Key Skills of an Outstanding Businessman: Secrets of Success by Aleksandr Buinoi

Aleksandr Buinoi, a recognized leader in the IT industry, has significant experience in IT and management, which became the basis for creating a successful business.  His knowledge in marketing research, software development and financial control allowed him to create and implement innovative approaches, which became the determining factors of success of ELKO Group and Skysales LTD.

In today’s business, it is imperative that leaders have both managerial and technical skills. Managerial skills are essential for making informed decisions and effectively managing processes, which helps optimize the performance of the entire organization. At the same time, technical literacy allows to effectively use the latest technologies and tools to solve various business problems, which significantly increases the competitiveness of the company. Using the example of Aleksandr Buinoi’s personal experience, let us consider how management skills, strategic vision and technical knowledge help to successfully manage projects in large companies.

Management skills: a foundation for achieving business goals 

“From the very beginning of my career, I paid special attention to developing skills to effectively manage teams and processes. For this purpose, I had to constantly study various management techniques and strategies, and actively interacted with different departments, which allowed me to take into account the opinions and suggestions of many specialists when developing and implementing projects,” recalls Aleksandr Buinoi about the beginning of his professional path.

Aleksandr’s work in ELKO Group marks the realization of the first and immediately successful projects. For example, the ELKO Meetup 2018 event was held in 2018, timed to coincide with the company’s 25th anniversary. The Markit project, which included a meeting with leading IT industry players such as Dell EMC, Microsoft, Intel, Samsung, TP-Link, Kingston and Seagate, was aimed at strengthening ties with key partners and vendors, as well as creating a platform where customers and vendors could discuss current trends and conclude mutually beneficial agreements. Moreover, the new EU GDPR directive was introduced, requiring contracts and business processes to be revised to comply with the new legislation, which was also a deciding factor for the event.

Aleksandr was responsible for management tasks: selecting participants from Estonia, organizing and conducting direct meetings and negotiations with vendors, assisting in closing deals, and participating directly in negotiations. Such a project required the coordinated work of many departments, so the businessman needed to build effective cooperation in order to achieve a positive result.

“We have developed a qualitatively new format of the event for the Baltics, as a result of which there is an opportunity to listen to live speeches of speakers,” notes Aleksandr Buinoi.

The realization of the project helped ELKO Group to strengthen its position in the market, increase sales and share in purchases. Clients got an opportunity to interact directly with manufacturers, negotiating more favorable working conditions. Aleksandr, in his turn, gained a valuable skill of workflow management.

The importance of strategic vision for company development 

Strategic planning skills allow not only responding to current challenges, but also anticipating future market trends. Aleksandr Buinoi regularly analyzed the competitive environment and studied new technologies to find opportunities to improve processes and increase the company’s efficiency.

From 2019 to 2021. Aleksandr Buinoi managed the Arvutitark project, the idea of which emerged after analyzing the share of ELKO Group in the company’s turnover. The indicators were disappointingly low – the share was less than 10%. So, Aleksandr decided to personally work on the growth of the company’s turnover and profit by creating an innovative business strategy.

Thus, at the stage of analysis and preparation, the businessman identified the reasons for the low share of ELKO Group, which were the lack of credit limit, the need for customers to pay bills in advance, insufficient runoff on those products that the customer bought on a regular basis, as well as the inability to deliver products directly to the private customer from the supplier.

Next, the development of a problem-solving strategy began. At this stage, Aleksandr actively cooperated with the finance, logistics, purchasing and product managers. For example, he managed to negotiate with the finance department to raise the limit for receiving the necessary documents and guarantees from the customer. After negotiations with the purchasing department, a decision was made to automatically receive the client’s report for those goods that he wants to see on the stock, and to hold them under the client.

Taking into account that at that time most of the competitors already had B2C delivery for all customers, ELKO Group needed to offer its own technological solution in a short period of time. For the realization of the project it was strategic planning that was important, in the course of which the main major problems hindering the company’s development were identified and tactics for solving these problems were developed.

“Thanks to my strategic measures, the share of ELKO Group has increased significantly. The importance of implementing B2C delivery, concluding a new agreement with Arvutitark, and integrating software to automate direct orders to customers was identified. This innovation helped ELKO to offer competitive services and increase customer satisfaction with the developed application”, summarizes Aleksandr Buinoi.

Technical skills are key to success in the digital age 

Aleksandr Buinoi, who graduated from the Faculty of Information Technology at Tallinn University, has always had a special interest in researching advanced techniques for developing and implementing software solutions. The businessman has constantly followed new trends, which has enabled him not only to create quality products, but also to offer customers innovative solutions that meet their needs.

Aleksandr’s technical competencies play a key role in his ability to make informed decisions. For example, his work on process automation allows him to significantly improve the efficiency of business operations, reducing costs and minimizing the probability of errors. Implementing new technological solutions, such as project management systems or data analysis tools, allows him to optimize work processes and improve collaboration within the team. Thanks to basic programming skills acquired at university and experience in developing application software solutions, Aleksandr creates and implements software projects for his business.

Back to Arvutitark, this customer experience model also included the software part needed to select product groups with personalized offers.

“We needed a report on widely popular products that could be forwarded to the client, so that the client could understand which products could be taken to the stockpile and successfully sold. There was no such information inside the ELKO system, so I wrote a small application in Java and React that allows you to take any goods from the company and see their popularity on the marketplace. No one in Baltic IT distribution had ever combined such data in one report before,” says Aleksandr Buinoi.

It is noteworthy that technical sales managers do not usually write applications themselves, but the tool developed by Aleksandr at ELKO is still in use today, helping clients to successfully shorten stock days thanks to the fact that they get reliable information on product popularity. Now B2C delivery works for 45% of customers, taking into account that the rest do not fit the profile, i.e. do not work directly with private customers. The project only took about two months to launch.

Aleksandr Buinoi demonstrated his managerial, strategic and technical skills most clearly when working on a project to train a new employee. This was necessary to minimize damage to sales in the face of a change in the person interacting with customers.

This project was important for the company, as the quality of customer service directly affects the level of sales and reputation of the firm. Maintaining trusting relationships with clients is a key factor of successful business in the B2B segment.

Aleksandr Buinoi, as a successful leader, clearly demonstrated to the new employee the importance of effective management of meetings with clients. “I realized that every meeting is not just a formality, but a strategic step towards strengthening relationships with partners and clients,” notes the businessman. In this context, he organized meetings in threes, which allowed him not only to introduce the new contact person, but also to create an atmosphere of trust and openness.

Aleksandr created a roadmap for each client, including agreements, procedures and tricks that the client was used to. These details were passed on to the new employee to ensure continuity of service. Moreover, the businessman shared important aspects of customer interactions such as personalized weekly product picks, product recommendations with sales growth, etc. Using his example, Aleksandr showed the employee the importance of interaction with various departments of the company, including purchasing, marketing, logistics, warehouse, etc. Thus, Aleksandr Buinoi, as an experienced manager, showed his strategic skills not only in the process of working with clients, but also in training the new employee.

Also during this project, Aleksandr trained the new employee on the company’s internal IT systems and technical aspects of the products, which is an important component of effective performance of work tasks. He explained in detail how to use various programs and platforms that are necessary to manage customer data, track sales and analyze performance. This training included not only theoretical knowledge but also practical training where the employee could learn all the necessary skills.

The training was successfully completed and the new employee was quickly integrated into the work. The implementation of the project not only strengthened ELKO Group’s position in the market, but also demonstrated the importance of the above-mentioned skills for successful business.

Ultimately, his ability to plan and manage projects, as well as to implement innovative technological solutions, helped Aleksandr to create and develop his company Skysales LTD, which deals with consumer goods trading, thanks to the firmly built relationships with companies all over Europe. The success of the company is evidenced by the fact that Skysales LTD is one of the top 500 European sellers in terms of turnover, beating many competitors in the market.

Summarizing the results, Aleksandr Buinoi demonstrated that successful business requires not only technical knowledge, but also strategic vision and the ability to manage work processes. These skills became the basis for achieving high results, strengthening the company’s position in the market and increasing customer satisfaction.

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