MOTORI RASTA Božidar Poldrugač i Goran Leci

Guest Božidar Poldrugač i Goran LeciHosted by Boris ŽivkovićMay 3, 2026

Božidar Poldrugač i Goran Leci

About this episode

What you'll hear in this conversation

Končar, a company celebrating a century of operations, has long been a fixture in electro-energy and transport. Now, it navigates the terrain of digital transformation, not as a radical departure, but as a "digital evolution," as board member Božidar Poldrugač calls it. This isn't about discarding a hundred years of expertise, but about integrating new digital technologies into a deeply established foundation. Poldrugač and Goran Leci, also a board member, share how a traditional industrial giant approaches a landscape often associated with startups and agility. They discuss the strategic advantages of connecting Končar's fundamental electrical engineering knowledge with modern digital capabilities, and how this fusion enables them to create new, sophisticated solutions previously out of reach. Readers will learn how a legacy enterprise identifies and executes digital change, balancing internal process shifts with the development of entirely new product offerings. It's a conversation about growth not from a blank slate, but from a century-old bedrock of domain expertise.

Insights from the conversation

What to take from this episode

Božidar Poldrugač describes Končar's approach as "digital evolution," not transformation. For established companies, the path to digital relevance isn't a radical break from the past, but a deliberate enhancement of existing capabilities and products.

Končar's unique strength, as Poldrugač explains, lies in its ability to "connect two worlds" — deep electro-technical domain knowledge with new digital technologies. Rather than a hindrance, a century of specialized knowledge becomes a distinct competitive advantage when combined with modern digital tools.

Digital transformations, Poldrugač explains, involve at least three aspects: technology, security, and corporate culture. Focusing solely on technological adoption misses two equally critical pillars: the ethical implications and the internal shifts in how people collaborate and work.

The pandemic pushed over eighty percent of Končar’s internal meetings online, yet, as Leci notes, it didn't directly change the pace of their core product digitization. Crises often accelerate the adoption of internal communication tools, but the deeper, strategic shifts in product development operate on their own, longer-term timeline.

The core work, Poldrugač says, is "portfolio modernization" — giving traditional products a "digital identity" by enabling data collection and processing. The initial step in digitizing legacy products isn't to rebuild them from scratch, but to equip them to participate in the digital world by generating and sharing data.

Končar is now producing "even more complex and sophisticated products and solutions" in electro-energy, transport, and urban infrastructure that were previously too expensive or technologically impossible. The real value of digital technologies for an industrial company is not just efficiency, but the ability to create entirely new categories of advanced solutions that address previously intractable problems.

Poldrugač emphasizes corporate culture and collaboration modalities as a crucial aspect of digital evolution, noting that "things are simply different now." Digital change isn't just about new tools or products; it fundamentally alters how people work together, requiring conscious attention to adapting internal culture.

Explore further

ScenariosBusiness challenges CardsEducational cards TimelineTopic evolution