Poka TEHNODENT History

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The story

When they finished high-school, after having spent so much time together, they didn’t imagine they would be colleagues for another 26 years. And not only colleagues, but even business partners. At that time Ladislau Poka and Calin Suma chose to walk on the same path step-by-step, day-by-day towards a precise destination: TEHNODENT POKA.

The idea of establishing a company arouse in a moment when “having your own business” was quite new on the Romanian market and people were not willing to give up their “employee” status and run their own business. On the 16th of August 1991 Tehnodent Poka was established as a general partnership, because at that time the associates didn’t have the necessary share capital for a LLC.

Ladislau Poka, who came up with the idea, admitted that at that time they had nothing, in fact: neither enough knowledge about this field, nor experience in sales, nor establishment for the business, nor enough partners, nor…! Nevertheless… they are in 2018 celebrating the 26nd “birthday” of the company, together with the people who had been beside them from the very beginning or who joined them over the years.

Their story is a successful one. It is obvious since the company celebrates its 26nd birthday this year.
But let’s start with ……

… the beginning

One day Ladislau Poka had been asked by one of his father’s colleagues to translate for him during a transaction of dental materials from a depot in Hungary.

He saw in this a business opportunity, and after some research, he decided to establish a similar warehouse. But he didn’t want to do it by himself. “As a 21 year-old young man, I had no idea about the business world and I thought I had better not start this business alone. I looked for my partner among my friends and I decided to invite Calin Suma to this “journey”. So, together with his father, we went to the Chamber of Commerce in Timisoara to find out the steps that must be taken in order to establish a company. Since we didn’t have share capital, we decided to establish a limited liability company. It’s name was: Tehnodent. According to the law, we had to add the name of one of the associates. My friend’s father suggested that since it had been my idea, we should add the name Poka.”

Calin Suma remembers: “The invested share at that time was very small, equivalent these days to the price of 5-6 washing machines! The headquarters of the company was in the apartment of my parents, in a block of flats, and as means of transport we used the two Dacia 1310 of our parents. The activity we had then couldn’t be compared to the present situation. We had on stock the products that fit into the trunk of the two cars. Our warehouse was the garage at the basement of the block of flats and the distribution happened in the following way: we loaded everything we had into the trunks of the two cars, divided the territory of our country in two parts: North and South. Ladislau went North, I went South. We had been travelling for about a week, from one city to another, till we sold all our products. At nights, we slept in hotels, guesthouses, or at our relatives, if we had ones on our way. Our clients were the public clinics, hospitals… in that period there were few private dentist offices or dental laboratories. We made the transactions with the financial departments of these institutions.”

Step-by step they gained experience, the business started growing and…

…in a few years

they were on their way to develop, when in 1995 they had to start it over again!
The devaluation of the USD with 40% in less than two weeks changed all their plans and they almost gave up…

“We started over from zero, but through hard work, ambition and dedication we managed to put the company on its feet again.” (Ladislau Poka)

From the 2-room apartment which played the role of office, warehouse, store and sometimes even bedroom – between 2 journeys by car – they moved to a new location, in an excellent area of Timisoara. In 1999 the company already had 9 employees and became a serious competitor on the market of dental materials and equipment.

And that’s how, imperceptibly, 26 years passed.

Also, as children do in their first years of life, they fell, had their bruises, their good and bad periods, but…

… they never gave up, but kept following their destiny and they managed to grow.

Today

The sales and distribution network has 40 Sales Representatives in all over the country + 6 in our shops, based on a concept they implemented in the first year of the economic crisis, when many other companies limited their activity. Tehnodent Poka took a risk, but it was worth it! They gained new clients, new partners, and most importantly, new friends due to their seriousness and professionalism. Tehnodent Poka focuses not only on its “image”, through specific activities, but also on improving the services they offer by modern, client oriented marketing strategies. It participates at all the important fairs and exhibitions in order to meet the needs of the customers.

Now the company has 86 employees. The sales representatives take part in trainings (12-15 / year) held by suppliers and benefit from the following logistics: car, iPad with permanent 4G connection, notebook, sample catalogues, printed special offers catalogues, leaflets, product samples, etc.

The buildings where the activity is being performed are owned by the company and they are in a residential area of Timisoara; Tehnodent Poka also owns 55 vehicles.

The company administrates the best online commercial platform in Romania in the dental field, having more than 5.800 products on the website. There are about 55.000 unique visitors on the site and more than 200.000 pages are viewed monthly. Deliveries of most of the ordered products take place within 24 hours all over the country. Tehnodent Poka has more than 7.500 articles to sell, meeting the requirements of most dentists and dental technicians. The company also has a Facebook profile, with 5.000 friends.

Tehnodent Poka has more than 75 foreign suppliers (from Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Italy, Hungary, South Korea, Austria, China, Brazil, Slovakia, Serbia…), but also local ones, as well as stores in the country.

The number of clients they have had over the years exceeds 8.000.

The company is still having a business relation with the very first supplier: “Our first and most devoted foreign supplier was and still is a dental wax manufacturer from Hungary, who even today, after 26 years of cooperation is an important partner in our activity”. (Calin Suma)

Ladislau Poka and Calin Suma, two ambitious and hard-working people, are the proof that a successful business can be developed if you really want to and if you respect all your partners: employees, suppliers, distributors, clients! Since all of them are part of the everyday life of a company.

“We are lucky to have had well-trained, serious and devoted employees.
I’d like to thank them a lot for being beside us!”
Ladislau Poka

 
Company Tehnodent Poka celebrated 26 years in 16 august 2017.
“Happy Birthday!”

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