Machinery and production facilities overshadow operational investments in Poland. Modern business works differently.

• "There's a shortage of transformation leaders. Reading a few articles and attending a few conferences is obviously not enough to become a specialist in a given field at a technological level. I think we're mature enough to professionally train these leaders—by way of university or postgraduate studies," says Ireneusz Borowski, Country Manager Poland at Dassault Systèmes.
• On the EU's megaplans. "AI megafactories de facto start with data centers. And do we have impressive, large data centers in Poland with roots in the EU? Microsoft, Google, Amazon... A better starting point would be useful to ensure that operators from the EU also become present here," the manager emphasizes.
• "Over a quarter of a century ago, I wrote my master's thesis on a company's documentation and data management system, drawing on observations from 1996-97: it turned out that engineers spend about 30 percent of their working time searching for information. Current research indicates that in many companies—and I know this from experience—the improvement is currently only a few percent," says Ireneusz Borowski.
• - Duplicating large data sets remains a common waste in enterprises – due to the lack of secure, structured access to them or when searching for them takes too long; then employee-users create new data or mini-databases, in both cases copies of existing ones - our interlocutor points out.
• The conversation is part of a series of interviews that will serve as the basis for the report "From Tape to Algorithm: How Digitalization Is Shaping the Future of Industry," prepared by WNP Economic Trends in conjunction with the New Industry Forum (Katowice, October 14-15, 2025).

What investments in digitalization and digitization (and related elements of Industry 4.0 – robotization and automation) have dominated Poland over the last five years? Given your experience, market analysis, numerous contacts, and observations, I'd like to ask you to provide your opinions and syntheses – from a bird's-eye view, as it were…

What immediately catches the eye? Many Polish enterprises, in which investments from the circle you mentioned are unfortunately not linked to each other in a system or are not elements of its step-by-step strategic creation.

Large international companies operating in Poland almost always standardize their digital transformation processes. If they are involved in manufacturing, they implement modern solutions in digitization, robotics, and automation, often based on global projects (even though in many cases they are "independent entities").

Of course, it is about, among other things, efficiency, management, quality of work (high emphasis), data control and security, and the intensifying vector to strengthen resistance to various types of crises (generally: making decisions more flexible and faster).

Among large domestic enterprises , there's already a significant group of companies with a vision for how to implement the transformation process, albeit with varying dynamics and starting points. But chaos persists here too.

And small and medium-sized companies?

- In the case of SMEs, these are usually isolated initiatives – with a small addition of projects such as control, management and data security or the rolling, well-thought-out digitization of production.

The government doesn't help?

- A few years ago, many promises of support were made, perhaps far too many; not all of them were fulfilled in practice.

A large group of entrepreneurs declares: we need less targeted subsidies, but a clear system of reliefs and incentives would be very useful, which would allow investments to be planned in the long term – in stable (at least in the country) conditions and in a situation where the market is very dynamic and Poland's external environment – ​​extremely changeable and unstable.

Poland doesn't have much influence on the macroeconomic situation outside our borders or geopolitical trends, but it certainly has influence on defining a predictable "framework" for entrepreneurs. Such a "framework" should enable rational, relatively safe, and accurate planning of the reform (investment) process, including digitalization initiatives.

What criteria dominate companies today when making decisions about investing in digitization, but also robotization and automation?

- It depends on the industry. There are several sectors of the economy – including the aerospace & defense industry – where increasing production has become the clear number one priority.

In other industries, cost reduction and increased flexibility (including appropriate scheduling of the supply chain and, consequently, the value chain, to respond quickly and appropriately to changing circumstances) are at the forefront. In sectors where labor shortages are particularly acute, alleviating this problem with modern solutions may even be a priority.

Companies in certain sectors – with order portfolios spanning 5-10 years (such as the rolling stock or defense industries) – have a chance to implement a plan for significant production modernization in the long term. A similar opportunity exists for many of their partners.

“Universities are still locked in their bubble, and change seems too slow”

Who are our companies collaborating with in implementing digitalization (supplier companies, startups, universities, research and development centers)? What barriers do you see in Poland?

- These fields should complement each other. In practice, things are different – ​​in the sense that they're not the best.

It would be an exaggeration to say that research and development centers are failing to fulfill their missions, but there is much room for improvement, so that they can become an impetus and partner, especially for entrepreneurs, in introducing new technologies. And they have the human, "tool," and intellectual resources to conduct research and commercialize it.

A long-standing business leitmotif: centers and universities operate for their own sake, disconnected from the real economy.

I also constantly encounter critical opinions. There's a lot of talk that universities are still trapped in their bubbles, and that change seems too slow. And that a blindness to economic reality prevails.

Yes, yes, but the scientific community, in turn, argues that Polish businesses can hardly be considered a leader in the EU in terms of demand for technologies and inventions developed at our universities. If anything, they prefer to purchase a license or other idea from abroad. Incidentally, scientists complained about exactly the same thing in the interwar period…

- There's something to this! However, in addition to a certain distrust among businesses and the persistently insufficient flow of science and business channels, there's also the alarmingly low level of investment in our economy that has persisted for years.

However, I can throw a pebble into my own garden here, especially for those seeking modern solutions and technologies. We'd like a young engineer to be no older than 24, with 7 years of experience and knowledge of 6 other languages. I'm deliberately exaggerating, but...

And what are the realities?

- Over the 27 years of my professional career, I've had a wide field of observation, and I see that Polish engineers are at least as good as their colleagues from the "old EU" in terms of academic education and creativity. Even more so when they put their skills into practice.

However, this "settlement" is a slow process. Fortunately, there are exceptions. My company—and I know of several other similar examples—implements a program in which we even employ second-semester engineering students as interns. They gain experience in purely professional skills, international collaboration, and learn about working conditions in a global company.

Working hours and their flexibility are tailored to the course of study; sometimes it's 5 hours a week, and in later years, when there's more time, it can be as much as 30 hours. Students are integrated into our team, but—and we make sure—their studies remain our priority.

Exactly… What should companies' responsibilities be in academic, engineering education? Dominika Bettman, former head of Microsoft in Poland, sees a dominant role for the state (linked to private universities in the system): business can assist, not replace, because that is simply not the role of businesses.

"Exactly! The company is not a non-profit organization. A program like ours serves the public interest because it improves and even shapes qualifications, but it stems from selfishness (there's nothing wrong with that), because we want to find, develop, and retain talent , although the student always makes their own decisions.

The mission, as well as the practical aspect, of technical universities – whether public or private – is to produce many good engineers. Simple! We can only polish them through practice. And we're looking for diamonds.

I'm also a proponent of balance. Dual studies? I wholeheartedly agree. However, we also need to significantly raise the standard of education in this age of turbulent technological change – to a degree no worse than in companies: having the right curriculum, but also the right tools (technologies, demonstration facilities); training on traditional machine tools isn't exactly the way to modernity! And here, for example, at my alma mater, I heard in discussions with professors that they wouldn't teach technology because it wasn't their role.

And such a graduate theorist will theoretically design an airplane. However, it won't fly...

Leonardo da Vinci also designed flying machines, but they never took to the skies…

- (laughter) But I'm not devaluing theory and basic research. On the contrary! The goal is to acquire, overall, very good theoretical and substantive knowledge (also because it can be a reference point for new ideas), complemented by practice—confronted with reality.

But what about those who choose science and academic careers, including basic research? I advocate for balance here: promoting dual degree programs while maintaining the traditional model of education, albeit with a modern twist.

"There is still a lack of a holistic view of the production process"

What is the current state and effects of using collected data (especially production data) in our country?

The picture isn't optimistic. Indeed, entrepreneurs often have vast pools of data at their disposal—they just don't know how to analyze, understand, and utilize it. This raises questions about the wisdom of collecting this information.

It is true that you cannot manage a company in a modern way without them, but you also need to be precisely aware of where the boundary is, beyond which they turn into a barrier, rather than a source of knowledge and a foundation for decisions.

There is still a lack of a holistic view of the production process: what are the most important needs, what must be automated or digitized, which device or supplier should be included in the system…

I believe quite radically that most managers make poor decisions based on “oversized” data.

How to deal with this?

"It's a long story... But I'm talking about AI, but in the sense of an instrument that learns from enterprise data. It's also important to be aware that to reflect the real state of affairs, AI must have real data—both current and historical—to verify trends and identify anomalies.

Duplicating large data sets remains a common waste in enterprises – due to the lack of secure, structured access to them or when searching for them takes too long; then employee-users create new data or mini-databases, in both cases copies of existing ones.

Over a quarter of a century ago, I wrote my master's thesis on a company's documentation and data management system, drawing on observations from 1996-97: it turned out that engineers spent about 30 percent of their working time searching for information. Current research indicates that in many companies—and I know this from experience—the improvement is currently only a few percent.

How do you assess the potential and risks associated with acquiring and exchanging data with B2B partners (suppliers, customers)? Recklessness, incompetence, industrial espionage, and purely criminal hacking have all contributed to this, particularly in recent years.

Every company claims to have taken "cyber-defense measures." But practice shows—especially in the SME sector—that they are often ineffective. Simply put: if someone drives a small car, they won't win the deadly Paris-Dakar Rally, rife with traps and dangers.

Cloud computing remains a powerful security solution, yet largely overlooked in Polish businesses. There are many providers, and we offer our own offerings. Recently, the Volkswagen Group also decided to implement our 3DEXPERIENCE platform in the cloud. Yet, the cyberdefense capabilities of such a giant are exponentially greater than those of small and medium-sized companies.

Additionally, a small company in a small town will have great difficulty hiring excellent security specialists – even if it has its own good infrastructure, it requires supplementation in the form of an appropriate organizational culture, appropriate expenses, etc.

There are many solutions that can significantly improve cyber defense. The state should educate people more effectively, promoting them vigorously and encouraging cybersecurity. This should be done through prevention, not by relying on the currently dominant driver of cyber resilience—learning from one's own mistakes, which can be painful.

"In every enterprise there will be people who will remain hostile and passive or who will oppose change"

How do digitalization and the general changes related to Industry 4.0 influence or will influence the management method and organizational culture in the company?

"There's a shortage of transformation leaders. Reading a few articles and attending a few conferences is obviously not enough to become a technological specialist in a given field. I think we're mature enough to professionally train these leaders—in terms of graduate or postgraduate studies."

There are a growing number of consulting firms specializing in this type of assistance, but virtually every major technology provider, including us, also offers consulting – based on many years of experience and experience with the world's largest companies, as well as medium-sized enterprises; through the prism of a company's specific situation, we can advise on the right development path with a holistic perspective, including defining key milestones.

If there is a transformation leader (or leaders) within the company at the HR level (this could be the company owner, CEO, another manager, or someone else qualified), they must ensure proper communication within the company. In my observation, this is one of the biggest mistakes management makes – they fail to adequately inform the staff so they understand the transformation goals, become comfortable with them, accept them , and ideally, even identify with the changes.

In every enterprise, there will be people who remain hostile or resist change. For a project to be successful, minimizing this type of structural resistance is essential.

In countries leading in digitalization, the public sector is also highly digitized. To what extent are the digitization of administration and state operations contributing to building a culture of innovation in society and supporting business in Poland today? How is the implementation of digital changes being facilitated in Poland today?

We already have a lot of digital solutions in the public sector – there's nothing to be ashamed of (for example, there's still no equivalent of our CEPiK system in Germany). This relatively new quality is, and will continue to be, a result, among other things, of widespread and easier acceptance of the necessary digital changes in the economy.

But the gap between modern methods and the administrative mentality, the "programmatic" conservatism of the mode of action, and the defensive and sluggish decisions in government and local government structures, in my opinion, is growing. And this is definitely holding back the "innovation march."

To summarize this thread, it's clear that manufacturing companies lack the conviction that the only way to remain competitive in the near future is through innovation, not through (the otherwise very useful) cost reduction. Because there will almost always be someone cheaper—whether in Asia or in Africa in five or 40 years. This is also a side effect of globalization.

"Instead of multiplying computing power in companies, i.e. buying infrastructure, we can rent this power"

In terms of the level of robotization, we are lagging behind the EU, a digital twin is still a rarity overall, and there is hardly a long queue of companies waiting to use the data centers (cloud computing) that have already been developed in the country… What is the main reason for the slow digitalization of Polish companies so far?

Money, concerns about the future of the business environment, etc.? Not only that. In our country, fixed assets have been the dominant factor for years. This is CAPEX, not OPEX—understood as expenses and investments of a more operational nature. Meanwhile, in modern economies around the world, businesses focus on these "OPEX" costs, while here they buy machinery (sometimes secondhand) and build warehouses.

Let's follow the money: you can buy a car and use it for 20 years (even though it's not really cost-effective), instead of leasing or renting it. The same applies to software. The trend is still prevailing in our country to purchase them with "perpetual licenses," rather than time-based, subscription-based licenses that always allow you to use the latest license. Hybrid models, in fact, allow you to combine all of these. Overall, it's cheaper.

But—it's part of a certain culture—we prefer to have something. However, today—in the context described—it's an element that hinders development.

Are you drinking to the cloud again?

- Yes. Instead of multiplying computing power in companies, i.e., buying infrastructure, we can rent it. And it's much, much cheaper. And even more so when we need a lot of computing power for just a month or a week for an important project.

Or maybe the problem is also the long-term, general investment defensiveness (complex reasons) plus insufficient, pro-investment state support?

"True, running a business is no piece of cake. It's very easy to say, even to politicians, that 'you have to buy this and that,' but the external environment is so incredibly volatile these days that it encourages hesitation rather than decisiveness."

On the one hand , the administration is calling for an investment offensive, but on the other hand, the government's or rather governments' moves are not necessarily transparent and reflected in practice , which does not make the decision any easier.

The deregulation plans were ambitious, but – and a lot of time has passed – a little rain has fallen from a large cloud, which, as a manager, of course, makes me sad.

Another issue: we constantly hear about aid programs—both national and EU. However, the requirements and procedures for using these instruments are usually complex and difficult.

As a large international company, we don't take advantage of this support—partly because we don't know whether the interpretation of the regulations will change, not to mention the overwhelming bureaucracy. And what are small companies supposed to say?

What, in your opinion, are the reasons for the low use of AI in Poland (for companies employing at least 10 people in EU countries, Poland was ahead only of Romania in 2024)? After all, if we don't implement this on a larger scale, we will lose the competitive battle in 5-10 years, or maybe even sooner.

I approach such tables with a certain amount of skepticism—until I understand the methodology in detail. But it's clear that—to put it mildly—we're not among the top.

I see some falsehoods in the economic version of the AI ​​narrative. Yes, I completely agree that in a few years, a company that doesn't use AI won't remain competitive. It's one of the most important elements of improving production efficiency, not replacing human intelligence.

Let's not be guided by trivialized media tips like "just ask AI" - and with such a guru we feel that we can be specialists in any field.

Moreover, to successfully leverage the potential of this AI revolution, and not treat changes as "I'd like a 3kg bucket or 1.5kg of AI," the enterprise must achieve digital maturity through a set of strategic and tactical steps. This naturally involves human resources, infrastructure and structure, as well as organizational culture. Otherwise, using AI will be of little use.

Once we achieve this digital maturity, generative AI will indeed help us analyze data faster and deliver information more quickly. Based on certain behaviors, work culture, and the company's database, it can suggest how to produce more optimally, including introducing new functionalities. In this frame of reference, AI is indeed an innovation accelerator.

"We live in a global trade war, and China and the US are trying to force the EU into submission"

Do European and national digitalization megaplans (e.g., "AI Gigafactories" or "Application of Artificial Intelligence," as well as other strategies related to quantum technologies, such as the EU or the Poland Digital Strategy 2035) offer any hope for real support? What should businesses expect?

- A few months ago, when these plans were being developed in Brussels, I spoke with representatives of several renowned European companies involved in the creation of data centers and heard: "Finally, Europe will not be lagging behind the industrialized world." A cautious hope... Because AI megafactories de facto start with data centers.

Do we have impressive, large data centers in Poland with roots in the EU? Microsoft, Google, Amazon… A better starting point would be useful for operators from the EU to also establish a presence here.

However, hopes are often tinged with fear. I've heard from many partners and clients that they fear the involvement of the political world in these processes.

It's a universal distrust, based on many experiences. Much harm was done, for example, by the much-heralded but unsuccessful attempt to reindustrialize Europe in 2014.

I'd like to believe that this time will be different. But again, some time has passed – and it's not just the what and how that matters, but also the when – and besides the grand announcements, I don't see much concrete evidence.

We live in a global trade war, and China and the US are trying to force the EU into submission… We must defend ourselves. Will gigafactories, among other things, help us achieve this? Without a systemic approach, sound pragmatism at the expense of political capital, such programs will be useless. We need less fanfare and promises, and more organic work and real assistance.

Is the new concept of Industry 5.0—combining technology, sustainable development, and a focus on people, along with companies' resilience to crises—an inevitable direction? Expectations for businesses and companies are rising exponentially, becoming more challenging to meet—both organizationally and financially. Will businesses be able to meet these expectations?

"The opportunity for the Industry 5.0 concept lies, among other things, in the fact that a significant number of companies – including ours – have already developed a specific business philosophy. We don't want to be companies that only respond to current customer needs. We need to be two or three steps ahead, because we know that technology needs a "moment" to mature and solidify."

How does it work for us? At Dassault Systèmes, we have the knowledge and experience to understand best practices across multiple industries, and we understand the trends in technology and the practical challenges facing companies of all sizes.

Based on this, we create solutions that take us two or three steps forward. It may be too early for some, but "there is a (carefully considered) method to this madness."

And why people? A company is made up of processes, people, and tools, including IT. Processes and tools, if necessary, can be replicated 1:1, but people, of course, cannot… No two ideal companies, even with similar processes and tools, are identical.

Therefore: people are paramount. If we achieve a kind of harmony between people (skills and their development, management – ​​appropriate decisions), products (technologies), and the environment, we will maintain an effective balance. After a few more autonomous measures, this creates a situation in which companies become more resilient to external turbulence. We cannot predict many crisis situations, but we can prepare for them.

Why are we introducing the concept of virtual twins? It's also to build resilience, practice various scenarios (stress tests of varying scope), and develop decision-making flexibility.

To what extent does the digitalization of the Polish state and production and management processes support the implementation of sustainable development goals (ESG)?

Let's responsibly seek solutions that result in a smaller carbon footprint—not for the sake of reporting and bureaucratic meticulousness, but genuinely for the environment. And these methods don't necessarily have to be more expensive than traditional ones. Because, believe me, from a practical perspective, this often pays off financially.

We often fall into the stereotype: "For us, it's just a cost." A conscious approach to carbon footprint allows us to select components and modernize the production process. Sometimes even simple measures are enough – for example, if a machine is operating at 80% capacity, it still consumes the same amount of electricity. And this can reduce energy consumption and, consequently, the cost per unit. The same applies to components. IT tools, including AI, are ideally suited to these types of changes.

Business and ESG are essentially rational relationships, strongly underpinned by environmental awareness. However, many complex myths have arisen around these connections. I sometimes ask myself: what's the point?

A simple proposal: less philosophizing, and more promoting the practical effects of the company's green direction. Let's consider the purpose of this and its beneficial consequences for people, the environment, and ultimately, the company itself.