Media
"You should only count on your own strengths!" - an interview with "Business World Kazakhstan" magazine
SERIKBAY BISEKEEV, businessman, mentor and philanthropist, founder and president of Arman Holding group - manufacturer and supplier of integrated solutions in the energy and telecommunications sectors: "Count only on your own strengths!" - Serikbay Zholdybaevich, you are a major businessman - an example of a successful entrepreneur. In your opinion, what does it take to become a good entrepreneur? - The most important thing is to be results-oriented, committed. It's quite simple: when you are interested in accomplishing something, you should try to draw up a plan of action. If everything is foreseen and broken down into phases and tasks, you can achieve results. The key to success depends 50 percent on planning. If you plan wisely, attract the relevant resources and personnel, figure everything out in advance, then I believe you will succeed. It's like project management. It is better for people to master this subject before beginning in business. As a rule, 80-90% of people are regular good performers - people who have already found their correct place. Engineers, technicians or other posts. This is why most people simply have to decide who they want to be, what they want to do, so that they can go to work with enthusiasm, have fun, and they are not just there suffering for the sake of a salary. The fundamental mistake young people make is in placing the wrong priorities on knowledge and money. If they are going to work to gain knowledge, they can soon become successful professionals and experts in their field. If they are going for a salary, they will simply not achieve any results. - Is it really that simple? What about the resources that are needed to open a business? Where can they be found, since you advise against borrowing? - Earn money by yourself. I worked unblinkingly in vegetable warehouses, unloading wagons, on construction teams, then did a little shuttle trading, and later opened cafes, bars, restaurants - little by little accumulating capital. Otherwise, if you start taking out loans and grants, you will get addicted. There is always something going on here: inflation, devaluation, or something else that will squeeze you dry. That's why I always recommend only counting on your own strengths and saving up bit by bit. You shouldn't aim to earn billions of dollars from the outset. And really, this is probably not the best ambition for people - to become millionaires. It's so much more important just to be content in life. Everyone has their own needs: for some a thousand is enough, while others need ten thousand. - These days everyone dreams of becoming a businessman. Nobody wants to become an astronaut, a doctor, a teacher or an engineer any more. Why do you think this is? And why, despite this unquenchable desire to be businessmen, do so few turn out to be good entrepreneurs? - Oddly enough, in recent years when I've asked people what they want to do in life, they typically say that they want to become civil servants. This is really people's dream - to become a minister and in some way get additional income. I'm really surprised. People who want to earn money shouldn't be thinking about the civil service - yet here they do. It is such a distorted view of where to earn money in order to be successful and happy. I think that one of the main problems we have here in Kazakhstan - and one that we need to solve urgently - is that of education. And we need to start with our schools, since there are practically no decent schoolteachers any more. The level of teaching used to be very high. Parents simply adored the teachers; the children were given a sound knowledge-base and could easily enroll in any university, for example, in Almaty. Now this is no longer the case. A gradually increasing disrespect for teachers in the 90s forced most of them to go and work on stalls at the market, since they still had to feed their families. When I talked to them, I was hurt that we have lost the best teachers - many of whom are now retrained. Our teachers are currently not of the highest standard. We need to motivate graduate teachers by offering them benefits, so that they will go willingly to the provinces and raise the level of knowledge among students in small towns, villages and hamlets. We should provide everything we can to all our young professionals, not only to teachers, all that a person in a village needs to have - house, land, cattle. There needs to be powerful motivation. And most importantly, the man in the village does not need a lot of money - if you're organized, there is nowhere to spend it. This, I believe, is normal - not so much to attract with high salaries as with comprehensive agricultural projects, since these may inspire even top graduates to go and improve things in a village . It is also important that rural children can receive a quality education in the regional centres. It should not be necessary for everyone to go and study in Almaty and Astana - there are not even enough places for them all. Let's create universities similar to the Nazarbayev University in all the regional centres. In the current situation it is very important to build clustered industrial-sector universities in each region. For example, in Karaganda it would be easier and cheaper to set up a metallurgical 'education cluster'. We also need to attract foreign teachers, who are now unemployed in Europe and around the world. If we begin to act systematically from the bottom up - with our schools - if we introduce basic English from the first grade, then we can make a break towards the information community, the world of knowledge. I believe that it is a crime if people do not learn English. It is impossible nowadays to be a successful country without English. Each university needs to introduce a basic business course – if only for one semester - since each person needs to have a notion of what this subject is all about. It's like the highway code: here you're allowed to walk, there you're not. This is to ensure that everyone understands their employer, and that the employer understands his employees. People need to understand how real businessmen in actual fact work: devoting themselves to their work from morning till night, living at risk of losing their money, their health, their family – everything. And if you're not willing to take
risks, not ready to take responsibility for everyone, then just calmly carry on being an employee – but be a professional – a top-level electrician, for instance. Develop yourself as much as possible – up to the international standards. I suggest developing systematically, because I think that the main problem in the world is that 70% of people do not even know how to read and 80% are starving. I consider poverty to be the opposite of knowledge. If we increase our knowledge and competences, we will become wealthy. It's very simple, but nobody wants to do it. But I want to do it – I consider it my mission to promote raising levels of knowledge and competencies; to pass on approaches and principles to young people. And I'm trying to do it all for free. I believe that thanks to the internet everyone can now learn remotely, to look up information and improve their knowledge. - If the problem lies with knowledge, then why don't we go back to the old, tried and tested system of Soviet education? - Please, all I'm saying is that the teachers and the ministry have different criteria. Do they have targeted priorities? What is important? It's important for the ministry to build 100 schools – it's just the budget that needs to be disbursed. But following my rationale, it's necessary to prepare 100 teachers at international levels, to train them overseas, and to adopt the latest technology in each region. This is more difficult. But it is precisely this which will lead to a breakthrough. These teachers then train others, and so on in each school. On the other hand, merely showing that we can build magnificent schools, that in education, as in medicine, we have fine-looking, modern equipment – only nobody knows how to use it – this is idiocy! This is why I say: let's reallocate money into knowledge, and not equipment. We have the equipment, we have the universities and the schools – but no knowledge! That's the trouble. That's why I'd suggest placing the correct emphasis and understanding the priorities, the key indicators. As a priority, I would set minds. When I speak at forums and give lectures, I say I'm no different from you folks: I don't have 6 hands, 7 feet, or 3 heads - but somehow I've managed to achieve something. And you can achieve all this as well. I try to explain, to prove that it's realistic. What you need is to invest your time in the right way. I always make the proposition that I am prepared to write a training manual for high schools. About how to correctly, i.e. systematically, acquire knowledge. Let's picture, for example, a man who graduated from medical school, and that suddenly decides to open his own dental practice. He doesn't have to be a super businessman to do it, but he does need to know the basics about business. Or if a graduate from an agricultural institute wants to become a farmer and breed bulls. You see, he should also have some basic knowledge about doing business. But we don't teach this anywhere – it's not even discussed. In today's society, I believe that people have to know these things. I often suggest certain changes, and my ideas are endorsed, thank God. I am glad that the government take note of some of my remarks, start to carry out certification and make changes to the legislation. I do not claim any authorship; let it all be conveyed as their words, their ideas: let them do the implementing, let them get their positions, awards and medals. For me, the main thing is to influence officials, to be able to give them advice – and they, having listened, may change the situation. Take a basic example with our Kazakh-Singapore Forum: we bring businessmen and officials here from Singapore, but there are problems with visas. That is to say, we are all constantly saying that we need to put all the conditions for investors in place, but in fact it all turns out to be totally different. I think this is one of our major mistakes: all right, if we're shutting people out, check and recheck those people who are incomprehensible to us and who come from incomprehensible, unpredictable countries such as Afghanistan or Pakistan, for example, but if people coming from Japan or Singapore are required to obtain a visa, I think it's wrong. For these people it's lost time, and loss of any desire to open a business here, because they wouldn't be able to respond quickly or fly here frequently – simply because they don't want to stand in line for a visa. Because to get a visa to our country, you have to officially go in person to an authorized body, while in Singapore they are used to everything being done electronically. One elementary thing is required – to cancel the visa requirements – and that's all: no super-laws are necessary. We even lose investors because of this. Let us at least cancel visa requirements for those countries within the top 30 – those countries to which we ourselves we wish to travel. If we want to get there, we probably believe that decent people live there. Let's cancel visas for them. Obviously they don't want to come here in order to take other people's jobs! We need to create conditions for the countries from which investors could come here. We need to remove the barriers. Unfortunately, not all of my suggestions have been heard in Kazakhstan. I proposed to hold the Kazakh-Singapore Forum in Singapore because most people in Southeast Asia, and we are talking around 600 million people here, do not know what Kazakhstan is or where it is located. The same can be said for Latin America. Maybe it's worth making the Astana Economic Forum (AEF) on a travelling basis, to expand the audience of participants by reaching a larger number of business community representatives? Not all business people that want to participate in the AEF are able to postpone their affairs in order to make the long-distance journey to Astana – especially since there are not so many direct flights here. A lot of people have expressed their regret to me about this. The thing is that, as Vice President of the "Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists" (the association responsible for preparing and conducting the forum), I invited people from Southeast Asia to the 7th AEF. I try to invite top businessmen and academics – the best and most interesting speakers from Singapore. But how can I invite them here? There are no direct flights. The flights turn out to be too long and expensive. But all the major corporations of the world have opened their offices in Singapore. And none of these leading representatives are prepared to fly here, because their time is too valuable. But these are potential investors in our economy. Now imagine: AEF arrives in Singapore, right in their backyard! A man can come out of his office and attend the event without losing 2-3 days for acclimatisation and flights. That's why I urge: "Come to the investors themselves!". Providing a mobile forum can be done without increasing costs – but by means of reasonable diversification. - As part of the activities of the 7th AEF, will you be seeking to further advance the implementation of projects to create wind farms in Arkalyk and Badamsha -projects developed by your companies KazWind Energy and ArmWind? - Thank you, that's a good question. Is it worth doing or not; I've been doing this for three years and made investments, because I believe in this way – because I think that the future lies here, and that Kazakhstan has chosen a good trend. The government of Kazakhstan won the right to host EXPO-2017 partly because they expressed support for "green" energy. In 3-4 years this trend will begin to develop more and more, and I think that power stations and many traditional energy companies will cease to exist. The world will really change soon; there will be none of those leaky mains and dangling power lines that lose 20-30% of energy. The world will change, and everyone will be able to stick solar film to their windows and generate electricity and heat. The only thing that's required is for the state to pass the necessary legislation that has yet to be adopted. For three years there has been just talk. There are still no tariffs or contracts for the sale or purchasing of this equipment. And there are no guarantees for investors. In the billing centre, which is now being organised, there is no money. Who will guarantee investors return on their investment and compensation for electricity? There is still no fully-functional apparatus, but it is long overdue. A year ago, the president spoke of the need to create conditions. A year has passed, but still nothing. I understand when there is a delay of a month – well, for two months; but when, after the president's words an entire year passes to no avail, it's more than a little frustrating. We take part in working groups – working together with the Ministry of Environment, which is currently dealing with these issues. We participate in the meetings of these working groups, suggest what should be prescribed in legislation; my colleagues from England and Germany advise civil servants, explain and indicate what else must be taken into account in order for it to function. We fully take part in this process, but alas, the passing of laws does not depend on us. For the moment everything is at a standstill. I draw attention to this problem as much as I possibly can – talking about it everywhere, at all levels and across all the media, but nothing has changed . - What do you think, why has no one dared to publish their success story on your site – despite the available opportunities and to your call to do so? What answer do you consider the most likely: a) we do not have successful businesses (businessmen)? b) timidity - they do not want to look pale against the background of your successful business story? c) fear of "shining" – avoiding being open for fear of the fiscal authorities or for fear of raiding? - I think that people who have achieved success, perhaps: a) value their time; b) are embarrassed to talk about it; c) are afraid of attracting the attention of the fiscal authorities. In general, of course, the situation is unhealthy. I've been telling everyone about my example, saying that I am happy doing what I do, because my business is primarily linked to technology, to knowledge. For instance, we do not buy real estate on principle. I've always been a proponent of this position, and it is paying off: we have no buildings, transport, machinery and the like – this allows us to be flexible, and it is difficult to take anything away from us. Life taught me this in the 90s: raiding was very developed in Russia at that time, and it was only possible to build a system of protection in this way. Of course, I don't know exactly why people are so "slow" and what makes them avoid going public about their success stories. I myself try to share my knowledge and success wherever and whenever I can. If people aren't willing to share their success stories on my website, we need to revise this part of the concept – to look for something else. Right now I'm changing the means of communication and information exchange with my audience. These days I try to do more video interviews – where people don't just get the answers from me, but also from other interesting people, who have made it in life and can give alternative advice. - What, in your opinion, does it mean for a businessman "to be successful?" - I think it means to be free. Most importantly it is the degree of freedom. If you are a person who is independent in your specific desires, and if you can make them real, then you are free. I think that now the most expensive thing is time. I always tell people: "You have free time, if you've been able to organize and plan your business so that it can run without you." If a person can provide for his family, his nearest and dearest, can provide people with jobs; if his company has the most educated professionals who are at the same time happy to work in his company and wish to remain there – then probably this is happiness. Happiness from the fact that you are with like-minded people, that you are together, and that you get pleasure from working together. - Thank you for the interview.
Interviewer Adel Anuarbekova
Source: Business Journal "Business-World Kazakhstan» № 3 (47), March-April 2014 (column "Business and Personality").
