Alexander Klyachin entered the IT market. Policemen came to the Pension Fund, IBM, Lanit, R-Style

Vasily Vasin was born on February 12, 1962 in Bryansk. Graduated from the Bryansk Institute of Transport Engineering with a degree in Dynamics and Strength of Machines.

From 1985 to 1991 - engineer of the All-Union Scientific Research Diesel Locomotive Institute (VNITI) in Kolomna, postgraduate student.

There he wrote scientific monographs on how to reduce wear on heat engines, and was preparing to defend his dissertation. Becoming a candidate of technical sciences, he would start earning 300 rubles instead of the previous 120, move from a dorm room to an apartment, buy a summer cottage, get into a preferential line for a car and start preparing for his doctoral thesis.

During his work at the Scientific Research Diesel Locomotive Institute, Vasily Vasin wrote about 50 scientific articles and patented 10 inventions and developments in the field of heat engines.

“I would probably have moved along this track if perestroika had not begun,” says Vasily Vasin. “When the opportunity arose to do business, my cousin Vyacheslav Rudnikov, with whom we studied at the same institute, moved to Moscow and created“ Cooperative No. 5 ”. Initially, he provided a number of software services, including client training, development of specialized databases and software, software customization, and a little later, interest in selling computers appeared.

Back in the late 1980s, in parallel with my service at the research institute, I worked part-time in this cooperative: I brought contracts to clients, took part in negotiations ... Rudnikov spent a long time persuading me to finally go to his cooperative, and although it was hard for me to make up my mind, I eventually left from research institutes and focused on entrepreneurial activity. "

RSI was formed as a legal entity in December 1991, and at the beginning of the same year, its founders registered the R-Style company.

Vasily Vasin, co-founder of both companies and the first head of RSI, recalls that the decision to divide financial flows between different individuals and legal entities with whom they then worked was due to momentary pragmatic reasons, and no one thought that these would be different in nature of activities companies. The market was very amorphous, there was no question of any specialization. Nevertheless, the RSI legal entity was usually used to interact with those customers who, when buying a product, wanted something additional - a better discount, individual working conditions, etc.

The opinion about the specialization of RSI as a wholesale company was finally formed in 1993, when the R-Style “holding” (which neither legally nor essentially did not exist then) developed three areas of activity: retail business, regional sales and sales to regular customers ( Moscow and not Moscow), making purchases quite often and in large volumes (there was no concept of a reseller then). In the same year, the first direct distribution contract was signed with HP. This was followed by agreements signed on behalf of RSI and with other vendors. At the same time, the pricing scheme was fundamentally changed: if earlier discounts to wholesale buyers were counted from the retail price list and rather subjectively, now prices were set with the help of which RSI wanted to form its position in the market.

Registration of RSI as a separate company - with its own office, management, financial resources, etc. - took place in 1994. “There were several reasons why it was decided to turn RSI into a full-fledged distribution company,” Vasin summarizes. - Firstly, regular customers began to demand from us more intelligible and transparent working conditions, secondly, it was already inconvenient for us to work with them “in retail”, thirdly, our understanding of how the distribution business is arranged in the world - thanks, in particular, to the HP Academy in which we studied. Plus we already had several contracts by that time ”.

Vasily Vasin became the general director.

According to him, RSI was conceived as a wide-profile (by Russian standards, of course) distribution company, working only under direct contracts. Indeed, in the mid-90s there were quite a few of them, in the RSI assortment one could find both network equipment and software, the distributor also looked closely at the components. But for various reasons - market, ideological, subjective - it was not possible to maintain this “breadth”: today RSI with 13 direct contracts is one of the largest distributors, but only in selected segments of the IT market.

Over the past 15 years, as they say, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge - both in the country and in the IT market. The company also changed, often smoothly and gradually, but sometimes quite abruptly.

At the beginning of 2000, the president of the R-Style holding Vasily Vasin was forced to return to the management of RSI - its former general director Stepan Krotkovsky was dismissed by the shareholders. Not covered by the usual polite formulations, it caused a lot of rumors and speculations in the market. Explaining the reasons for this step, Vasin in an interview with CRN / RE emphasized that he was not connected with the financial results of RSI - they were "quite satisfactory." The reason is different: “The natural desire of the shareholders was the harmonious development of the holding companies, their cooperation. So far we have not been able to implement this. Sometimes there were problems: all companies keep pace, but RSI does not ... The interests of RSI often did not coincide with the interests of the group. " In addition, "some teamwork fatigue has accumulated." One of the reasons, Krylov believes, is also "in the personality of Stepan."

Vasily Vasin planned to combine both positions for at least a year, it turned out - three. During this period, in particular, the marketing service was rebuilt - it was added predictive and analytical functions, the approach to marketing programs also changed - from numerous small to a small number of larger ones; a new electronic system B2B was introduced. But this temporary “change of helmsman” did not make any fundamental changes in the RSI strategy.

Transformation time

The "combination period" ended in March 2003, when Vasin offered to head RSI to Vsevolod Krylov, at the time the commercial director. “I then replied that I was ready, but the existing technology of work does not suit me, and I will change it,” Vsevolod recalls.

An important shift in the company's policy was the start of “moving to the regions”. It seems to be a familiar cliché in the IT market. But not for RSI in 2003. In previous years, the distributor had relied on serving a narrow circle of large dealers. For example, in 2001, Krylov recalls, 85% of sales were generated by only nine dealers, in fact sub-distributors, of which, at best, one was not from Moscow.

However, in the long term, such a business cannot be sustainable and profitable. Therefore, RSI had to revise its dealer network development strategy. Significant efforts to correct the sub-distribution bias and relocate business to the regions, undertaken in 2003-2004, paid off. According to the company, at the end of 2005, 54% of dealers are regional firms, and their share in RSI's turnover reached one third.

In the same 2003, social packages were introduced in RSI, then only a few IT companies provided them. Employees began to pay for health insurance, a point system of payments was introduced, which depended on the position and length of service.

The company periodically analyzes which of the available services are readily used by employees, and which are not, and what else would interest them. Therefore, the contents of the package are gradually changing - from what management can and wants to what employees want.

The IT market, the surrounding business environment in continuous movement, time requires adjusting a number of established business procedures, increasing the efficiency of the distribution "machine". Improves its business and RSI, strengthening relationships with partners, "licking" internal mechanisms. Time will tell what will happen next, how the forms of work and the structure of the company will change. The main thing, according to Vsevolod Krylov, is to gather a team of like-minded people, and it seems that he succeeded.

In the last two years, the state of business of the R-Style group of companies can be most accurately described by the words "restructuring and acceleration". The most important event is the structural reorganization, as a result of which the “architecture” of the holding acquired a classic linear form, and the business management system became more transparent and efficient.

Vasily Vasin, the chief ideologist and leader of the restructuring process, emphasizes that both external and internal reasons forced the decision to take this step. “Today the situation in the IT market is noticeably different from what it was two or three years ago. The country's economy is developing steadily, therefore, in our sector, sales of equipment and services are growing rapidly. The regions are developing at a promising pace, he says. - To meet the requirements of the time, it was necessary to improve the efficiency of all structural units and optimize the management scheme and interaction between the divisions of the holding. But I must admit that the restructuring of a large company is troublesome. " By the way, in May Vasily Vasin defended his thesis for the degree of candidate of economic sciences. The topic of the dissertation is “Socio-economic aspects of management optimization in computer companies”.

From now on, the holding includes 16 firms - independent legal entities, united by the R-Style brand.

According to the president, thanks to the measures taken, it was possible to strengthen the position of R-Style in the IT market and lay a solid foundation for further development. The effectiveness of the changes is also evidenced by the fact that last year the turnover of the group of companies increased by 26% compared to 2001.

It should be noted that during the restructuring the holding not only did not reduce, but also increased its business activity. Thus, in 2002, new service centers were opened, agreements on service maintenance of their products were concluded with a number of foreign and Russian suppliers, the number of retail stores selling computer and office equipment increased, and R-Style Computers released cluster solutions based on the Intel platform. And this is not a complete list of what has been done.

But Vasily Vasin is not going to "rest on his laurels." “Overall, I am satisfied with the results of the work,” he says. - However, there are still many problems, the solution of which is waiting in the wings. Looking back, I see that we were able to realize about 70% of our potential. If it were possible to track all the trends in time and give the necessary orders, then the turnover growth last year could be about 35% ”.

A characteristic feature of today is the acceleration of the processes taking place on the market. “Two years ago, we worked out a development plan for the company. I must say that, in general terms, our predictions came true: today the holding, with the exception of small details, looks the way we intended, - says Vasin. - We miscalculated only in one thing - we had to implement the plans at a faster pace. The scope of work, which was initially allocated for three years, had to be completed in 12 months. "

In addition to the strategic management of the holding, the president has another priority task - to create a team of qualified top managers heading individual companies and delegate maximum authority to them. As R-Style employees note, their boss is doing well. Perhaps, football hardening affects. Football is a collective game. According to Vasin, “it is important not only to be able to score goals, but, when necessary, to pass a pass, and to take the little man on himself so that he would run past next time”.

The employees of the holding call the style of the president's leadership calm, although emotions sometimes take their toll. Usually, important decisions in R-Style are made collectively - the president is interested in the fact that the employees understand the general strategy of the company. But it also happens that there is no time for clarification. In difficult and responsible situations, you have to be tough, but this is rather an exception to the rule.

Vasin considers himself to be a rather soft leader: “Sometimes it is clear that an employee does not cope with the work or makes serious mistakes. But I'm giving him a second chance, a third. Although it is probably more correct to count to two. "

The President of R-Style defines his policy towards the players of the IT market as "flexible". In some situations, he tries only to react to the actions of competitors in order to maintain the position of his company, in others, he pursues an aggressive line, playing ahead of the curve. But the goal is one - to remain a leader in the selected segments.

“When evaluating the success of a business, we look not only at financial performance,” he explains. - It is important for us to occupy a leading position, therefore we consider the competitive environment and our place in it. For example, last year, according to IDC, R-Style entered the top three in the system integration market. This result suits us. And if one of our companies is not included in the top five - there is a reason to think and take action. "

The president is self-critical of his own mistakes and shortcomings in his work. According to him, decision-making is sometimes delayed, not all transactions are prepared carefully enough. For example, we entered into an agreement with one of the vendors, but its products did not go as expected ... Then they remembered: after all, experts had warned about possible problems.

But these, according to Vasin, are minor mistakes. They do not have much influence on the holding's business. There were no large, let alone fatal punctures. Confirmation of this is the financial condition of R-Style.

R-Style today

Now the R-Style and e-Style holdings include more than 30 companies located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, 10 regions of Russia and Kiev. Among them - R-Style Computers (production of computer equipment), RSI (distribution of computer equipment), R-Style (system integration and project business), R-Style Trading (retail trade of computer and office equipment), R-Style Softlab (development and the introduction of computer programs for the automation of banks and enterprises), R-Style Service (maintenance of computer and office equipment).

The total number of employees working in the holding exceeds 2000 people. In 2003, the total turnover of the holding amounted to about $ 300 million.

The main activities of the R-Style holding are the production of computer equipment under its own brand; distribution of computer equipment; system integration and project business; after-sales service of computer equipment; retail trade in computer and office equipment; development and implementation of software for complex automation of banks and enterprises.

"News"

Policemen came to the Pension Fund, IBM, Lanit, R-Style

In turn, the president of the R-Style group of companies Vasily Vasin told Kommersant that in his office the investigators were interested in the documentation related to the company's contracts with the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation, "the supply of equipment to the fund, the development of programs and technical complexes." At the same time, he noted that as a result of the actions of law enforcement agencies "the work of the company is almost completely paralyzed." When asked whether the prices for contracts with the Pension Fund were too high, Mr. Vasin replied: “All purchases by state institutions, including the Pension Fund, are carried out on the basis of a tender. We have supplied the fund with equipment in many cases at very low prices. We lost very often. Sometimes they won. But that doesn't mean anything. "
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 19801.htm

People who know how to relax

What happened suddenly? R-Style President Vasily Vasin explained to Kommersant that his “company has fulfilled the agreement on the supply of computers to Gosnarkokontrol in full. The discrepancy between the characteristics was upward, that is, we supplied more powerful laptops than planned. But for some reason this did not suit the customer. "
link: http://www.compromat.ru/page_ 23086.htm

Vasily Vasin, President of the R-Style Group of Companies

Vasily Vasin, the chief ideologist and leader of the restructuring process, emphasizes that both external and internal reasons forced the decision to take this step. “Today the situation in the IT market is noticeably different from what it was two or three years ago. The country's economy is developing steadily, therefore, in our sector, sales of equipment and services are growing rapidly. The regions are developing at a promising pace, he says. - To meet the requirements of the time, it was necessary to increase the efficiency of all structural units and optimize the management scheme and interaction between the divisions of the holding. But I must admit that the restructuring of a large company is troublesome. "
link: http://www.crn.ru/numbers/reg- numbers / detail.php? ID \u003d 8897

R-Style: IT Distribution Goes Down

The decision to close RSI was not spontaneous and not a crisis, Vasily Vasin, President of the R-Style Group of Companies, told CNews: “For a number of years, the direction of hardware distribution has shown a decrease in margins and attractiveness in the structure of the group's diversified IT business”. All hardware distribution was not concentrated in RSI (a significant part of it is supplies for specific projects), the share of the closed company in the revenue of the direction is not named.
link: http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/ index.shtml? 2010/03/15/382769

Vasily Vasin now runs the R-Style company

Vasily Vasin, president of the R-Style group of companies, told IT-daily that Gennady Chibisov resigned at his own request; he is currently on vacation. At the same time, the president of the holding noted that Mr. Chibisov is not going to leave the group of companies. His new position is expected to be announced next week.
link: http://www.algonet.ru/?ID\u003d 298612

FAS entered the IT company into the register of unscrupulous suppliers

R-Style President Vasily Vasin confirmed the information on the inclusion of the subsidiary in the FAS register, but noted that “the company has fulfilled the agreement in full”. “The performance mismatch was upward, meaning we supplied more powerful notebooks than planned. But for some reason this did not suit the customer, ”he explained. According to Mr. Vasin, on June 11 he wrote a letter to the FAS with “a reasonable request to cancel the earlier decision,” to which he has not yet received a response.
link: http://www.erus.ru/public.cms/ default.aspx? eid \u003d 4669878

Victims of the crisis: R-Style closed the RSI distributor

In September 2009, its CEO Vsevolod Krylov left RSI. According to some reports, the president of the R-Style group Vasily Vasin planned to head the company. In the CNews rating of the largest IT companies in Russia in 2008, the R-Style group is ranked 8th with revenues of 21.5 billion rubles. Income growth in comparison with 2007 was 12%, the number of employees of the group at the end of 2008 was close to 2000 people.
link: http://www.cnews.ru/news/top/ index.shtml? 2010/01/25/377209

Vasily Vasin replaced Gennady Chibisov in the position of general director of CJSC "Company R-Style"

Vasily Vasin was appointed General Director of CJSC “Company R-Style”. From now on, he will combine the positions of the CEO of the R-Style company and the president of the R-Style group of companies. General Director of CJSC “Company R-Style” Gennady Chibisov left his post.
link: http://www.e-xecutive.ru/news/ news / 474555 /

RSI left the market with dignity

The president of the R-Style holding Vasily Vasin told iBusiness that he was not ready to comment on the incident yet, but promised that he would soon explain the reasons for this decision. In the meantime, we have only the information that we managed to obtain from sources familiar with the situation in the company, but who were not direct participants in the events.
link: http://old.ibusiness.ru/ companies / 499974 /

Successes and problems of the ICT industry

However, not everyone fully agrees with this point of view. For example, the head of R-Style, Vasily Vasin, believes that it may take longer to carry out a project on his own, but, as a rule, it will be more reliable than buying someone else's business for it. In any case, it is better when subsidiaries, even if purchased by a larger holding, retain the features of independent business units - then they remain more competitive.
link: http://ccc.ru/magazine/depot/ 04_09 / read.html? 1001.htm

R-Style in multidimensional slice

In March, the information agency RosBusinessConsulting (RBC) published a rating of the largest companies in the Russian IT industry. In accordance with it, the R-Style holding, whose annual turnover is approaching $ 300 million, entered the honorable top three. And although at a press conference held two weeks later, R-Style President Vasily Vasin did not confirm or deny this figure, it was obvious that this oldest IT company still occupies one of the key positions in the Russian market.
link: http://www.osp.ru/nets/1999/ 08-09 / 2036831 /

R-Style is in no hurry to buy

Choosing further ways of business development, the owners of IT companies prefer to minimize risks: in Russian conditions, the results of the activities of business areas are predicted conditionally and depend on many external parameters. “By diversifying our business and working in many niches of the Russian IT business, we have strong financial potential,” Vasily Vasin, President of the R-Style group of companies, tells CNews. “At present, we are ready to purchase external IT businesses if they help us to increase competence in related areas or deepen it in existing businesses.
link: http://www.silicontaiga.ru/ home.asp? artId \u003d 4532

Creation of a new holding e-Style on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the R-Style group of companies

The press conference held on March 20, 2001 was dedicated to two events at once: the 10th anniversary of the R-Style group of companies and the founding of the e-Style group of companies. Speaking at the press conference, the President of the R-Style group of companies Vasily Ivanovich Vasin and the President of the e-Style group of companies Vyacheslav Alekseevich Rudnikov (albeit with some delay) reported that on February 27, 2001, the 10th anniversary of the R-Style holding, and on February 28 In 2001, the e-Style holding was founded, focused on fundamentally new solutions for business development in the field of high technologies.
link:

In the north of Moscow, in one of the residences of the large computer holding R-Style, lives e-Style - a group of small companies dealing with multimedia and the Internet. The operational management of the entire holding is carried out by Vasily Vasin. While the person who invited Vasin to the business, the founding father of R-Style and, presumably, its main shareholder, Vyacheslav Rudnikov, runs a small e-Style. Is it strange? Only at first glance.

Rudnikov went into business in the late 80s. In 1991, he headed the Soviet-Singaporean joint venture R-Style, which was engaged in the import of computer equipment. There were, however, other cases. As a reminder of the entrepreneurial experiences of 1991-1995, Rudnikov and his partners still own the Bryansksantekhnika plant.

In 1991, Rudnikov invited Vasin, his cousin, a graduate student of the Kolomna All-Russian Research Institute of diesel locomotives and track machines, to join the company. He hesitated, then took two vacations in a row and came to Moscow to try. “Vasily - he is like that, he thinks everything over,” Rudnikov later recalled.

Meanwhile, time did not dispose to long reflections. The head of R-Style selected associates for himself and shared with them shares - and, as Rudnikov now tells, not without humor, "who came before, he received more." In the summer of 1992, the company's turnover reached $ 1 million per month. By the mid-90s, R-Style became one of the largest sellers of computer equipment, had its own assembly shop in Singapore, and began producing software. By that time, the partners had managed to distribute responsibilities. Rudnikov became the president of the entire group. In 1994 Vasin became the head of the RSI distribution company, which was part of the holding. But this situation turned out to be impermanent.

Rudnikov was a master of bright, but controversial decisions. For example, introducing a software system for banks to the market, Er-Styles, on the instructions of their president, set a price for it 7-10 times higher than that of competitors. The psychological calculation is expensive, which means that there is something to pay for - it was justified.

The further expansion of the group's multimedia business allowed Rudnikov's fantasies to unfold to the full. In the mid-90s, R-Style started creating game and educational computer programs. The idea was this: to explain to people why they should buy a computer from R-Style - there are, they say, ready-made programs. “And then Rudnikov, in my opinion, got a taste of it,” says Vladimir Dolgov, the former head of the multimedia department at R-Style, and now the general director of Internet Solutions, the operator of the Ozone online store. - I realized that multimedia can become a separate business. He has the ability to anticipate when few people understand that something can be made money. "

From the outside it looked suspicious: the head of a large group of companies suddenly became interested in toys. Other owners of R-Style were skeptical about this idea of \u200b\u200bthe president. Dolgov recalls how Rudnikov enthusiastically showed other shareholders a new encyclopedia on a CD. She caused him sincere admiration. But the partners perceived the beauty of technology without enthusiasm.

In the meantime, Vasin was increasingly solving operational issues, including those that were not formally included in his sphere of competence. And in 1999, the new alignment of forces was legally fixed: Vasin became the president of the holding, and Rudnikov headed the board of founders - "something like a corporate parliament." And in 2001 he also became the president of the created related group of companies e-Style, which included the multimedia and Internet projects he supervises.

Vasily Vasin declined to comment for this article - unlike Rudnikov. “I am more of a creative and visionary,” Rudnikov says about himself in an interview with Forbes. - To master new things, to see the perspective ... I deliberately went into the shadows in order to realize my ideas. "

But what came of it? Three years later, the transfer of the founding father to e-Style looks like a voluntary link. According to the Expert RA rating agency, the volume of R-Style's business in 2003 amounted to almost $ 300 million. It is difficult to compare e-Style's turnovers with Er-Style's - according to some market participants, they are at least an order of magnitude less. The greatest income, according to Rudnikov, comes from the production and sale of "content", as well as offshore programming.

As in the mid-90s, Rudnikov has no shortage of bold, risky ideas. e-Style, for example, is hosting paid text books on the Internet and is waging a war against free libraries that disrupt the business. “Someone has to be first,” Rudnikov explains. - We create legal precedents. The Internet is becoming part of the legal field. "

Another extraordinary undertaking is the release of a free accounting software. Having mastered the freely distributed single-user version, clients, according to the head of e-Style, will begin to switch to the paid multi-user version. The project is called "VS: Accounting". "ВС" is "the highest grade", as opposed to the "first grade" "1C: Accounting", a product of the company "1C", which today controls more than 60% of the Russian market of mass financial software.

VS: Accounting entered the market last summer. Now, according to the head of e-Style, the product has about 30,000 registered users. About 5000 are regularly interested in updates. Not that much for such a powerful industry.

Rudnikov retains significant influence throughout the R-Style holding. But he still spends most of his time with his encyclopedias, libraries and games. He also travels, photographs a lot. “I start to devote more and more time to the non-working side of my life. I hope this process will continue, ”he said three years ago in an interview with the specialized edition IT-Daily.

What about business? “If a new fashionable wave such as multimedia and dot-coms appears on the market,” says the former manager of the R-Style holding, “Rudnikov will definitely do this.” But when will this wave come?

2006: Co-owner of R-Style

According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, for December 2006, Vasin Vasily Ivanovich owned a 12.62% stake in R-Style.

2012: Sale of a part of business to Alexander Klyachin

In 2012, businessman Alexander Klyachin, who owns the Metropol hotel and the Azimut hotel chain, acquired shares in a number of legal entities of the R-Style group of companies in the fall of 2012, the key of which is Er-Style CJSC, Kommersant reported. Eight regional divisions of R-Style, a training center and a Minsk office specializing in software development also became part of the deal. According to the newspaper, Klyachin became the controlling shareholder of the integrator. The sellers were the founders and key shareholders of the company Rudnikov Vyacheslav (53%) and Vasily Vasin (12.62%), while Vasin remained a minority shareholder of R-Style and retained the post of CEO. The fact of the transaction was confirmed by the official representative of Alexander Klyachin and Vasily Vasin. The parties did not disclose the amount of the transaction. According to a Kommersant source familiar with the details of the deal, it was approximately $ 100 million.

2014: Receiving 100% in the Redsys company

A family

  • Rudnikov Vyacheslav Alekseevich - cousin, co-founder of the R-Style group of companies

 

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