CORRIDOR 03
Germany ↔ Poland
This is the corridor nobody thinks they need help with.
The border is open, the supply chains are already braided together, everyone speaks some English, and the flight is an hour. Companies therefore skip the step they would never skip for a distant market — and then spend two years finding out what they assumed.
The four places it usually breaks
Familiarity replaces diligence
A market that feels close gets checked less carefully than one that feels far. The error rate is not lower. It is simply discovered later, once there is a contract.
Decision-making sits in different places
Who is allowed to say yes, at what value, and how much of that authority is written down — this differs sharply between a German Mittelstand supplier and a Polish counterpart of the same size. Negotiations stall because the person who can decide was never at the table, and nobody on either side says so.
Price is read differently
The same number carries a different signal on each side of the border. One reads it as confidence, the other as an opening. Both are being sincere.
EU-wide does not mean uniform
Shared regulation does not produce shared practice — in procurement, in certification, in what an authority does with a file that is technically complete. This is where a “we already comply” assumption gets expensive.
What we do in this direction
We sit on both ends of this one too. The company is Polish — GIPCBS sp. z o.o., registered in Warsaw, entered in the KRS, reachable under Polish law. German is a native language in the house, not a service we buy in.
Neither of those is a claim about the other side’s market. It is the reason we can describe both of them without flattering either.
STRONG FIELDS IN THIS DIRECTION
Business services and controlling Digital transformation and AI FinTech
THE CORRIDOR THAT LOOKS EASIEST