Serikbay Bisekeev

The Kazakh is recognized as one of the best businessmen of Russia

Recently, Serikbay Bisekeev, the President of Arman Holding has joined the finalists of the Russian Stage of the International Contest “Entrepreneur Of The Year 2012” (it is called as the “Oskar for business), having been awarded in the B2B category

The competition initiated by the Ernst & Young company over the 27 years, has expanded in more than 50 countries, including the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, Japan, Malaysia. Bisekeev has become the first Kazakh abroad, who has received such recognition. About how he managed it, he told the Forbes Kazakhstan.

F: What was the guarantee of your success?

"We managed to start up a company, which gathered the best programmers, engineers, vendors, who have participated in creation of the product, which is competitive in the world market. In the high-tech solutions (in the field of B2B (Business to Business) we are now leaders in the world.

If you ask: does anybody know the products, produced in Russia or in Kazakhstan? And it should have a sign “made in Kazakhstan”, for example, on TVs, computers... There is no such thing; we only sell oil and gas. We have the products of the military-industrial complex left over, such as Kalashnikov, tanks, planes. There were hardly any products at all, which were created in the Post-Soviet time. This is a fact. But we have managed to create such products.

F: You were born in the Kostanay Region, but have been living long in St. Petersburg. How did it happen?

- I am from the Kamyshinoe village. I graduated from a school there. In the Soviet time, if you had sports category, it had been much easier to enter any institution. I studied in a sports class, we had far-sighted trainers and teachers, and all of my classmates are very grateful for them. And in the sport we were among the best in Kazakhstan and studied well: graduated from the school with gold and silver medals. All entered the higher educational institutions in Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. All successful people work in the well-known companies, some have launched their own business.

F: In what University did you study?

- In Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. After graduating during the hard times in the 90-s I stayed there. As I was Kazakh, I had to make deals with all, set a tight policy and put myself in such position to be respected as a man. All of this was in the past.

F: From what did you start your business?

- From the student days I started it: I had to make my bread and butter and help parents. There were construction brigades and shuttle trips to the Baltic States: we transported equipment, electric saws and drills; brought things. Then together with the guys we worked on a stock exchange, on foreign currency operations we could earn good money. Then a new market – GSM-communication was introduced to the market. Fortunately, Finland was so close to the Saint-Petersburg that it was possible to get there in an hour, borrow some new ideas and learn how to build business.

F: How did you develop your business?

In the 90-s the first GSM-operator in the post-Soviet space was opened in St. Petersburg – North-West GSM (now it is called the MegaFon), and not in Moscow, as many people think. I was one of the originators of this business and supplied the first cell phones to all operators in the CIS, including KCell. In the Stockholm Business School I defended the diploma project “Creation of a cell phones network in public places”. In 1998, the cell phone users were mostly wealthy people, businessmen and all had cars. Among them there were not people who travelled by the underground.

And when I was building the network I rented the premises with 5-6 square meters, took on consignment the goods from producers, having only showcases. Everything was easy, but nobody was doing it at that moment.

Then the Euroset’ and other cell phone monsters were introduced to the market. There was already a question: who has more money? If you had a billion, then you could buy the products of Nokia and Siemens in larger amounts, get the best discount and sell the best cell phones. It was impossible to compete with them and I sold my network sold, understanding the business of foxes and raptors.

I knew where to go next, to someplace where there is no question like who has more money. It was necessary to find a competitive advantage, when everything will depend on you. Create a new fashion and find your niche.

One of them was the industrial communication. And there was yet another niche that was not occupied. At that period, all industrial enterprises made investments in machines, production facilities, and no one thought about the infrastructure of the plant.

At first I became a distributor of the German equipment, and then realized that nothing was complicated in the equipment production. Our customers were very peculiar and sometimes asked specific functions. We did everything what they asked, wrote for them our programs, creating own product.

We understood that new technologies, new processors and new chips had to be introduced to the market every six months, and our main competitors made it very slowly. Our market at that time was so conservative. The major players of it in the West had arranged their life successfully; they led steady life and didn’t think about the fact that every year a new product should be introduced to the market. And we being young and strong decided as soon as possible to implement the new features and new opportunities of products and that is why soon we became one of the market leaders. Our customers are the industrial enterprises in the oil and gas sector, metallurgy, energy, undergrounds, airports, ports and etc.

F: In what countries is your company represented?

- Our headquarter is in St. Petersburg and representative offices are in Kazakhstan, Germany, India and Singapore. We are planning to open other rep offices in Brazil and in the Arab countries, where the market is growing very fast. Moreover, the Southeast Asia has the population of more than 600 million people. In Russia and Kazakhstan the construction is held mostly in summer, but there in Southeast Asia the climate allows to build all year round, so the number of constructed facilities is much more. For me the challenge is to gradually become in this region the number one. India and Southeast Asia – that's the goal I set and I am planning in the near future to concentrate on these markets.

F: How many people do in total work in your business?

- All in all 180 people. What is our advantage? We don’t try to produce all the products on our own. We hire good contractors, who make for us circuit boards, press-forms, some of them engaged in casting. And our competence is software. We don't want our product to be copied and that is why in principal sense we don/t go to China. This is a country that is engaged in making use of the experience gained by other countries. But why shall we pass it? Now many Western European countries understood it, and many things have already been produced in Europe. India went the other way: people create joint ventures and develop in a civilized way, and that is why we are focusing on this country.

F: What Kazakhstan enterprises are using your products?

-          Now our customers are the enterprises such as KazMunaiGaz, Kazatomprom, the Airport of Astana, the Subway of Almaty and some of the power plants. We cooperate with the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Kazakhstan. By the way, the military agencies of both Russia and Kazakhstan are working using the Soviet technology, but the heads of these States speak about the necessity of innovations and high technologies. We are ready to provide it for them, but they pose barriers – for example, associated with military acceptance. Everything there is kept in secret; we are told that we can't take part in it. But this is ridiculous. The U.S.A. is a leader in military technology, however 90% of all deliveries are carried out by private companies, and they do not need to pass some military acceptance. Russia is now wondering about this too: indeed, all microchips are made in Asia, not in Russia and not in Kazakhstan. So give the chance to the private companies to work in this market; and what is need to be encrypted – we will encrypt without problem.

We see what is happening now in the Ministry of Defense of Russia, what money is disappearing from the budget, so we should change our mentality. There is no need to invent a bicycle again, it had already been invented by the successful Western companies. I want to bring in Kazakhstan this world experience and do not ask anybody money. I shall bear any responsible for the quality of implemented solutions.

Not every company with such a number of people has such results. Our employees over the year conducted 200 trainings, we make investment in improvement of their competence.

In Kazakhstan often say: why should we conduct trainings for the employees – tomorrow they can go to another company. But if we reason in this way – nothing will change. We are setting for our employees long-term policy, they have the opportunity to pass the certification, get the chance to lead one or the other business line, and each of them has its own strategy for growth. We advocate that through the competence we can improve the welfare of employees, and, accordingly, the company's competitiveness. Having created quality jobs, good wages we make the world better.

The President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev is making steps in this direction, in particular, on increasing of Kazakhstan's content. In Russia there is no support for domestic manufacturers – neither one particular business, only talk. And now they are beginning to understand that they need to create jobs. Why, for example, the jobs are created during assembling of Volkswagen and Renault, but not created for the supply to Gazprom and Rosneft’? After all, you can make the pumps, valves and etc. Why don’t they do it?

In Kazakhstan in this regard, the President made a very big contribution, and each company has strict guidelines – 50% of Kazakhstan content. I like it. Now we are going to move our production here.

F: Have you already decided to what city?

- Now we just choosing and considering. There is ALATAU PIT (Park of informational technologies) in Almaty, there are different sites, but you need to find competitive advantages. Otherwise what is the difference, where to assembly: in Saint-Petersburg or in PIT Alatau?

F: How, in your opinion, has Kazakhstan created conditions for business development? Businessmen complain about all sorts of barriers, high taxes, corruption...

- I agree that there are a lot of barriers, but they are removed gradually. Corruption exists in the whole world, but only in different forms. But Kazakhstan still is changing fast – comparing, for example, with Russia: it is large and less mobile.

We need to use the good education that Moscow and St. Petersburg gave us. Need to integrate, draft joint projects and invite good speakers. Our company was trained on international project management standards, such specialists in Kazakhstan are unique. Personally I am ready for free to read lectures in the largest higher education institutions of the country and share with them my story of success.

You have to be born an entrepreneur: there is a gene in the blood that allows you to see what others do not see, to take responsibility for the risks. I think that in Kazakhstan there is a good business environment. I'm ready to tell you about how you can easily and simply change the world around you, create new jobs and give entrepreneurs the opportunity to deliver the products for the domestic manufacturers.

The new generation is more courageous, it can be taught to take risks.

Photo by Andrey Lunin.

By Larisa Chernenko,

Source: Forbes.kz