In an interview for CFOtrends, she explains how our company, with revenues exceeding CZK 1.1 billion, continues to achieve record results while maintaining zero debt — all without any external financing.
The year 2024 was a record-breaking year for OKsystem. Our company exceeded 1.1 billion Czech crowns in turnover and achieved a net profit of 194 million Czech crowns—nearly double the previous year. Concurrently, we surpassed the 500-employee mark. According to Zuzana Hofová, CFO of OKsystem, these results confirm that even a conservative model—without external financing—can generate stable cash flow while also creating room for reinvestment.
Before diving into the financial matters, let's clarify one thing. OKsystem is currently presenting itself as a family-owned company. How did this come about?
We have gradually transformed into a family company only in the last decade. OKsystem was founded in 1990 by my father, Martin Procházka, along with three other partners. For many years, we successfully developed as a classic commercial company. It was only recently that my father gradually bought out the shares from the other founders, and subsequently involved me and my sister Eva in the top management.
Two generations of our family thus hold the majority of voting rights while also being members of the statutory bodies. For me personally, it is a great challenge, but also an honor—to build upon a quarter-century of work by the people who built the company from scratch.
What advantages does using your own resources bring you compared to using external capital?
The main advantage is freedom and independence. In business, we don't waste time negotiating with financial institutions, and we don't have an investor pressuring us for a quick return on their funds. We can "run the long race," making decisions calmly with a five, ten, or more years horizon.
We respect the wishes and customs of my father, who, as the main shareholder, takes a conservative approach to business and financing. This means long-term growth combined with diversification of activities, taking reasonable risks, and no unnecessary loans or experiments with external capital. Probably thanks to this, OKsystem has been profitable for practically the entire 35 years with a large amount of equity.
Do you also feel any disadvantages to the conservative financing model?
A disadvantage can be slower growth. If we worked with loans or investors, we could pursue more aggressive growth through acquisitions. The conservative model forces us to plan everything long-term and be selective in our investments. However, the advantage is absolute control over decisions and high resilience to market fluctuations.
Organic growth is slower but stable. We are pursuing a path of gradual expansion—product by product, market by market. From a CFO's perspective, it's conservative but less risky. An investor would want us to grow faster, but at the cost of higher indebtedness or loss of control. That is not our model.
How do you decide on profit reinvestment?
Decision-making happens along three lines: the development of our own products, the creation of reserves, and acquisitions. We keep some capital as a liquidity cushion in case of problems with key contracts. Another portion goes into products with a clear return on investment—typically the HR system OKbase or tools with export potential, such as our Checkbot for monitoring industrial robot operations. And then we monitor acquisition opportunities, where we assess not only the ROI but also the synergies and long-term benefit for our solution ecosystem.
You announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Sense4Code and the associated investment in their core product, Scormium, this summer. Why this particular acquisition and what are your internal criteria for selecting targets?
Scormium was a clear choice for us. It is a modern cloud-based education platform that appropriately complements our personnel system OKbase, and it is also used by our training center. I like that it is a product with the same philosophy—software as a service, simple deployment, great added value for companies, and an orientation towards foreign markets. Most importantly—the demand for employee training, and thus for a platform like Scormium, is growing.
We have other successful acquisitions as well, such as a minority stake in the startup project VacayMyWay in the USA and a majority stake in the wine e-shop VinoDoc. Generally, we evaluate targets based on ROI, potential for synergies, and also geographical expansion. We are always focused on a longer-term intention.
How do you measure the return on investment (ROI) in your own products
We monitor not only sales but also the margin, market share, and the product's ability to attract further customers to our services. For us, proprietary products are not just a source of revenue, but also a strategic tool for retaining customers within our ecosystem. Therefore, we measure ROI in a combined way—both financially and strategically.
An established company like OKsystem is attractive to investors. Do you receive any offers to buy out the company?
Yes, offers come in, but it's not a relevant topic for us. We see them as confirmation of the value we have built. However, our goal is not a sale, but long-term independence.
If you look ahead, what do you see there?
Definitely further expansion—we want to operate internationally and continue to develop all our products and services in the domestic market. Our conservative model is proving its worth: we are financially stable, have equity of over 700 million Czech crowns, and zero debt. That is an advantage we intend to maintain in the future.
You can read the full interview in Czech on the CFOtrends website