Results of the XIIth Forum of Administrative Directors

XIIth Forum of Administrative Directors was held on February 27th in Moscow. Traditionally, its organizer was AHConferences. The Russian Association of Business Travel was the informational partner of the event.

The forum was held in the form of lively discussions. More than 70 experts from various business areas gathered to discuss the latest trends in office navigation and information technologies that facilitate employees’ job duties. Experts of maintenance and supply departments offered participants their successful case studies, performance management providers presented their reports.

The work of the forum was opened by Maxim Kirillov, administrative director of Renaissance Credit, who drew the attention of the audience to key aspects of choosing a new office. Mr Kirillov divided the whole process into two stages: preparatory and active, and described in detail the process of building an internal team of maintenance and supply staff, IT and HR employees, choosing brokers, project managers, architects, and conduction of due diligence.

Stanislav Zhurin, commercial director of Armex Managing Company, devoted his report to particular aspects of modern office exploitation. Mr Zhurin told the audience about the opportunities of auditing the technical state of the following utility systems of the building: power supply, refrigeration, mechanical and firefighting systems. His basic recommendations included the availability of your own operating supplies, regular independent audit and the reputation of the provider.

Simple, but complicated aspects of comfortable office planning in a historic mansion were discussed by VTB Insurance representatives: Arthur Morzoev, head of commercial real estate department and Denis Dedin, special project director of the commercial real estate department.

Irina Smirnova, system solutions project manager in Panasonic, dwelled on the opportunities modern IT equipment offered businesses. Due to a complex solution an administrative director can not only cut costs of office exploitation and business trips, but also optimize the process of corporate education, electronic document flow, create video control and security systems, provide the staff with high quality communication services.

Key factors of successful business trip arrangement and some standard forms of cooperation with a travel agency were discussed by Tatiana Nugmanova, marketing director of Demlink Travel. Demlink Online is a web-application that provides its users with automatic trip management within their company and grants quick access to the best offers of travel services (airline and railway tickets, hotels), but at the same time it retains full transparency of the process of order procession and fulfillment.

Key performance indicators of business trip management were discussed by Gleb Baron, Unifest executive director. He named contract costs, achieved economy, travellers’ satisfaction, early booking, fulfillment of the least logic rate plan, etc among the main factors. According to the speaker, «the system of travel KPI is not just figures, it is a continuous process of trip and cost management; it lets you control TMCs as well».

Elena Aralova, Martela executive director, presented a new concept of office space planning, Activity based office, that lets increase the efficiency of office space use by 40%.

Vladislav Pshenichnikov, RFID projects manager of AXELOT, answered the burning question in his speech — «How to take an inventory of 1000 objects in 10 minutes?» Mr Pshenichnikov presented the solution «RFID: inventory and asset management», that lets considerably reduce time and resources needed for operations with assets, minimize errors and the influence of the human factor, standardize accountancy.

Grigory Antsigin, managing director of Renaissance Insurance, paid his attention to the company’s cost management. Ilya Zaschuk, managing partner of Prowine, also spoke about costs — the costs of corporate alcohol presents.

Alyona Kulachenkova, director of administration of Sovkombank, shared her experience in cooperating with providers, told the audience about how to «get married» to a proper provider once and for life" and described nuances of tender conduction and office costs optimization.

Elena Schelchkova, administrative and maintenance director of SAP in Russia and the CIS demonstrated the results of their project of a new multi-purpose innovative client office for SAP.

What are the modern trends in corporate event arrangement? Should you arrange everything yourself or turn to an event service provider for help? Does the goal always justify the funds invested? These and many other questions were discussed by the participants of the roundtable discussion that closed the Forum. Its moderator was Vera Tchelenk, head of BNP Paribas administrative department.

The business program of the forum included an exhibition, participants of which were the main sponsors of the event: Armex Managing Company, Prowine, Panasonic, Demlink, Martela, Axelot, Unifest, Delicate Move, Komus, GetTexi, Ecomaster. (ahconferences.com)