Seak CEO Heliodor Macko. (source: SME - Marko Erd)
The Prešov company Seak has been doing business in Ukraine since 2017. Its remote street lighting control system controls 55,000 lamps in Kyiv. They dim the lights, saving electricity, but also reduce the visibility of cities from the sky, protecting them from Russian drone and missile attacks.
Seak director Heliodor Macko praises relations with business partners. “They always paid within a week. In this regard, cooperation with the Ukrainians is better than with the Israelis or Spaniards, where we have invoices due for many months,” he says.
Macko notes that business in Ukraine has a great future, as long as politicians do not spoil it with stupid statements.
“The old lighting will have to be replaced with LED lights one day. When this is already done, it’s advantageous to have smart solutions for their control,” says Macko.
You did business in Ukraine even before the beginning of the Russian aggression. How did you get orders in Kyiv?
We were able to convince our local partner there that our technology works. We launched the pilot project in 2016, and a year later we received the first major deal.
Why did you choose Ukraine?
We had a trader who specialised in post-Soviet markets. We also had a partner in Russia. I didn’t really believe that we would do business in Ukraine. Instead I thought that we would break through in Russia. In the end, it turned out exactly the opposite.
What was it like there in terms of the business environment? Was it unclear or corrupt, as our politicians try to imply?
I dare not say which of these countries, Russia or Ukraine, is more corrupt. We have never encountered direct corruption. In the online public procurement tender, our distributor competed with strong rivals, for example Philips. We won because our technology worked and we had a better price-to-performance ratio.
In what volume did you export your technology to Ukraine?
Before the war, there were more than 600 modulators per year (these are communication components for electrical switchboards, ed.). Now in Kyiv we service 55,000 of the total number of 150,000 lamps.
