Freelance en Europe : Accueil

Technische Konstruktionen Polloze

This case illustrates an example of what can be described as "new self employment". A formerly employed woman moved location for different reasons, therefore had to terminate her job and started a new carrier as a freelancer from her home-base on a farm in a very remote area without any other job opportunities. In the meantime she runs a rather successful own one-person company which occasionally also uses subcontractors for specific tasks and has developed a solid customer base.

1.Company name and function
Technische Konstruktionen Pollozek

Roswitha Pollozek is running her own design office from her home where she produces CAD designs for a number of well-known industrial enterprises. Customers include, amongst others, Dynamit Nobel (supplier to the car industry), Krauss (specialist mechanical engineering), MAN (machine tools), Siemens (electric motors), Sielaff (slotmachine), Wohlhaupter (specialist tools) and Komet (specialist tools). These customers are located 6 - 200 km away from her office and most of them can be called regular customers. In the meantime, constructions designed by Mrs. Pollozek are used world wide, e.g., in the car manufacturing industry by Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes, Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, Honda, Rover and other automobile-companies.

2.Short description of the initiative
Roswitha Pollozek is the founder and owner of the company. She was employed as a designer by the Carl Zeiss group starting 1979. Afterwards she worked as a freelance designer for several customers. In this context she has thoroughly familiarised herself with computer aided design technologies. After her marriage to a farmer living near Ansbach she initially helped with the farming before deciding to work as a designer again. The development of a business idea which allowed her to continue with the previously performed highly qualified work while utilising existing contacts was therefore self evident.

Because of her many years experience as both a self-employed and employed designer Mrs Pollozek was, from the beginning, aware of the importance of computer aided design methods for home-based order completion. On her own initiative she therefore began to qualify herself in this field by attending a training course on a PC-based CAD system (AUTOCAD) which she financed herself. By renewing existing contacts and relying on her experience she started by completing design orders for a number of customers by using the traditional drawing board as well as the PC. Remote data transfer was not involved at this point in time.

In 1992, a support programme of the Bavarian Ministry of Agriculture, which was aimed primarily at supplying Bavarian farmers with an additional source of income through telework, offered Mrs Pollozek the opportunity to substantially enlarge her existing range of services. Within the framework of a pilot project she took part in a training course on a workstation based CAD system (CATIA). In the course of this project she invested in her own CATIA equipment and facilities to allow for data transfer via ISDN. In the meantime experience led to the pursuit of a business strategy which aims at providing a comprehensive service from initial conception to finished product. She utilises the most up-to-date computer technologies and is able to access her clients' data online.

The main share of order acquisitions comes from existing clients' recommendations. Through the constant growth of both her expertise and the technological foundation for her work Mrs Pollozek has, in the meantime, distinguished herself as an expert in specific and high quality design tasks with a number of her clients coming back again and again. Against this background it can be seen that the quality of the work produced as well as the smooth co-operation during order processing are of great importance. Mrs Pollozek sees a high quality and professionally delivered range of services as an important factor of success. For most businesses it is not primarily cost advantages but rather the proven expertise offered by the design office which leads to the placing of orders. In the meantime the farm house was extended now offering 120 square metres office space instead of the formerly 18 square metres. The average annual turnover went up from 100,000 DM (approx. 50,000 Euro) five years ago to 200,000 DM today.

3.Innovative aspects, benefits and barriers
This example illustrates the way of a qualified but – due to a move - unemployed CAD designer, who started her own business from a home base in a rural region serving customers in other regions of Germany and gradually developing her business to a point where she will now start to employ another CAD expert.

To Roswitha Pollozek teleworking as self employed was the only chance to continue to work and earn an income. In the meantime she has managed to establish herself as a successful business employing two other individuals part-time as freelancers and in the near future one full-time staff member thereby generating employment and job opportunities.

Still many businesses, (i.e. potential customers) do not have the technological and organisational requirements necessary to fully utilise the potential of telework as offered by Mrs Pollozek such as direct data transfer via telecommunication networks. This is seen as a constraining factor although there have been recognisable improvement in this area in the past years.

Another barrier is seen in the very high investment costs for CAD hardware and software which she had to bear to be able to start the business. Finally, she mentions the lack of qualified CAD/CAM people in the market as a further constraint for business development and expansion.

4.Contact Information
Name of lead organisation: Technische Konstruktionen
Contact name: Roswitha Pollozek
Address (street, zip code, City, country): Häuslingen 8, 91632 Wieseth, Germany
Telephone: +49-9825-5315
Fax: +49-9825-4789
Email: pollozek.tk@t-online.de

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