After years of experience in various marketing positions, Filip decided to make a change – he wanted to move closer to more tangible products and services than software and entered the world of facility management. Today, as Marketing Manager at OKIN Facility, he sets the strategy, builds the brand and connects marketing with sales. In this interview, he talks about what he enjoys about his job, why facility management is not an easy field, and the challenges that await the company.

Filip, what motivated you to apply for the position of marketing manager at OKIN Facility?

After working as a marketer for Seduo (note: educational platform), I felt that I needed a change in how I wanted to move forward and profile myself as a marketer. I wished to move closer to services, not purely digital products. Although I had learned a lot, I was tempted to sell something more tangible. When I saw an advertisement for a position at OKIN Facility, I was immediately intrigued. It was the first and only job advertisement I responded to about a year and a half ago – and it worked out.

So you really went all out in the selection process…

Yes, I had a series of interviews not only in Prague but also in Jihlava, I met my future colleagues and the manager. I could sense that there was interest on both sides.

Today you are the Marketing Manager for OKIN Facility, coordinating marketing activities across the group. How would you describe your relationship with marketing and what do you enjoy most about it?

I especially enjoy strategy – a holistic view and connecting within the company. It’s not just about quick reactions, it’s about long-term planning and meaningful direction. With campaigns, it’s key for me that they have a clearly defined objective – whether it’s to generate leads for the sales team, reach the widest possible audience, or effectively communicate a new service to a narrowly defined target group. It’s not enough to prepare a nice banner and wait to see what happens. Marketing activities should be tightly linked to the business and strategic goals of the company to be truly effective. We work with a variety of channels from Google and Facebook to newsletters – and try to combine them cleverly and time them well.

You work with your colleague Martin Machala, who has been working for OKIN Facility for ten years in marketing. How do you divide the work?

We’re a two-man team. I am in charge of planning, Martin is in charge of operations – graphics, text editing, visuals. We consult everything together and trust each other a lot. I respect Martin as a colleague, he has almost thirty years of experience working in advertising and is a creative, while I am more strategically oriented, so we complement each other perfectly. We often disagree with each other and have opposite opinions, which I like. That’s when the added value is created. Thanks to his experience, I can still learn something new, which I’m grateful for. I am very happy to have him in the team.

How does the marketing and business link work in the OKIN Facility?

Collaboration is also fine because marketing falls under the sales director. But there is still a lot to work on, we try to do things in a way that marketing positively supports the work of the salespeople and their efforts to win new business. We help create any materials, business and specialist presentations, case studies or sales pitches. We also do campaigns targeting specific regions and segments so that salespeople have a better chance of reaching the right clients who already know about us thanks to the campaign. We test and deploy various external tools that show us what businesses are visiting our website and what content they are interested in. This allows us to better prepare salespeople for potential meetings and equip them with relevant arguments.

What qualities are important in the role of a marketing manager?

Hard skills should be dominated by knowledge of digital marketing – i.e. social media advertising, Google Ads, email marketing – and the ability to work with analytical tools such as Google Analytics. At least a basic overview of branding, the ability to write text, familiarity with graphical outputs and the ability to give feedback on them are also useful. Project management experience is also important. In terms of soft skills, good communication, strategic and analytical thinking, a certain amount of creativity and a basic understanding of psychology are essential. Last but not the least, common sense, a general overview and an interest in what’s going on around us – marketing is such a science.

How do you apply these qualities in your position?

I love that there’s a little bit of everything in marketing – data work, project management, creativity, people management and connecting teams across the company. I also often work with operations teams, needing input from them, or for clients when we create case studies. Every day is different, and that’s what’s great about the job. From writing articles for reputable media, to planning next steps and reviewing campaign performance, to regular status updates with colleagues and freelancers.

What has surprised you the most in your year and a half at the OKIN Facility?

Apparently, facility management is a really tough business. I thought it would be easier, however facility management is a low margin industry where there is a lot of pressure on price and a constant balancing act between quality and efficiency. From the outside you think that every bigger company needs facilitiy management services- but then you realise how complex it really is. Plus, it’s interesting to see the cultural differences across the countries where we operate as a company.

What do you think is typical for marketing in OKIN Facility?

Probably that we need to be smart and flexible. We are a smaller team and we have to adapt our activities to the current needs of the business, but also to the marketing strategy, and these can change over time. Each OKIN Facility country requires a different approach because brand awareness is different in each one. We do different activities and to a different extent in the Czech Republic and different activities in Ukraine according to the needs of the market. In some places we need to improve brand awareness, in others we need to target existing clients and sell them a new service, and in others we need to start marketing step by step from the ground up.

Is there anything that you are proud of during your stay at OKIN Facility?

My first project was the creation of a new website that now better describes us as a company. The project of collecting customer feedback has also been great, providing us with valuable data for analysis. This then helps us a lot in making business decisions. I am also very pleased that we have been able to build trust in the marketing team, so that we are no longer seen as just a leaflet production company, but are helping to build brand awareness and gradually bringing in business opportunities.

Where do you see room for improvement or challenges in the future? Is there anything you would like to move forward or do differently?

OKIN Facility is often associated only with cleaning, although it offers comprehensive technical building management. Currently, many people still perceive us as a cleaning company, which does not reflect the real scope of our services at all. We want to show that we also offer complex technical management, innovative solutions such as robotic cleaning and other services in facility management. And the next challenge is definitely to move internal communication in the right direction, to better get information from management to the lower levels of the company.

How do you perceive the current trend with artificial intelligence and how is it reflected in marketing?

I perceive that AI is having the biggest impact on marketing in the ability to create different content in seconds. It’s not so much about perfect creative anymore, but more about speed and volume. Big brands are focusing on generating large amounts of content that overwhelms the media space and helps them be more visible. We are gradually adapting to the trends, but not to that extent. You always need to keep face and I say AI is a good servant but a bad master if it overreaches. Anyway, a lot of people have learned to articulate their thoughts and requirements better thanks to AI, where they have to be absolutely clear about the task at hand and constantly adjust it to get to a specific outcome.

Is there anything you’re looking forward to at work right now?

I look forward to starting to communicate more towards existing clients. We have a lot of new developments – for example, in the area of facility management or robotic cleaning – and I want them to know about them in a timely and understandable way. We are gradually moving away from the original marketing slogan We take care of it and towards communication that more clearly reflects what we actually do. We will now use the message We care about your buildings, facilities and employees. This change came out of internal workshops with management and feedback from the market – it became clear that clients and we wanted to be clearer and more specific in communicating what OKIN Facility actually does. And we really do – with quality, responsibility and honesty.

How do you spend your free time and what recharges you outside of work?

Definitely travelling and hiking. My favourite region is the Balkans – I’m fascinated by the mix of cultures, languages and customs that gives the whole region a specific atmosphere. In recent years, I have started enjoying solo camping trips in the mountains. It’s a completely different kind of relaxation – you clear your head, you are alone with yourself. And then the gastronomy – I am a passionate gourmet and I enjoy cooking too. My wife and I are food tourists, we like to discover restaurants with authentic gastronomy and atmosphere, where food is not just a means to satiation, but an experience in itself. But lately I’ve been spending most of my free time with my three-year-old daughter – and that’s a previously unrecognized, new dimension of joy.