Straetus, a franchise system within the credit management industry, recently signed a master franchise agreement for the Polish market. By doing so, Straetus takes a strategic step, filling the gap between Germany and Russia, where Straetus is already active. The Polish headquarters will officially open the first of january. Straetus targets to open 10 offices before the end of 2015. By 2020 the number of Polish offices are to have increased to 50-55.
Straetus considers Poland an interesting market because of three reasons: Firstly, because 40% of all invoices are currently being paid late. There is a demand for debt collection agencies. The current debt collectors are unable to change this, because of the old fashioned manner of collecting. Straetus collects multi channel using sophisticated software, a central database and network. Transparency and compliance are key values for the whole chain. This level of collecting is new to the Polish market, especially for our target group: Small and medium Enterprises (SME); Secondly, franchise is an emerging market. Only 350 franchise systems where registered in Poland in 2005, this number increased to almost a 1000 franchise systems in 2015. To put these numbers into perspective, we see the same number of franchise systems in the Netherlands on a population of just 17.000.000 people. Poland has a population of 38.000.000 people. In the Netherlands, Franchise is considered a trusted, proven and highly respected business model; And thirdly, Poland has a strong economy and an increasing middle class. This middle class is important for our line of business as it buys on credit and is creditworthy. Every country containing these three marks, is considered a target country. In these countries, Straetus is looking to appoint a master franchisor. Straetus’s international headquarters is based in Amsterdam. It is a privately owned company founded in 2009 operating as a franchise organisation. The Straetus group contains over 35 offices, located in The Netherlands, UK, Germany (Swiss and Austria), Russia and now Poland. In 2015 Straetus also targets to open in France, Romania and Bulgaria. The first pilot store is to be opened in the USA mid 2015