The FINANCIAL — Customer’s perception of a company is connected with the brand’s name, quality, slogan and CEO. As our respondents explained, Georgians are very fond of personalizing a company by recognizing its executives, meanwhile most famous Georgian company’s chiefs are still unknown to people. Experts named three reasons why executors choose to stay in the shadows: personal background, lack of “oratorical” abilities, and the decision of a second’s adroit tactic which means not making too much noise, so as to avoid pressure from officials.
ICI Paris, Voulez Vous, Nikora, TaoPrivat Bank, Pepsi, Goodwill, Populi, Socar, Rompetrol, Sante WP, BP, Eco Food, Teliani Valey, Telavi Vine Cellar, Madneuli, Energy Invest, this is just a short list of companies whose CEOs are incognito to customers asked by The FINANCIAL.
Magti GSM (David Lee and Gia Jokhtaberidze), Geocell (Osman Turhan), Centre Point (Maia Rcheulishvili), Aversi Pharmacy (Paata Kurtanidze), Bank Republic (Gilbert Hie and Lasha Papashvili), TBC Bank (Vakhtang Butshkrikidze), Coca-Cola (Temur Chkonia), Borjomi (Mamuka Khazaradze), Wissol (Samson Phkakadze). The brand names listed above are directly associated with the names of their CEOs.
“In the Georgian reality we have an ability of the personification of each company. While abroad customers trust in the address of a company is only based on the quality of the goods. Actually the problem of personification can’t be spread through whole segments,” Otar Tabatadze, psychologist, explains.
“The personality of a CEO is considered next to the name of the product, slogan and quality, which raises the popularity of the product. The CEO is one of the ways of improving a company’s reputation. The private history of the CEO depends on further associations which customers have from placing a concrete name with a concrete company,” says Akaki Kheladze, Head of the Management Department at Caucasus School of Business (CSB), Caucasus University (CU).
The main rule of the modern market’s demand is: the importance of who you know and how you are known and not – what you know. “The CEO’s job is not only completed by fulfilling management roles inside the company but also being a representative of the company. For better managing of the company, what’s more important is having contact with people and society. Representing the company to the customers and orientation at the environment is as important as care for the service which he offers,” Kheladze, CSB, CU, says.
Some chiefs are not very communicative and may therefore negatively affect their companies. “If we discuss the example of ex Head of the Chancellery of the Georgian Government, Kakha Bendukidze, he stated in his most recent talk with journalist Inga Grigolia that he had not been allowed to talk publicly over the past year. Maybe this was because of his negative image and the antipathy of our citizens towards him. Accordingly, each of his words would have had a negative influence on our government’s image,” Akaki Tavadze, lecturer in the Management Academic Department of Tbilisi free University, ESM-Tbilisi, says.
The result of Georgians’ stereotypical thinking is the result of some CEO’s decision to remain a player behind the scenes.
There are some companies who are still associated with their old chiefs, in spite of current CEOs’ hard work, for example, Magti GSM and People’s Bank. “For many people Magti is associated with George Jokhtaberidze, son-in-law of former President Shevardnadze, who is still the main player in this company. The question is how Jokhtaberidze’s appearance will influence his company today. As we know the image of the person depends on his/her political background,” Tavadze, ESM says.
As Kheladze says, our citizens still remember examples of how small and medium sized companies became bankrupted just because they did not have close relations with the Government.
Otar Tabatadze, psychologist says staying in the shadows is good for Elizabeth Bagrationi, Georgian singer, who is at the same time PR of wine company Badagoni, and one of the shareholders of JSC Iberia.
Kheladze says that more questions will appear if a company is connected with a person’s name who has no background and who became a millionaire in a day. “It’s clear why ex MPs don’t want to appear as active businessmen and choose to stand in the shadows instead. It’s clear because a lot of people will ask how? How did an engineer, later an official, who also did not have a high salary, manage to create such a big industry”.
Next to unacceptable personal background is presumed the more profitable policy of standing in the shadows and avoiding pressure from different ways. “There is a saying in business: the second’s adroit tactic. It’s much more profitable for companies to stay in the shadow. The main attack always comes at the leader of companies; the organizations standing in second position make their case more calmly. Of course Socar will get more benefits while blurring information about its shareholders, as one of the founders of this company is the former Minister and member of the Georgian Parliament Ivane Chkhartishvili”, Tavadze, ESM, says.
Most of the foreign CEO’s working in Georgia now are studying Georgian, wearing national costumes. As Kheladze and Tavadze explain, such steps are very well accepted by Georgians. “Why does the director of Geocell, Osman Turhan, appear in public so frequently? Because this company is presumed a Turkish company, and his comments about his private lifestyle and aspiration to study Georgian are focused at destroying this barrier between the two nations,” Tavadze, ESM declares.
There are some cases when companies are associated with their PR managers. Another reason for a chief’s passivity is named their non communication abilities.
“For a long time people named George Khutsishvili as the executive of leading Georgian wine company Teliani Valley. While Khutsishvili was a worker of the company’s marketing department only. Today an ex-executive of the company is a MP but in spite of customers’ huge interest in the identity of the politician he is still in the shadows. I think the reason must be low communication skills,” Tavadze says.
Tavadze names another reason why Teliani Valley and its CEO were not focused at networking,
“At that time there was a huge demand on Georgian wine in Russia and so no one cared that much about the label. After the closure of the Russian market when companies started assimilating on the local market they started being more focused on PR and marketing actions”.
Written By Madona Gasanova
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