Interview of shareholder Director of “BSC” – Centre for Business Assistance Training-Consulting Company Samvel Gevorgyan to Mediamax Agency and Banks.am portal

- Recently, Armenian parliament approved the law on “Compulsory insurance of liability basing on use of car transport means”. Do you plan to introduce new training products, targeted exactly at this segment of the insurance market?

- We quite operatively reacted to this issue, since with the approval of the law on compulsory car insurance, a quite big market is opening for us. According to the information we have, today the car transport part of Armenia has about 400 thousand cars, only a few thousands of which have been insured. That is to say, 400 thousand owners of car transport means – individuals and legal entities, will need to get determined as to choosing this or that insurance company. In the view of this fact, one should expect serious competition, at that both in the capital city and in marzes. Undoubtedly, insurance companies, which have a regional branch network, will find themselves in a more favorable condition.

With implementation of Civil Liability of Car Transport Users, issues, related to quality of service, market research, introduction of effective products, provision of feedback with the insurer, etc, also come up. To put it short, the necessity of a competent business approach with the focus of service quality comes up. In this connection, we have elaborated training courses, which will aim concretely at insurance companies. We plan to initiate these courses already since October, 2010. In particular, we plan to implement training products, such as “Competent sale for insurance agents”, “Increase of sales with minimum expenses”, “Brand formation”, “Telephone Customer Service”, “The Art of Customer Service”, “Efficient Business Communication”, “Elaboration of Creative Ideas”.

It is planned that there will be both open and corporate trainings carried out on the mentioned topics. According to our forecasts, the courses will be demanded both from the part of already working insurance employees, and by potential employees, who will be hired in regional branches of insurance companies. In connection with this, one can state with confidence that compulsory car insurance will open a big market for our company as well.

- How active were banks and financial establishments over the past year as to investments into human capital? Do you consider the level of financial market employees’ involvement in educational programs?

- The crisis, besides negative phenomena, brought certain positive tendencies as well. In particular, commercial banks started attaching great importance to human capital. In this view, the crisis became a lesson for the banking system of the country, due to which the leaderships of a number of banks and other financial organizations strengthened understanding of the fact that without investments into human capital it is difficult to withstand the crisis and not to yield in a serious competition struggle. 

Human factor is of key importance in any sphere of business activity and, first of all, in quality and competent customer service.

There are banks in Armenia today, which make serious investments into human capital. Concerning our company, following the results of the past six months, I can single out “Ameriabank”, “Inecobank”, “Armswissbank”, “ACBA-Credit Agricole Bank”, “HSBC Bank Armenia”. Of course, there are banks, which, just like previously, do not pay special attention to this aspect or demonstrate a primitive approach, taking the path of realizing staff reductions.

Among credit organizations, I can single out “Finca”, “Bless”, “Express-Credit”, “Aregak”, “ACBA-Leasing” UCOs, from among insurance companies – “Garant Limens”, “INGO Armenia”. Representatives of mentioned banks and financial establishments participate both in corporate and in open trainings.

- A year ago, “BSC”, jointly with Oxford Financial Training, organized exclusive trainings for employees of banks and financial organizations of Armenia. Are such trainings planned for this year?

- Contacts of “BSC” with training companies from CIS and Europe countries are mainly targeted at commercial banks, and are of continuous nature. This year, we have already carried out a corporate training with participation of an invited Russian expert. The training was devoted to sales in banking sphere. Employees of “Ameriabank” and “Inecobank” participated in the training.

We are at a stage of negotiations with Russian “Oxford Financial Training” company, planning to continue cooperation in three directions: open, corporate and the so-called abroad trainings. Oxford Financial Training Company is very active as to carrying out trainings in a number of European countries, and in this view we hope to provide our banking employees with the chance to participate in such trainings abroad. One can assume that the cost of these trainings will be high, but I believe that for banks, which focus their attention on human capital, these training will be interesting. 

Given successful completion of the negotiations, we hope to receive the status of exclusive representative of Oxford Financial Training Company in Armenia.

Using the chance, I want to note that we have taken up elaboration of “BSC” strategy for the coming three years, where the emphases will be put on concrete spheres and specific trainings, for instance, trainings on customer service concretely for banks and credit organizations.

Today “BSC” is the only Armenian training company, which elaborates the schedule of trainings six months ahead. Thus, trainings on 30 various topics are singled out for this half-year, which are distributed among 7 specific directions, concrete days and hours. 

- What is your assessment of cooperation with Dutch “Triodos Facet” consulting company and do you intend to use the experience of this company for organizing training programs for micro-credit organizations?

- “Triodos Facet”, with which we have an agreement for exclusive cooperation in Armenia, is specialized in three main directions: assistance for development of business, industrial sectors and micro-crediting organizations. In the last bloc, the company works in 47 countries of the world. So far, our cooperation with “Triodos Facet” has been built at the level of consulting as to corporate social responsibility, realization of marketing research.

Today, “Triodos Facet” carries out works on consolidating and expanding the bloc of assistance for micro-crediting organizations. The Dutch Company has elaborated new training products for micro-crediting organizations, which, I hope, will be presented in a medium-term prospect in Armenia as well within the framework of our exclusive cooperation.

- Recently, “BSC” presented manual on corporate social responsibility for farmer companies. Do you carry out research concerning the policy of social corporate responsibility, realized by the Armenian banking system? How active are banks in this direction?

- The entire idea of this manual was the following: 5 years ago, at the initiative of “Triodos Facet”, we, jointly with ICCO (Dutch Development Program), took up implementation of the idea of corporate social responsibility in Armenia. We singled out this component, since the following components enter the idea of corporate social responsibility: fair trade, responsibility towards the employees, customers, suppliers, the state, environment, etc.  

In the final end, we talk about the so-called chain of supplies – purchase of raw materials, production, its sale to the wholesaler, from the wholesaler to the retail network, and then to the final consumers. The ideology of corporate social responsibility is to turn the chain of supplies into a chain of values. For instance, in Europe the final consumer cares about what conditions there were and who participated in production of this or that product. This interest is caused by the fact that the consumer wants to be sure in fair distribution of the received profit to each participants of the chain of supplies.

We started from farm economies, since agriculture is important for Armenia and, at the same time, it is a risky sphere of activity. From among 15 various branches of agriculture, we chose three – apiculture, dairy production and tomato cultivation. While working with farmers, we faced constant problems: in particular, in contracts, concluded between farmers and processing companies, the emphases are put on the interests of processing companies.

At the same time, often farmers face problems not only because of processing companies, but also because of their own fault. An example: a contract has been concluded between the sides of the deal, according to which the purchasing price for the tomatoes makes 25 AMD. Quite often, farmers are the ones to violate the contract, selling their production to a third party at a higher price, for instance, for 30 AMD. 

Our plans on researching the component of corporate social responsibility are not limited to only one sphere. We intend to continue work in this direction and in other segments of economy. In this connection, we are very much interested in the financial sector, and, in particular, the banking system, which offers public services. There are banks today, which attach serious importance to this component of its activity and vice versa. Among banks, responsible in this issue, I would like to single out “Ameriabank”, which realizes a serious program on funding small HPPs.