Those who, like me, regularly work with senior executives across Western Europe may view this from different perspectives and with varying degrees of detail, but many will probably recognise a recurring observation from their Western European counterparts: doing business in Poland can be particularly challenging, yet also highly successful.
When it comes to the challenges of doing business in Poland, the rules of the game seem to change almost every year.
Over the past few years, companies operating in Poland have had to navigate one of the most demanding business environments in Europe. Some of these changes were also visible in other European countries. However, several were clearly more pronounced in Poland, while others reflected distinctly Polish circumstances with no direct equivalents abroad, or at least not on a comparable scale.
The COVID-19 pandemic was followed by severe supply chain disruptions that turned lead times for many industrial components from a few weeks into several months. At the time, I was working in a manufacturing business with substantial exposure to Eastern markets, including Russia and Belarus, which made this particularly relevant. But even companies with more limited exposure to Eastern markets saw procurement teams stop asking, “What is the best price?” and start asking, “Can we get the material at all?”
Then Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine fundamentally changed the business environment across CEE. Energy prices became highly volatile, logistics networks had to be redesigned almost overnight, transport costs increased, and geopolitical risk moved from annual strategy presentations into day-to-day board discussions.
Macroeconomic conditions became equally challenging. Poland experienced one of the highest inflation rates in the EU. Consumer inflation peaked at 18.4% in February 2023, while inflation in Germany peaked at 8.7%. At the same time, the National Bank of Poland raised its reference interest rate from 0.10% to 6.75% within just 18 months, one of the fastest monetary tightening cycles in Europe.
For businesses, the consequences were immediate. Financing costs increased sharply. Working capital requirements expanded as inventories became more expensive to finance. Customer demand became less predictable, and pricing decisions became one of the most critical drivers of profitability. In many companies, preserving gross margins became just as important as generating new sales.
The labour market offered little relief. Poland continued to operate with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU, while employers faced persistent shortages of skilled workers. Between January 2023 and January 2025, the statutory monthly minimum wage increased from PLN 3,490 to PLN 4,666, an increase of almost 34% in just 2 years. Even companies paying well above the minimum wage were forced to redesign salary structures as wage expectations rose across the organization.
Finance teams were navigating this economic volatility while simultaneously adapting to one of the most intensive periods of regulatory change in recent history. The so-called Polish Deal (poorly and carelessly drafted from a legislative perspective), repeated amendments to tax legislation, evolving withholding tax rules, transfer pricing requirements, preparations for mandatory e-invoicing through KSeF (where the scale of change has been greater than in most other countries), ESG reporting obligations (which have also undergone more extensive changes than in many other EU countries), and successive EU regulations required finance functions to redesign internal processes almost continuously while still delivering profitability, liquidity, and business growth.
There was another challenge that is often underestimated outside Poland.
Germany absorbs approximately one-quarter of Polish exports. As German manufacturing slowed and industrial output weakened, many Polish exporters faced declining demand from their largest market while domestic operating costs, including wages, utilities, financing, and logistics, continued to rise. Executive teams found themselves managing margin pressure from both directions simultaneously.
Very few executive teams in Europe have had to navigate a pandemic, supply chain disruption, and an energy crisis on such a large scale, alongside double-digit inflation, one of the fastest interest-rate hiking cycles in Europe, a tight labour market, and continuous regulatory reform – all within the space of just a few years.
That combination fundamentally changes the way executive teams make decisions.
Not long ago, an annual budget was expected to remain a reliable management tool throughout the financial year, even with quarterly forecast revisions and updated projections. Today, in many organisations, forecasting has become a continuous process. EBIT, cash flow, working capital, and CAPEX assumptions are reviewed every month, often supported by continuously updated “what-if” financial models, on an ongoing basis.
The role of financial executives has evolved just as dramatically. A decade ago, finance leaders were expected to focus primarily on reporting, compliance, and cost control. Today, they spend as much time discussing pricing, customer profitability, sourcing strategies, automation, investment priorities, financing structures, and commercial trade-offs as they do reviewing financial and management reports. Increasingly, their role is to shape future performance rather than simply explain historical results.
The same evolution applies to executive teams as a whole.
Making decisions with incomplete information is no longer an exceptional situation. It has become part of everyday leadership.
That means understanding, often in real time, how a commercial or operational decision will affect financial performance long before those effects become visible in the financial statements or management reports.
Looking back, I believe this is where Polish executives have developed a distinctive competitive advantage.
Not because they are inherently more resilient than others, but because they have spent years leading organisations in an environment where uncertainty is not an occasional disruption: it is the Normal Operating Environment for them.
For many companies in Western Europe, the volatility of recent years represented a new management challenge. For many Polish leadership teams, it was simply another chapter in a business environment that has demanded continuous adaptation for decades. often across different leadership roles: CEO, CFO, CSO, COO, CCO and others.
Paradoxically, this instability has become one of the most effective executive development programmes imaginable.
It has shortened decision cycles, strengthened financial discipline, integrated finance more closely with commercial and operational decision-making, and reinforced a culture of acting before problems become visible in the P&L.
The world is becoming more volatile, not less. Today, these challenges can sometimes be even more pronounced in Western Europe than in Poland. For example, my colleagues in the UK are currently facing greater difficulties with energy prices than we are here in Poland. More broadly, however, geopolitical tensions, supply chain fragmentation, demographic pressures, the energy transition, and rapid technological change are reshaping businesses throughout Europe.
If uncertainty is becoming the new normal, then the ability to lead successfully through continuous change will become one of the defining executive capabilities of the next decade.
And in that respect, Polish executives may already possess one of the most valuable forms of leadership experience available today.
Author: Tomasz Kondel is an executive and board member with over 20 years of experience in financial and operational management within international capital groups, particularly in the manufacturing, FMCG and B2B services sectors. He has worked for companies with foreign ownership and private equity funds, holding senior management and board positions in Poland and abroad. He specialises in financial management in multicultural environments, business model optimisation, strategic planning, organisational transformations, and supporting boards in decision-making processes. He regularly addresses the challenges faced by foreign-owned companies operating in Poland, as well as the practical aspects of managing international groups.
