The FINANCIAL — Esabi Ltd, the one of biggest Georgian IT companies, is celebrating 20 years of success in developing the IT market of the country.
The FINANCIAL interviewed one of the stakeholders and Director of the company Mr. George Bakanidze who says that 20 years of company investments in the development of IT infrastructure, state institutions and commercial firms has assisted the Georgian economy in being much closer to the IT standards of the European and US communities.
Mr.George Bakanidze reviews the company’s activities over the said period and speaks about the experience of the company and the products they offer customers.
Mr. George Bakanidze adds that the local market in Georgia is still developing and is more responsive to technical novelties in comparison with other Caucasus countries.
Q. Esabi has existed on the local market for 20 years already. The company is of the same age as independent Georgia. From today’s perspective, please evaluate this period and the company’s development?
A. It’s a bit difficult to sum up such a long period, so it’s easier to speak about the company’s development. I have to remark on the fact that these years have been quite hard at times and full of challenging periods to overcome in order to have the final face of the company that we present nowadays. We, like all companies existing on the local market have gone through quite a tense period most recently. We have seen wars and many other problems in the country but we managed to survive and maintained our strength and the right activity directions. We now believe that we can overcome any potential future problems too based on our market knowledge, expertise, qualified company staff, and permanent company structure which change in line with customer demand.
Q. Who established the company? Who are the stakeholders and partners of the company?
A. Me and Mr. Zurab Darsavelidze are the equal right stakeholders and owners of the company and have been since its very establishment.
Q. Who are Esabi’s main customers?
A. Our company was established in 1989 on the 12 December. The company first started working as a Xerox Ltd. partner. Of course it’s an American company and our first customers were American companies – the American Embassy of Georgia. Other missions were also added to the list of our customers, including USAID, the UN and EU. Our strong excellent business reputation gave us the opportunity to make a sale of equipment and service support to all foreign embassies in Georgia. In 1997 we became the first partners that signed a contract with the American company HP, which is the producer company of computer technology and extended Esabi product portfolio to give our customers more that we could provide them with before. Then we found new partners in office technology providers Kinderman and GBC which is an office accessories provider. Also last year we became direct partners of the American company APC. We consider the Esabi product portfolio balanced at the moment to satisfy every customer of the country in terms of IT.
Our main clients on the local market are the international organizations and embassies, organizations equal to them, diplomatic corps, governmental organizations, ministries, as well small and medium sized businesses. We have our retail show room and have a Digital Print Shop equipped with the latest Xerox and HP equipment specially designed for Graphic Arts industry situated on Vazha Pshavela street.
Q. What customer services does Esabi offer?
A. I would like to remind you that Esabi has a retail shop and service centre with qualified engineers certified by Vendor’s training centres ( Xerox, HP, APC, Microsoft, Oracle and others) with a services agents network to cover cross country customers warranty and post warranty support. Also Esabi Digital Print Shop gives advanced print and copy documents services on a fast and quality basis. We have a head office in Tbilisi that coordinates activities of the company together with a partner service support network.
Q. What is the business strategy of the company?Â
A. Our strategy is 100% our customers’ satisfaction. We serve our customers to fully meet customer expectations.
Q. What is the marketing strategy of the company?Â
A. The marketing strategy is competently, fast and fully informing Esabi customers about all novelties in equipment, software, solutions and services which the company can deliver to the Georgian market.
Q. Esabi has become the winner of many governmental tenders. Tell us more about the governmental purchases?
A. We always take part in tenders organized by governmental bodies; we are winners of some big projects. We also take part in tenders organized by international organizations that help Georgia its development. I can name a project of the Ministry of Education of Georgia, a project of the Ministry of Finances, Georgian railway, Parliament of Georgia, Prime Ministry’s office, Ministry of Defence, Public Register and others. We have taken part in a UN project organized for the development of the Imereti region of Georgia. There are many other tenders which we have taken part in.
Q. What are Esabi’s benefits on the local market?
A. First of all our quality of service makes us different from other companies. We also have quite larger share of experience than most because there are only a few companies that have been working on the local market for such a long time as us. Our company has a wealth of experience of working on the Georgian market and that’s the main advantage of ours; we know what and how to offer our clients in order to make them fully satisfied. One of our strongest points is our service support centre to support all the equipment and software we sell with a high level of competence to our consumers. We have very serious and experienced engineers, certificated and trained abroad in the companies mentioned above and that’s what gives us the opportunity to offer the highest quality service to our customers. Â
Q. What are the most popular software products that Esabi offers its corporate clients?
A. We offer a full range of computer operational systems to our corporate clients, office programmes, antivirus programmes and software solutions that help our customers keep data secure in all their activities. I will name some of them: these are the products of Microsoft Corp., Kaspersky production, Symantec production and also Adobe products used in documents design.Â
Q. The company offers a very wide range of computer equipment. Which products are the most in demand?
A. It’s hard to distinguish the product most popular among our customers but the biggest demands are for the products that are offered to clients in the right way, the product that will be more profitable for the customer. If you know the meaning of the word Esabi in old Georgian it is – bringing profit – and that’s why this word was chosen as the name of our company. We try to give as much profit to our customer as we can.
We represent the world famous brands which have their own priorities and advantages, which in different ways suit the various demands that our different clients have. It would therefore be very hard to name one concrete product in this case.
Computers are the most demanded, most of all portable computers. According to the sales of our company and the experience of our partner companies we have observed such a tendency. We are very happy that at the beginning of this year we took part in providing laptops to EU university students.
According to our retail sales, laptops are very popular among young people. Generally they are interested in computer products and we hope that this tendency will continue with future generations too.
Q. From which countries do you import the most computer technology?
A. We import products from Europe. Mostly from Holland, Finland, Switzerland and Luxembourg. We also import products from Ireland and France as well.
Esabi gets the majority of office accessories from Germany and Hungary.
Q. The sphere of informational technologies is one of the most fast developing ones, a fact which always reflects on the product for sale. What novelties are there in this regard, what are the modern technologies and their possibilities?
A. You have mentioned the term “fast developing” in the right context in this question. It’s so fast developing that it’s hard to even keep on top of it it but according to our company strategy we are always informed and try maximally to keep up with every kind of change. There are many novelties, production is changed at least once a year and it’s a bit hard to name any concrete changes because computer technology progress is very fast developing and if we compare the development scale of automobile and computer technology, then for the moment automobiles might as well have come to a complete standstill. The progress is also due to the technology changes that try to satisfy all the demands of the consumer in technology production.
Esabi is changing together with our customers. We are moving into project business to optimize customer data flows by offering solutions like billing solutions for Telecoms, corporate data flow management automation in Government institutions, solutions for banking to reduce their expenses per every electronic or paper document paper page, low cost solutions for Graphic arts and corporate print shops and others.Â
Q. Please compare the dynamics of desktop computer and laptop sales. How popular are they in Tbilisi and in the regions of Georgia?
A. For the whole of Georgia when speaking about the comparative sales of laptops and computers of course the more popular product is the desktop, but in retail sales the most demanded is the laptop.
Q. What are the main demands of customers nowadays and have they changed compared to previous years?
A. Of course they have changed, there is a more refined consumer in Georgia at the moment and this is similar to the situation in fully developed countries. In every family, people are becoming more aware of the characteristics, the usefulness of a product, how to choose it and where to buy it from. The most remarkable thing is that whereas 8-10 years ago the average customer would buy a cheap computer and not care about its services at all, over the last 3 years the tendency has been that most retail customers prefer to pay a bit of a higher price but get a higher quality product. They prefer to buy computers set up by the manufacturer, which have the factory’s guarantee for 3 years, rather than ones set up on the local market.
Q. What is the average age of most of your customers?
A. The age range of our customers in retail sales begins from the age of school pupils and ends with adults who need a computer for their work.
Q. What is the development strategy of Esabi?
A. The strategy is development and improvement of our 20 years of experience. We are going to implement a culture of consumption of equipment bought by official producers and manufacturers, because at the moment the majority of equipment available in Print Shops are bought in China under nameless production with no service support. The companies using these products try to look after the equipment at their own expense which is quite unacceptable at serious job and they spend more money and resources on improving these products. We just want to change this tendency and make people used to buying products under the official brands which have proper service support. People do not have official programmes at home and this is a very serious issue absolutely unacceptable in Europe or the States, but one that is popular in post Soviet countries. We are trying to change this psychology amongst the people in Georgia at the moment.
Q. As you know this interview will be published in an edition focused on American business, which will be accessible to many potential partners or investors. Does your company need investments and if so, what kind of investments?
A. Esabi together with Esabi partners is permanently investing in the economy of the country, our customers. It is the best type of investment and one we consider a key priority.
Q. What priorities do you see for the Esabi business over the next five years?
A. As I mentioned before customer satisfaction is a number one company priority. We focus on the right solutions for any business’s size. No matter how simple or complex the challenge we are committed to partnering with our customers to find the right solutions for them, every time. Building on our 20-year heritage and understanding demands of the local market, we continue to bring advanced technologies, workflow, and integrated solutions, all supported by business development tools and resources to help them achieve their specific business goals.
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