About

About

Puz­zlepie was found­ed in the 1970s in Munich, Ger­many by Ste­fan Karpati. Dur­ing that time, the com­pa­ny was a pio­neer in an emerg­ing indus­try that was just begin­ning to grow.

It pro­vid­ed tech­ni­cal equip­ment for cul­tur­al events such as con­certs, the­ater per­for­mances, and fes­ti­vals. Since 1990, Puz­zlepie has been sup­ply­ing the
▸ “Toll­wood” Fes­ti­val in Munich, which attracts over 1 mil­lion guests annu­al­ly. Anoth­er area of busi­ness was the sound stu­dio, where inter­na­tion­al pro­duc­tions of clas­si­cal, con­tem­po­rary, and mod­ern enter­tain­ment music were realized.

In 2010, Benedikt Karpati, the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion, took over the com­pa­ny and shift­ed the focus from cul­tur­al events to indus­tri­al events. Today, Puz­zlepie is a major sup­pli­er in the DACH region (Ger­many, Aus­tria, and Switzer­land) for this indus­try. The share of high-class indus­tri­al events for inter­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions and 5‑star hotels has increased to over 80%. At the begin­ning of 2023, Puz­zlepie embarked on a col­lab­o­ra­tion with Mar­vin Mwansa to estab­lish “Puz­zlepie Zambia”.

The com­pa­ny was estab­lished as a sub­sidiary under the guid­ance and con­sul­ta­tion of the Ger­man head­quar­ters, with local man­age­ment and oper­a­tions based in the cap­i­tal city of Zam­bia. To sup­port the ini­tial phase, key oper­a­tional posi­tions such as sound and video tech­ni­cians were filled by expe­ri­enced Ger­man event tech­ni­cians. They con­tribute their knowl­edge and trans­fer it to the local col­leagues as quick­ly as possible.

Vision

The shared vision of the tourism, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and ser­vice sec­tors is to make Zam­bia one of the most rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing coun­tries in the MICE (Meet­ings, Incen­tives, Con­fer­ences, and Exhi­bi­tions) indus­try across the entire continent.

Zam­bia boasts excep­tion­al­ly high safe­ty stan­dards, a low crime rate, and a high invest­ment secu­ri­ty rat­ing. It is cen­tral­ly locat­ed with a mod­ern air­port serv­ing the south­ern half of the con­ti­nent and offers reli­able infra­struc­ture includ­ing roads, pow­er sup­ply, and util­i­ties. In recent years, oper­a­tors of 5‑star high-class con­fer­ence hotels have cre­at­ed a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of mod­ern event spaces, not only in the cap­i­tal city.

Our vision is to pro­vide all cus­tomers in the event indus­try, espe­cial­ly in the MICE mar­ket, with Euro­pean stan­dards in both ser­vice and tech­ni­cal equip­ment they need to effec­tive­ly host their events. Start­ing from our head­quar­ters in Lusa­ka, we aim to offer this lev­el of ser­vice and equip­ment through­out the entire coun­try with­in a few years.

We are already well on our way to achiev­ing our vision in a short peri­od. We have secured frame­work agree­ments with key cen­tral oper­a­tors, import­ed tech­ni­cal equip­ment, and recruit­ment and train­ing of local staff is pro­gress­ing rapidly.

Mission

We believe in the cor­po­rate cul­ture of our par­ent com­pa­ny in Ger­many, where the focus is on peo­ple, both on the cus­tomer and employ­ee side. This is not in con­flict with our busi­ness goals; rather, it pro­vides the foun­da­tion for sus­tain­able suc­cess and fuels it.

“Cus­tomer first” is the mes­sage ingrained in our employ­ees. Our cus­tomers do not eval­u­ate us based on our cor­po­rate phi­los­o­phy, but on our ful­fill­ment of their needs. If we fail to deliv­er on that, we risk los­ing our cus­tomers, rev­enue, and even­tu­al­ly our exis­tence. Puz­zlepie tai­lors its ser­vice offer­ings to meet the cus­tomer’s desires; we do not try to force the cus­tomer’s needs to fit our offerings.

“Employ­ee first” is the mes­sage instilled in our lead­ers. Only a strong team can deliv­er per­for­mance. Impec­ca­ble ful­fill­ment for the cus­tomer is not achieved by lead­ers alone but by well-rest­ed, opti­mal­ly trained, and spe­cial­ized employ­ees who have a firm foot­ing in life.

Commitments

We have com­mit­ted our­selves to a series of oblig­a­tions that can all be sum­ma­rized in one word: sustainability.

Social Sustainability:

Salaries well above the min­i­mum wage, good health cov­er­age, and opti­mal work-life bal­ance in indef­i­nite employ­ment con­tracts make employ­ees capa­ble of per­form­ing for decades. We adhere to all the stan­dards of Zam­bian labor con­tracts and go beyond by incor­po­rat­ing Ger­man stan­dards. No employ­ee should ever fear sick­ness, old age, or dis­abil­i­ty. The require­ments for occu­pa­tion­al safe­ty must meet the stan­dards of both coun­tries. Nat­u­ral­ly, we are ful­ly ded­i­cat­ed to the absolute equal­i­ty of all nation­al­i­ties, gen­ders, reli­gions, and cul­tures. Diver­si­ty is not just an idea; it is a real fact, and at Puz­zlepie Zam­bia, it is met with uncon­di­tion­al tol­er­ance and inclusion.

Environmental Sustainability:

We have a three-year plan to reduce pos­si­ble caus­es of CO2 pro­duc­tion. This includes reduc­ing waste pro­duc­tion while still imple­ment­ing waste sep­a­ra­tion and recy­cling prac­tices. While a com­plete tran­si­tion from incan­des­cent bulbs to LEDs may be eco­nom­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing ini­tial­ly, it is achiev­able with­in a three-year plan. An intel­li­gent for­ma­tion of oper­a­tional clus­ters and decen­tral­ized ware­hous­es after the ini­tial growth phase enables a sig­nif­i­cant reduc­tion in trav­el and deliv­ery distances.

In cas­es where longer deliv­er­ies to unde­vel­oped parts of the coun­try are unavoid­able, the end cus­tomer will bear the deliv­ery costs, which will be invest­ed in local envi­ron­men­tal projects. As part of the plan, our branch­es are expect­ed to gen­er­ate more ener­gy from renew­able sources (solar) than the entire com­pa­ny con­sumes, both at the loca­tions them­selves and dur­ing pro­duc­tions at event venues.

A well-equipped work­shop with high­ly skilled work­shop employ­ees aims to sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the need to pur­chase new equip­ment. Reg­u­lar inter­nal train­ing and exter­nal edu­ca­tion will raise aware­ness among all employ­ees about the chal­lenges of the cli­mate sit­u­a­tion and oppor­tu­ni­ties to con­tribute to cli­mate pro­tec­tion, both pro­fes­sion­al­ly and per­son­al­ly. The entire eco­log­i­cal foot­print will be mea­sured and doc­u­ment­ed by a com­pli­ance officer.

Economic Sustainability:

The coun­try, the state, and the cit­i­zens of Zam­bia must derive the great­est ben­e­fit from the com­pa­ny’s rev­enue. All local­ly avail­able resources are sourced local­ly, includ­ing the pro­duc­tion of parts. Any ser­vice that can be pro­vid­ed by Zam­bian employ­ees or sub­con­trac­tors will be com­mis­sioned local­ly. Euro­pean knowl­edge and stan­dards must be impart­ed in a way that enables self-devel­op­ment and progress with­in a few years.