Global Growth
Times were tight back then. Entrol’s first customer, a Barcelona school named Top Fly, purchased construction materials on its own credit card for the Bell 206 sim it ordered. (Yes indeed, Olarte is a good salesman.) From that first sale in 2005, Entrol survived year-to-year selling one sim at a time. Then they caught their first big break by selling to better-known established customers: an H135 sim to the Spanish Police and a Dauphin sim to NHV, an offshore operator in Belgium. “These customers helped our credibility as we established that the market was global,” Olarte said.
After these credibility boosting sales,
the global financial crisis tsunami swept across companies large and small and slammed into Entrol through 2009-10. “Those were very challenging times, and we were hanging by a thread and at the end of our money. We borrowed from family and friends,” Olarte says. “But I think hard work pays off and in 2011, things changed
16 Sep/Oct 2023
for the better.” That year, the company sold five units (three helicopters and two fixed-wings). This began Entrol’s second growth spurt, as the still-small company was growing its technical capabilities and growing sales, selling approximately six units annually.
Entrol’s third growth stage began in 2017 and, surprisingly, continued through COVID. Although personnel challenges arose as accomplished engineers left for more established companies, Entrol started consistently selling between 10 to 15 units per
year, and the company expanded its training line to 15 helicopter models (20 models overall, including fixed-wing) while eventually growing its workforce to 40 employees. To keep up with Entrol’s increasing and improving personnel, Olarte undertook additional executive training at the University of Navarra’s respected IESE business school. “I felt I had to improve my managerial skills and be a better CEO so the company could grow,” he says. “The education program I did in 2017 helped me a lot and modified my approach to
management and leadership; it taught me to lead by empowering people to do their work and manage the overall process, not to dictate each step. I am a fallible human, as we all are. When we collaborate with others, we can catch each other’s mistakes and better see things that were overlooked. Collaboration creates better decisions and processes.”
This professional and business development is reaping dividends. Olarte says, “People now come to us. I can feel the difference in the way the market respects us as an industry training expert.” (That respect has reached North American markets, and expect exciting announcements on that front soon.)
Now that Entrol is an established training player in its own right, fear not. Olarte is not resting on his laurels, which would rest on top of a pile of potato peels. “Work, work, work!” he says, “Reinvest, try new things every year, keep developing. The day you consider you have achieved everything or are at the top is the day to retire.”
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
