Jarek Ruminski
News
Acquiring a Polish company can look like a remarkably attractive proposition.
You gain access to one of Europe’s largest markets, skilled employees, established customers, manufacturing or technical capability, experienced management and a business positioned inside the EU Single Market.
The numbers are attractive too. Poland’s economy grew by 3.6% in 2025, and the European Commission expects growth of around 3.5% in 2026. Foreign investment and international trade have played an important role in Poland’s productivity development, while Poland continues to attract significant international investment.
So the transaction closes.
The lawyers finish their work. The financing is arranged. The press release announces a stronger European platform, new synergies and exciting opportunities.
Everyone smiles for the photograph.
Then Monday morning arrives.
That is when the real acquisition begins.
For Nordic companies acquiring businesses in Poland, many of the most expensive mistakes do not come from the financial model. They come from assumptions about leadership, communication, authority, employees, customers and what exactly should happen after the buyer receives the keys.
Nordic companies can bring considerable strengths into a Polish acquisition: long-term thinking, structured governance, transparency, employee involvement, strong processes and a high degree of trust.
Polish businesses can bring something equally valuable: speed, entrepreneurship, commercial energy, flexibility, technical competence and an impressive ability to solve practical problems without first creating a steering committee to discuss whether a problem actually exists.
The combination can be extremely powerful.
But only if you do not accidentally destroy the qualities you bought.
Here are ten mistakes Nordic companies should avoid after acquiring a Polish business.
This may be the most damaging mistake because it can influence almost every decision that follows.
The Nordic buyer sees the numbers.
Salaries may be lower than in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo or Helsinki. Engineering, manufacturing, software development, finance or support functions may therefore appear cheaper to operate in Poland.
And suddenly the strategy becomes:
“Excellent. We can move more work there.”
Perhaps you can.
But if your first message after acquiring a successful Polish company is essentially that Poland has been selected because people cost less, do not be surprised if your most talented employees begin updating LinkedIn before you finish the integration presentation.
Poland should increasingly be understood as a capability market, not simply a cost market. The country has developed substantial manufacturing, technology, engineering and business-service capabilities, while foreign investment has contributed significantly to its economic development.
Ask instead:
What capabilities did we acquire?
Which engineers are difficult to replace?
Which customer relationships have taken years to build?
Which local processes work unusually well?
Which managers understand the Polish market better than headquarters ever will?
Where does the Polish organisation outperform the Nordic parent?
Cost may be part of the investment thesis.
It should not become the identity of the company you acquired.
If you buy competence and then manage it as cheap capacity, you may eventually receive exactly what you asked for.
Cheap capacity.
The competence may have left.
Nordic leadership often emphasises autonomy, participation and relatively flat organisational structures.
These can be enormous strengths.
But importing the model without understanding the acquired organisation can create confusion.
Polish organisations vary enormously. Modern technology businesses and international companies can be highly informal, while traditional companies, manufacturing environments and founder-led businesses may have more visible hierarchy and clearer expectations about authority.
Aurixon’s existing Sweden–Poland analysis highlights this difference: Swedish organisations often place greater emphasis on flat structures and participation, while Polish organisations may give more visible weight to defined authority and management responsibility.
Now imagine the first Nordic leadership meeting.
The new CEO says:
“You are empowered. You decide.”
The Polish management team hears:
“Decide what?”
“Within which budget?”
“Who has final responsibility?”
“Does headquarters actually agree?”
“And if this goes wrong, will I still be empowered?”
Autonomy works best when the boundaries are clear.
Define:
Do not confuse unclear governance with empowerment.
A flat organisation without clear accountability is not necessarily modern.
Sometimes it is simply flat.
Many Polish companies, particularly privately owned and mid-sized businesses, have grown around strong founders, owners or long-serving executives.
Their influence may extend considerably beyond the organisational chart.
They may personally know:
A Nordic acquirer may look at this and conclude:
“We need to make the organisation less dependent on individuals.”
Correct.
Eventually.
But dependency cannot always be removed by removing the person.
Replacing key management immediately after completion can destroy informal knowledge before you have transferred it anywhere.
The spreadsheet may show that the sales director manages eight people.
It may not show that three of the company’s five largest customers call her personally when something goes wrong.
Before changing leadership, map influence as carefully as you mapped EBITDA.
Ask:
Who holds customer trust?
Who understands the real production bottlenecks?
Who knows why certain suppliers are used?
Who can explain why a procedure that looks inefficient has survived for fifteen years?
Who do employees actually trust?
Who knows what has never been written down?
Then build transition plans.
The objective should not be to preserve founder dependence forever.
It should be to transfer knowledge before deleting the human hard drive.
Nordic corporate communication can be wonderfully calm.
“We are currently reviewing the organisational structure.”
“No decisions have been taken.”
“We are looking at opportunities for closer integration.”
“We will communicate further when appropriate.”
Perfectly reasonable sentences.
Unfortunately, after an acquisition they may create considerably more questions than they answer.
Employees want to know:
Will my job exist?
Who will I report to?
Will salaries change?
Will there be redundancies?
Will the company name disappear?
Are functions moving abroad?
Will headquarters replace management?
Are systems changing?
Will customer teams remain in Poland?
When leaders avoid specifics because they do not yet know every answer, employees fill the information vacuum themselves.
Usually with imagination.
By Wednesday, a review of procurement can become the closure of the entire Polish operation.
By Friday, someone has heard that headquarters is replacing everybody above the age of 43.
Be concrete.
There is nothing wrong with saying:
“We have not decided yet.”
But add:
“This is the decision process.”
“These people are involved.”
“This is when we expect an answer.”
“These areas are not currently being reviewed.”
“This will definitely not change during the next three months.”
Polish business communication can be more direct and expressive than communication in several Nordic environments, and more openly challenging questions should not automatically be interpreted as resistance.
If employees ask difficult questions, answer the substance.
Do not become concerned because the meeting feels energetic.
Concern yourself when nobody asks anything anymore.
Consensus is powerful.
It creates commitment, reduces resistance and improves decisions when the right people are involved.
It can also take time.
After an acquisition, some questions genuinely require consultation.
Others require somebody to decide.
A Polish management team that has historically moved quickly can become frustrated if every significant question suddenly needs:
a local meeting,
then a Nordic management meeting,
then Finance,
then HR,
then Group Management,
then a workshop,
then a revised recommendation,
then a second meeting because someone who was important was on holiday during the first meeting.
The Polish organisation begins to slow down.
Customers notice.
Managers stop taking initiative.
Employees learn that the safest answer is:
“We are waiting for headquarters.”
Aurixon’s cross-cultural analysis notes the potential tension between broader Nordic consultation and the greater decision momentum often found in Polish business environments.
The solution is not to eliminate consultation.
It is to distinguish between consultation and permission.
Create a decision map.
For each important category, define:
Who recommends?
Who must be consulted?
Who decides?
How quickly should the decision be made?
A company should not spend four weeks reaching consensus on whether it is allowed to act quickly.
Culture receives attention because culture is interesting.
Employment law receives less attention because employment law rarely produces an exciting PowerPoint cover.
That does not make it less important.
Nordic companies should not assume that familiar HR practices can simply be transferred to Poland.
Polish employment relationships operate within their own legal framework governing contracts, working conditions, working time, leave, termination and other employer obligations. Rules concerning redundancies can also become particularly important when organisational restructuring follows an acquisition. Official Polish guidance, for example, sets out specific requirements for employers and separate rules concerning terminations for reasons unrelated to the employee.
The practical rule is simple:
Do not announce the restructuring before understanding whether you can implement the restructuring.
Before harmonising employment conditions, changing working arrangements, restructuring departments or reducing headcount, involve experienced Polish HR and legal specialists.
Also review:
Polish remote and hybrid work, for example, is expressly regulated within the employment-law framework rather than being merely an informal management preference.
“We do it differently in Denmark” may be interesting.
It is not a legal argument in Poland.
At management level, in technology, professional services and international companies, English can work extremely well.
This creates a dangerous illusion:
Everyone understands everything.
They may not.
The acquisition announcement is translated into Polish.
Excellent.
Then the real integration work begins in English:
ERP workshops.
HR policies.
Cybersecurity training.
Town halls.
Operating procedures.
Project meetings.
Leadership presentations.
Safety communication.
Process documentation.
Nobody complains.
That does not necessarily mean everyone has understood the message exactly as headquarters intended it.
English is widely used in international business in Poland, particularly in major business centres, but Polish remains important when communicating more broadly with local employees, customers, partners and institutions.
Use Polish where accuracy, trust or inclusion matters.
Especially for:
Do not create two organisations:
the people who participate in the English-language integration,
and everyone else.
Translation is not a sign that the Polish company is insufficiently international.
It is a sign that headquarters wants to be understood.
Acquisitions create irresistible opportunities for standardisation.
One ERP.
One CRM.
One HR platform.
One procurement process.
One reporting model.
One brand.
One travel policy.
One project methodology.
One PowerPoint template.
Eventually, perhaps even one approved font.
Some harmonisation is necessary.
But every local difference is not automatically inefficiency.
Before replacing a Polish process, ask why it exists.
Perhaps the local purchasing process reflects supplier realities.
Perhaps customers expect decisions locally.
Perhaps salespeople use a different CRM workflow because the sales cycle actually differs.
Perhaps local management has developed a simple solution that works better than the group standard.
Perhaps the supposedly outdated system contains twenty years of customer knowledge.
Use three categories:
The process works and provides local advantage.
The process should connect with group governance but does not need to disappear.
The process adds unnecessary cost, risk or complexity and should genuinely be standardised.
This small distinction can save a considerable amount of money.
The purpose of integration is not to make every company look identical.
It is to make the combined group perform better.
If the Polish subsidiary becomes easier for headquarters to understand but harder for customers to work with, integration has solved the wrong problem.
A company acquisition includes tangible assets.
Buildings.
Machines.
Inventory.
Systems.
Contracts.
Then there are the assets that can resign.
These are often the most dangerous ones to lose.
Poland has a large and sophisticated labour market, and international investors compete for capable managers, engineers, technology specialists, sales professionals and experienced operational employees. More than one million foreign nationals were also working in Poland in early 2025, illustrating how international the labour market itself has become.
After an acquisition, key employees evaluate the new owner immediately.
Not through the annual report.
Through behaviour.
Does headquarters listen?
Will my role disappear?
Will decisions move abroad?
Do they respect what we have built?
Is there still a career here?
Will everything become slower?
Do they see Poland as important?
The strongest employee may not be the person with the largest title.
Identify:
Then meet them.
Personally.
Explain the strategy.
Explain their possible role in it.
Give them access to senior leadership.
Retention bonuses can be useful.
Career opportunities can be stronger.
Respect is essential.
Remember:
If you acquire a company for its knowledge and then cause the people holding that knowledge to leave, technically you still own the company.
You simply own less of what made it valuable.
This mistake often develops gradually.
The Nordic headquarters makes strategy.
Poland executes.
Headquarters develops products.
Poland delivers.
Headquarters owns customer relationships.
Poland supports.
Headquarters contains senior leadership.
Poland contains operations.
Eventually, ambitious Polish managers understand the organisational message:
You can become very successful here.
But only up to a certain floor in the building.
That is a serious long-term problem.
If the acquisition is genuinely strategic, Polish talent should be visible across the group.
Give Polish executives responsibility beyond Poland.
Put Polish specialists into international product teams.
Include Polish leaders in group strategy.
Create cross-border career paths.
Let best practice travel north as well as south.
Ask Polish teams to solve group-wide problems.
A Nordic company acquiring a Polish business should not think only:
“How do we integrate Poland into our group?”
Ask:
“How can Poland make the entire group better?”
That question changes everything.
It turns integration from assimilation into value creation.
Successful Nordic–Polish integration is not about deciding which business culture is superior.
It is about combining strengths.
Nordic organisations can contribute:
trust, transparency, employee involvement, structured governance, long-term thinking and disciplined processes.
Polish organisations can contribute:
speed, entrepreneurship, adaptability, commercial drive, technical competence and strong practical execution.
The objective is not to make the Polish company behave exactly like headquarters.
And it is certainly not to preserve everything simply because:
“That is how we have always done it.”
The best integration asks two questions continuously:
What should we change?
And:
What must we protect?
During the first 100 days, concentrate on six priorities.
Define decision rights immediately.
Employees need to understand who is responsible for what, what remains local and what belongs to group management.
Identify the employees whose departure would reduce the value of the acquisition.
Talk to them before a competitor does.
Explain what is changing, what is not changing and what has not yet been decided.
Use Polish when it improves clarity.
Meet major customers early.
Keep trusted Polish contacts involved and explain how the Nordic owner will strengthen rather than disrupt the relationship.
Do not standardise processes until you understand them.
Preserve what creates genuine local advantage.
Watch how the organisation actually works.
How are decisions made?
Who influences them?
How is disagreement expressed?
What motivates people?
What happens when something goes wrong?
Which behaviours create trust?
The answers will rarely be found in the acquisition agreement.
But they may determine whether the acquisition creates value.
Post-merger problems usually do not begin with dramatic failure.
They begin quietly.
A respected manager leaves.
A customer notices slower decisions.
Employees stop proposing ideas.
More matters need approval from headquarters.
The Polish CEO begins spending half the week preparing reports for the Nordic parent.
Headquarters becomes frustrated because local management appears less entrepreneurial.
Local management becomes frustrated because headquarters has removed the freedom that previously allowed it to be entrepreneurial.
And six months later someone organises a workshop entitled:
“How Can We Improve Ownership and Accountability?”
The answer may be rather uncomfortable.
You acquired it.
Then you accidentally designed it out of the organisation.
The best Nordic acquisition of a Polish company does not turn the business into a remote branch of Stockholm, Copenhagen, Oslo or Helsinki.
It creates a company that can combine Nordic trust with Polish momentum.
That is where the real synergy is.
And unlike the synergy on slide 14 of the acquisition presentation, this one can actually be worth something.
Planning an acquisition, post-merger integration or business expansion between Poland and the Nordic countries? Aurixon’s country-pair business culture guides provide practical insight into communication, decision-making, leadership, negotiation and trust across Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
Explore the guides at Aurixon.io/en/guides.
References and Further Reading:
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