Сборник бизнес-кейсов алматы, 2015 Выпуск 1

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LIKE A DUCK TO WATER 
A. Lipovka
Success Group Ltd. rendering services as 1C Company’s franchisee was bought out by its key 
managers in November of 2014. The new owners– Alexandr Kuznetsov and Alexandr Izokh – had 
reconsidered the strategic goals of Success with the purpose of its competitiveness improvement. The 
set targets required changes to the current business practices. At the beginning of 2015 the new 
directors faced a series of challenges in the field of human resource management. 
In 2003 a group of programmers developed the project solution and software architecture on the 
basis of the program product 1C: Enterprise 8. Owing to the success of this software engineering, it 
held much favor of users and companies. The next step was to open an enterprise and obtaining the sta-
tus of 1C franchisee to deal with other configurations. So, the “Success Group” Ltd. was launched in 
Almaty in 2003. The programmers joined for realization of their creative potential to change people’s 
minds on 1C low quality caused by poor services rendered in this field in Kazakshtan. The company’s 
goal was to oppose their high-quality service to negligence of existing franchisee competitors to raise 
consumers’ trust in 1C: Enterprise. With this purpose Success introduced a clear professional technolo-
gy of implementing project automation: consulting → requirements specification → embedding → im-
plementation → training → support. 
Since 2005 Success started implementation of full-fledged 1C projects and active participation 
in partner programs. Under economic crisis conditions of 2008-2010 Success followed the strategy of 
cost containment and customer retention. The professionals were given bonuses for intensive work 
improving the quality of rendered services. The high quality services allowed retaining regular 
customers. For 10 years of work the Success joined the 7 largest providers of 1C services in Almaty 
region. During this time piece they gained the experience of serving above 900 large and medium 
companies. Since 2008 the company actively had been involved in automation of enterprise budgetary 
management on 1C: Consolidation platform. Their consultants demonstrated a profound expertise in 
arrangement of budgetary management and financial analysis.
In 2014
two key managers of Success - Alexandr Izokh and Alexandr Kuznetsov - supervising 
all the projects bought out the enterprise. Alexandr Kuznetsov obtained BA in finance, MSc and MBA 
in management from a local business school. He had work experience as a budgeting specialist in a 
large confectionary plant, planning department head at garment factory, and project manager at the 
enterprise rendering well-boring services. Mr. Izokh – the second co-owner – graduated from one of the 
Russian technical universities with major in electronic computing, he was a rare specialist equally 
competent in two spheres: information technologies and programming. Mr. Izokh was previously 
employed by the large national telecommunication company as a chief programmer. The owners’ 
education and background allowed embracing the primary company’s activities and dividing 
management into information technologies and programming, and budgeting and financial an»alysis. 
Thereby their positions in Success had been defined in compliance with their competencies: Kuznetsov 
as director on methodology and Izokh – director on programming.
The Success’s mission was defined as “providing relevant and functioning technologies for 
successful development of our customers’ businesses”. The company’s goal is not just introducing the 
system of automation but providing an effective tool to help customers to complete their strategic tasks. 
As a logotype a dolphin had been chosen to support the company’s idea on assisting enterprises in 
development of their businesses by providing high-class services in 1C: Enterprise. The emphasis was 
made on the major characteristics of a dolphin – rescue and safety - and the well-known Russian 

66 
proverb “like a fish to water” with its English equivalent “like a duck to water”.
The Success rendered a range of complementary services: 
сomplex automation of enterprise 
management and accounting system, provision of software products, engineering, installation and 
application of software, software maintenance, IT-outsourcing, training of software operations, and 
consulting. The software with which the company operated was: 1C: Consolidation, 1C Financier, 
Customer Relationship Management, documents circulation, 1C: Sale, 1C: Pharmacy, mobile 
application along with engineering of own configurations. The strong sides of the company were 
managerial accounting, financial accounting, budgeting, and documents circulation,
the weak sides - 
field solutions. 
The Success had 110 competitors – 1C franchisee companies in Almaty city. The direct 
competitors were Exsolcom, Universal Business Consulting, 1C-Sapa, Consulting Business Center 
Eurasia. Nevertheless, the Success cooperated with its competitors, even sometimes they resent each 
other prospective customers, if they knew that they had been unable to render quality service in this 
field.
The Success differentiated itself from its competitors by the following distinctive futures: 
• Providing complex services: from company’s examination and requirements specification 
development to introduction and training users for application of the program software. 
• The special approach to implementing project solutions, thanks to which work results be-
come more predictable, operations more controllable, and employees more efficient.
• Fully meeting client needs: development and proposal of the optimum solution of client 
tasks.
The Success business strategy since its launch was growth. They grew slow but annually. In 
2005 there were 5 staff members, at the beginning of 2015, 25 employees worked in the company. The 
personnel policy was focused on growth of personnel with low and medium qualification. The core of 
programmers was insufficient, that lead to their total overload and performance of additional functions 
by them. In 2014 when the new owners commenced their independent way of managing, and economy 
started its recession, they decided to continue the strategy of stable slow growth with 10% annual profit 
increase within the 3 next years.
The technical support services had been optimized, and the clients loyalty towards the company 
grew. The amended customer relationship management was introduced by new rules that became more 
regulated and businesslike (commercial): official relationship changed the familiarity cultivated by the 
previous owners. Previously Success rendered services to some customers in a friendly way, free of 
charge. This rule had been altered by the new price list included prices for all services even 
consultation to clients. As a result Success lost some customers but kept the most loyal, stable, and 
profitable.
The next step became reorientation to longer projects (from 6 months and more) that can bring 
more profit such as participation in tenders. The launch of the new direction – mobile application – 
revealed new perspectives for Success. This mobile application was designed for application 
development on the basis of the mobile operating systems iOS and Android. A new sales manager and a 
qualified professional in iOS development had been employed with the company. Besides one 
enthusiastic programmer had been assigned to this project and provided with training in this field.
At the beginning of 2015 top-management set one more strategic goal - to hold the seventh 
place in 1C Company’s rating in 2017. All of 1C franchisee were subject to this rating based on the 
number of certified specialists, quantity of published implemented projects, and the presence of the ISO 
9001:2008 certificate. The mentioned criteria determined the place of the franchisee on the 1C 
Company list. The prospective customers appealed to this rating to find the 1C provider, the first 
companies in the list were more compatible. In 2013 Success occupied the eighth
place, at the end of 

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2014 - the twelfth place as a consequence of the certified 1C specialist’s quit and decrease of the 
published projects number. The publication of an implemented project had taken a lot of time due to the 
close examination of the published information by the 1C Company. In its turn, ISO certification 
required big financial investment, employment of a staff specialist in this field, a greater number of 
personnel. 
The Success employees were divided into 5 structural divisions: administrative, sales, 
programming, project and development, and technical support (Appendix 2). The Administrative 
department included 3 employees: an accountant, an office-manager, and a driver. 4 consultant-
developers and 4 interns worked in the Project and development department. The Sales department 
embraced 4 sales managers. The director on programming supervised work of 2 departments. 5 
programmers of the 1
st
, 2
nd
, and 3
rd
categories worked in the Programming Department. The 
Department of technical support involved 3 technical consultants of 4
th
and 5
th
categories.
The company classified 5 categories of programmers to motivate the employees to work better 
as the compensation of 1
st
category programmers was significantly higher than of 5
th
category 
specialists: 
• 1
st
category programmers - the most qualified professionals who demonstrate solutions of 
high difficulty, knowledge of programming languages, knowledge of complicated server op-
erations, skills of configurations development. 
• 2
nd
category programmers – specialists with advanced skills, abilities in developing program 
configurations,
knowledge of programming languages, and preparation of complicated re-
ports. 
• 3
rd
category programmers good at developing reports, perform additional work with prepared 
configurations. 
• 4
th
category programmers perform additional work with prepared configuration and provide 
consultation services to clients.
• 5
th
category programmers give consultations to clients.
The key personnel was divided into 3 categories: salespeople, programmers, and consultants-
developers. The primary source of candidates recruiting was the HeadHunter portal, Success’ website 
and, additionally, for some projects the company appealed to profile universities for obtaining high 
potential interns. The recruiting process started when the company needed to fill in the new opened 
vacancy. The selection process was represented by a series of face-to-face unstructured interviews. 
Director on methodology was in charge of recruiting advertisements preparation and selection of 
salespeople, consultants-developers, and administrative staff, director on programming dealt with 
potential programmers. On average, they organized selection in three steps: an initial interview focused 
on theoretical knowledge, personal qualities, and situational questions. The secondary interview 
concentrated on work experience, specific professional skills and abilities. The third step - brief testing 
- was designed basing on the vacant position requirements.
Personnel compensation was represented by the bonus system: the bonus constituted 50% of 
additional payment to the basic salary. The size of the bonus could be negatively changed, if the 
company’s discipline was violated, for example, tardiness, untimely project submission, etc. 
Nevertheless, there were no clear written deduction rules, and such kind of decisions were made solely 
by top-managers. Success regularly reimbursed tuition fees for 1C specialists certification. Upon 
obtaining the 1C certificate these employees often left the company, and Success initiated a new 
recruiting and selection campaign.
For the last three years 5 employees quitted the company annually. 
As the new strategy was defined by the Success, they started reconsidering their human 
resource management practices. Mr. Izokh supposed effective to employ already certified 1C 
programmers and consultants-developers, while Mr. Kuznetsov deemed the best way was to train and 

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develop young employees with comprehensive skills. Two owners after a long discussion decided to 
work in two ways as a pilot project: to hire already certified professionals and prepare young but 
potential generation for certification. They wondered whether this pilot project would be effective. 
Additionally, they had to address several HRM issues critical for the company’s competitiveness 
improvement.

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