow buses are impossible to ignore, how did you settle on that shade of yellow? A: When we were ordering buses from our Spanish supplier I had this idea that they should be either yellow or red. Our Spanish partner, however, eventually persuaded us that yellow would be best, as in comparison to Spain it?s not actually very sunny here and therefore yellow buses would light up this gloomy country a little bit. In the end it turned out to be a brilliant move. Q: I?ve read that you actually spy on your employees. A: Yes, that?s true. It goes under the name ?mystery shopping.? We hire students who test our employees? behavior toward the customers. We have something of a rule here that implies that each of our employees should undergo this test three times a month. If there are repeated complaints in regard to an employee, then we will part with that person. Along with this, we?re also interested in our customers? assessments of our services. Every customer is entitled to receive my mobile telephone number. Q: You were named 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. In spite of your success, there must have been some missteps along the way. Could you recount your worst business decision? A: For the 2004 Olympics in Athens, [Greece] we decided to sell bus tours. The entire campaign resulted in a K? 3 million (? 105 million) loss. It led us to a clear conclusion: providing tourist holidays abroad isn?t our strong point. By the time we went into this field, the competition had become too intense. Q: Over the years, have you ever said to yourself, ?that?s it, I?m done with this?? A: Two years ago we launched our first yellow bus service between Prague and Brno [the regional capital of Moravia]. In the early days the buses traveled without a single soul. I?d like to thank those few ?chancers? who weren?t afraid to try out a bus trip [by a new company] for the same price but with a different dimension in regard to traveling. By that point I?d become really frightened. Q: What do you think about the new Labor Code and the obligation of the majority of employers to pay for the health care expenses of their employees during the first 14 days of their illness? A: Where health care is concerned, this doesn?t pose a serious problem for us. It even seems that we could gain financially from it. Our firm has quite low absenteeism rates. However, paradoxically, with this law the state is actually saying: ?We can?t cope, so you companies should institute some order here.' And then the entrepreneurs themselves have to somehow find a solution. They could, of course, should they want to ? and just to give an example ? simply sack an employee with a high absenteeism rate. Q: So isn?t this primarily going to be a problem for smaller firms? As you say, bigger companies will even be able to profit from this arrangement. A: I think that the smallest companies should be able to decide for themselves what system to apply and, moreover, I also think that smaller firms are far more capable of keeping their absenteeism in check than the bigger companies are. Q: And how do you look on the new Labor code? A: I have to admit that I don?t know the law in great detail. A colleague of mine is dealing with this matter. Generally speaking, however, I think this law is embedding an unbalanced relationship between the employer and the employee, which is bad. Q: What about the introduction of transaction-recording cash registers; what?s your opinion with regard to this measure? A: I think transaction-recording cash registers are a good thing, provided, of course, that it?s not possible to cheat with them. A true entrepreneur, however, should already at this moment have such registers in order to maintain control over his income. Q: What is your opinion on politics? A: I?m really not that interested in politics I have to say. My opinion with regard to politics is actually quite simple and corresponds with the average horse sense of the Czech citizen. It?s simply one big mess. I?m not afraid to say this because, contrary to other entrepreneurs of a larger size, I?m not dependent upon the state. I don?t receive a single crown from the state. Q: But you spend an enormous amount on taxes. A: That?s not actually entirely true. We are making about K? 5 million?8 million a year [in operating profit], which is money that I immediately invest back into the company. I?m the sole owner of the company so there aren?t any shareholders trying to suck as much money out of the company as possible. We?re really only making an [annual] profit to please the banks as we have taken some loans from them. And, actually, also to pay for the coffee we sell on our buses, because coffee isn?t a tax-deductible expense. Q: You claim to have no interest in politics but you have been involved in the election campaign... A: Member of European Parliament Josef Zieleniec and Senator Igor Petrov [SNK-ED] both lobbied against the privilege given to MPs and senators that allows them to travel free of charge on services, including our buses. On behalf of our company, a complaint was lodged against the state because of the unconstitutional nature of such benefits for politicians. The law suit is for a sum of K? 270 in damages, which actually amounts to two bus tickets from Brno to Prague?. We?re doing this out of principle. Clearly there has to be some sum of money attached to a law suit like this. I, of course, partially saw this action as an attempt to make the party of the European Democrats more visible before the [June 2?3 parliamentary] elections, but at the same time I have a feeling that, more than this, it?ll be our company which will gain more visibility than that party. Beyond that, Josef Zieleniec comes across as a decent man to me. I could be wrong, however, because, as I said, I?m really not that interested in politics. For us this campaign is nevertheless advantageous in all respects, as the European Democrats will take on the legal expenses connected to the lawyers who?re going to represent us in our dispute with the state. Q: But MPs don?t take the bus that often. A: Actually, really, they do. Even ministers do. Last year 6,300 people traveled on our buses paying zero crowns. Those traveling free of charge include persons accompanying people who hold badges showing they are severely disabled, politicians, and former freedom fighters and political prisoners. So it?s difficult to gauge what exact proportion of these people consists of MPs. However, as the latter two categories I gave will drop out of this privileged group, we will this year get a better overview. I?m quite curious to see how many MPs do travel with us, even though seen from the perspective of our entire company, such costs play a negligible role. Q: Are you generally more in favor of the welfare state model or would you prefer a liberal free-market economy? A: I would certainly choose a more liberal approach as represented in the Czech Republic by the ODS. I?m convinced that everyone should primarily take responsibility for themselves, but I also think, however, that having a social state is necessary to a degree. Q: So why not make the effort to go and vote for the ODS then? A: I don?t see any sense in voting within a system that isn?t a ?first past the post' system. Besides, I have had a rather unpleasant experience with the ODS. When we were struggling in Liberec [North Bohemia, the only region where there?s a monopoly on long-distance bus lines to Prague, held by the carrier ?SAD-Liberec] to get a license that would allow us to operate a Prague to Liberec bus service, with them not even allowing us to make use of the local bus station, I was really taken aback by opinions of the ODS mayor of Liberec, uttered in terms of ?we?re not interested in what the citizens have to say, we?ll make our own decisions according to our own feelings.' When I argued that he was paid from our taxes, he snapped at me saying he wasn?t. I objected to this, saying that I considered him to be a civil servant who is there for me. He, however, answered that he wasn?t a civil servant because he was voted into office and that he was therefore entitled to act as he pleased in the framework of his own conscience. In Liberec we were vociferously letting it be known in any conceivable way that the regional authority was depriving the citizens of their possibility to freely choose their transport services. We even paid for special spots on the radio to make our point. All of this was happening shortly before the regional council elections. But no one ever reacted in the slightest. If the municipal authorities had protested, claiming that we weren?t correct in what we were saying, and that the radio advertisement was damaging to them, I would have at least understood their reaction, but they went on acting as if nothing had happened. You know, people who?ve been in power for a longer period of time have a feeling that they can do whatever they want. Q: What are your business plans for the future? A: We treated ourselves [this May] by buying the D?m pán? z Lipé building in the center of Brno which also houses a shopping center. We paid K? 130 million for this historic building in order to have a dignified seat for our company, but we would also like to organize cultural events to be held on the premises. Other developments include the new routes we?re launching. In June we started traveling to Banská Bystrica in Slovakia and also to Italy. From the autumn we will, additionally, also go to Hradec Králové [Central Bohemia] and ?eské Bud?jovice [South Bohemia]. Further more, we would also like to acquire our own little train service as well as becoming involved in the hotel business. And we?ve recently decided to buy other buses than Spanish ones ? five Mercedes buses to be specific. This is an edited version of a story published by Profit weekly.

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