Entrepreneurs’ Day in Kazan: trainings from KPMG and Ozon, art of negotiations and new partners

Learn, learn more, learn forever

Entrepreneurs’ Day 2019 in Kazan was timed to the eponymous holiday, which is celebrated in Russia on May 26. It was obvious that this event was a holiday to any passer-by on the pedestrian part of Peterburgskaya Street. A string trio, as well as a small fair with the participation of Kazan businessmen, was located near the House of Entrepreneurs, where the Fund for Support of Entrepreneurship of the Republic of Tatarstan headquarters.

At the same time, the basis of the holiday, as Director General of the Fund for Support of Entrepreneurs of the Republic of Tatarstan Aydar Salikhov stressed, is not entertaining, but educational. The House of Entrepreneurs held on this day 9 educational sessions on various topics: “Financial instruments for business development”, “Creation and promotion of brands in modern digital reality”, “The art of negotiation” and others.

Among the speakers, there were deputy director for auditor strategy international group of “the big four” KPMG Denis Akhmetvaliev, three top managers of Ozon online retailer, founder of New Media Lab, former brand manager of Odnoklassniki social network Sergey Menshikov, director of ONLINECONTRACT electronic trading platform Alexander Gurov and a number of experts.

“We tried to proceed from that it will be interesting to and in demand by entrepreneurs, we did a survey among them and identified topics that will be interesting, invited speakers from various areas,” Aydar Salikhov said before the beginning of the event.

The organizers said that more than 900 online applications for participation were submitted to the event. It is unlikely that the House of Entrepreneurs could accommodate such a number of businessmen at once, but visitors were coming and going during the day: many were interested in a very specific platform with a specific speaker. The organizers suggested that the peak of visitors could come at the end of the day when representatives of Ozon came.

“Ozon is interesting to many entrepreneurs in Tatarstan. This is due not only to the construction of a logistics centre in Zelenodolsk district but also to that Ozon is going to develop a strategic programme for the development of e-commerce market in the country,” the organizers explain.

Meanwhile, the most popular of the morning sessions was the platform “The art of negotiations”, where the speaker was the author of the book You Can Negotiate Anything by Stanislav Martynov. The hall where he spoke was filled to capacity, and some visitors preferred to listen standing but to get to the lecture on negotiations.

Budget for SME support is growing before our very eyes

Rustem Sibgatullin, the first deputy minister of economy of the Republic of Tatarstan, director of the department of business development and competition, also congratulated the participants of the event. In his speech, he recalled that in 2019 the record amounts have been allocated to support entrepreneurs in Tatarstan.

“Within the framework of the national project, the Republic of Tatarstan has the opportunity to allocate 2,4 billion rubles for the development of entrepreneurship. These are funds from the federal and regional budgets. There are various support measures, such as microloans at 7,5%, and the guarantee of the Guarantee Fund of the Republic of Tatarstan to banks, preferential leasing and a lot of other tools. All measures of support, by the way, can be found in this House of Entrepreneurship.”

This is already by 200 million rubles more than the April data, which was announced to journalists by Tatarstan Minister of Economy Farid Abdulganiev, and 16 times more than last year. However, the value of 2,4 billion is not the final data. On Entrepreneurs’, the ministry of economy of the Republic of Tatarstan sent a message, which says: within the framework of the national project, the government of the Russian Federation is to allocate additional funds to support agriculture, which also applies to SMEs. The total figure is 2,8 billion rubles, the press service of the ministry explained to Realnoe Vremya.

Business problems — administrative barriers and human stereotypes

“One of the problematic issues the entrepreneurs address to the ministry of economy of the Republic of Tatarstan with is the problem of the access to financing,” said Sibgatullin in a conversation with the correspondent of Realnoe Vremya. “It is no secret that banks are more interested in working with larger companies. The second issue is various administrative barriers: with the authorities, with regulations, with legislation.”

The issue of financing is being addressed, including within the framework of those very programmes to support entrepreneurship, Sibgatullin explained. With administrative barriers, the issues pose a bigger challenge, but even here the authorities can provide some assistance.

“There are regulations on the provision of certain procedures for entrepreneurs. We can somehow ‘speed up’ them, reduce the number of days or the number of required documents. There is, for example, the ban on the discovery of those documents that another department has, so that state bodies requested them not from the entrepreneur, but from each other,” said Sibgatullin.

Meanwhile, the participants of the event drew attention to other problems that businesses have in Tatarstan.

“People often believe that all life is in Moscow, and our region lags behind, and customers turn for services and products directly to Moscow,” said Yulia Martynova, the manager of Kazan Gefest-Capital. “We always tell clients: you look at yourself first, it is necessary to support the republic. There is a certain stereotype of thinking in people.”

Besides, several entrepreneurs wished more forums like Entrepreneurs’ Day were held in Kazan. “This is a platform where you can, first of all, meet new partners. In ordinary life, there is no time for this at all,” the participants explained.