YPO chats with Igor Klaja, YPO member and country winner of the EY Entrepreneur Of the YearTM Award 2021, Poland.
Igor Klaja, CEO of OTCF, has always approached business like a professional sport — with focus, hard work, ambition, patience and adaptability. While the sporting goods industry contracted in 2020 for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis, the Polish entrepreneur successfully adapted the business he founded more than two decades ago to a shifting landscape, ready for further global expansion.
The beginning: Identifying an opportunity
“My story is quite simple, although unexpected,” says Klaja. “At 19, after my father died, I shifted my original plan to study law for economics and took a job as a salesperson in a sports shop since I had to cover my costs. I was always interested in sports, so it was natural.”
While studying and working part time, he met his first business partner, a producer of sports goods, and asked if they could do something together. Klaja recalls, “We started in wholesale in 1995, distributing accessories and simple sports clothing. By 1997, we created our own sports brand, Outhorn, selling to large supermarkets and big box retailers. At the time, these large multi-brand outlets were transforming the market and putting sports shops under pressure.”
In 2003, Klaja recognized another opportunity and market shift, this time toward single-brand retail. “I was always fascinated by sports, visiting ski shops in places like Italy and Austria. I decided to return to the concept of sports shops with my own brand to achieve scale, which had always been a problem with multi-brands shops,” he says. Since 2003, OTCF has expanded to the retail market with a single brand, 4F, while maintaining the wholesale channel with the everyday sportswear brand Outhorn.
Finding the right marketing platform
Despite the initial difficulties in creating awareness for the new Polish-made brand and shop, things got better every year. By 2016, after building a network of stores across Poland, OTCF launched the first mono-brand stores in Central and Eastern Europe. Today 4F products are available in around 500 stores worldwide.
Klaja attributes his big break to finding the right marketing platform. “I had good luck in 2007 when the Polish Ski Association adopted the brand. We then began to work with the Polish Olympic Committee as supplier for the Vancouver Olympics Games in 2010,” he says.
The timing for the first Olympic Collection for Poland could not have been better. “That year, Poland won six medals during the Olympic games. We used the hype in our favor,” Klaja says. By the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the company was producing customized Olympic collections for three national teams: Latvia, Poland and Serbia.
Influencer marketing in a multi-channel strategy
Since then, OTCF has focused on getting into professional sports while slowly opening new retail stores. They are the sponsors of eight Olympic Committees in the coming Tokyo Olympic Games 2020 and provide individually made collections to all eight teams. Klaja adds, “In the Olympic family, we have built a strong reputation and now support 3,000 athletes and representatives with customized collections based on their needs. We also work with professional football and volleyball players, associating ourselves with these champions and heroes to build awareness, credibility and engagement, while confirming the DNA of the company in sports.”
Last year was very difficult for the retail side of the business. But the company was able to outperform the market and is back to a path of growth, adding a new range of sporting goods industry products, including supplements. “All these channels and products share our passion to activities and sports. That is the biggest connection,” says Klaja.
While the collection for professional athletes provides customized high-technology apparel for elite performers, the mainstream brand focuses on quality and affordability, leveraging the rise of athleisure wear.
“Our mainstream brands are about fashion and trends while encouraging people to stay healthy. With people working from home, we offer nice design and good quality, making it one of the best choices for comfortable wear,” he says, adding that it is not only about e-commerce. “E-commerce continues to grow, but we follow a more omnichannel strategy, rather than distinguishing between online and off-line, in line with the preference and expectation of our clients.”
Above all, a team effort in adaptability and agility
For Klaja, the most significant determinant for success has been the team. “You can never do it alone. I am constantly amazed by the people with whom I work. They have always been our biggest asset,” he says. “As a leader, my job is to continue to make them feel motivated and hungry to be better every day.”
The two key ingredients he focuses on for building a strong, resilient team culture are trust and safety. “We can try to track people in remote work. But trusting that they are working together for the common good has shown that they will perform,” he says. “I do my best to give trust and safety, especially in these uncertain times. Running a company in a period of constant change required a team effort. We had to work together and be agile in planning and budgeting in order to respond quickly to changes in the market environment.”
Another strategy that Klaja has used successfully from the beginning is recruiting young people and training them to grow with the company. He explains, “The average age of the team is around 30. While allowing them to grow with the company, this also allows us to stay up to date with the younger generation and their changing values, including the importance of having a socially and environmentally sustainable business.”
As in sports, for Klaja, the future is about raising the bar to a higher level. “The next step is more European and worldwide expansion. We are still not global players. As I tell my team, I strongly believe we can achieve anything with patience, focus and determination. You may lose the first half of a match but can still win the game.”
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EY is YPO’s strategic learning advisor.
