Andrius Janukonis – Co-founder, ICOR Group
With an annual turnover of over €550 million and nearly 7,000 employees providing products and services to over 60 countries around the globe, the ICOR Group is one of Lithuania’s largest concerns. Andrius Janukonis, chairman of the board, is also a co- founder of the company and constantly looking for new business ideas to broaden ICOR’s reach.
Established in 1990 by Andrius Janukonis, alongside fellow students attending Vilnius University, ICOR’s first business was intermediation in Lithuania’s commodity markets. Today, 30 years later, there are over 100 companies under the ICOR Group umbrella, operating in more than ten countries. Some of the largest companies in the group are City Service, Realco, Axioma Metering, and Axis Technologies.
Clear principles
“We started implementing business ideas during the rise of the Lithuanian state – an unstable but immensely interesting period of change,” explains Andrius. “We became the young state’s first generation of entrepreneurs on the new market, and we actively participated during its first moments of existence.”
Over their 30 years of operation, the group has entered into a wide range of businesses and activities – from entertainment projects to major construction – but today, ICOR mainly operates in the fields of utility services, industry, energy, oil products, and real estate development.
“We formulated clear principles from the beginning, that guide us in all our endeavours,” insists Andrius. “Firstly, we create sustainable enterprises and are not interested in short-lived businesses. The success of the companies is determined by the level of trust from the shareholders in our managers, who are given a wide range of responsibilities. We try to bring together strong teams of professionals in each company and invest in the leading specialists the market has to offer. It’s their achievements that are responsible for the success of our global operations. We are constantly trying to innovate and change the rules in order to break new ground in different areas. We use future technologies in all our activities, invest in scientific research, and develop new products and services.”
Focus on production
One of the group’s most popular products is the ultrasonic smart water and heat metering device, manufactured at the Axioma Metering Plant, that was opened this year.
ICOR was the first in Lithuania to begin trading in these meters, starting in 1996. Since then, the company has not only been selling and exporting but also developing, manufacturing, and installing its own metering devices (over €1.8 million has been invested in development).
Understandably, Andrius is very proud of this operation, which has grown brilliantly over the years, and he has high hopes for the future. “The opening of the new automated plant marks a new stage of operations for us, the aim of which is to reach the world’s top five producers of meter manufacturers before the end of 2021.”
The company’s meters are sold abroad under the Axioma trademark and the largest importers are the Scandinavian countries, where the market is keen on innovations and prepared to implement smart devices – the meters are integrated into the Internet of Things (IoT), where data can be collected remotely.
Currently, the company meters are being tested by over 30 utility service companies in Germany, France, UK, Denmark, and Norway.
“We came to the market with a revolutionary product, offered at an attractive price,” says Andrius. “This made us interesting to not only our regular buyers in Europe but also to low-price consumer countries such as India.”
This year Axioma is set to produce and sell nearly 200,000 meters and in 2020 this will rise to 800,000 units, as it expands its sales to North America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.
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