Global Entrepreneurs: Learning the Philippino Business Experience

Global Business program hosted a curious speaker - a Russian entrepreneur successfully operating his business in the Philippines. Mr Kandaurov shared his experience of global business and gave advice to our students.

You can benefit from studying on the Global Business programme in many ways. If enrolled in the studies, you will be taught by the best university professors, immerse in English-speaking environment, gain considerable experience in intercultural communication. However, there is more than meets the eye. Apart from the aforementioned advantages, you will also be able to communicate face-to-face with prominent guests invited to the class, who are ready to share their business experience.

One of the guests like this visited us last week. Sergey Kandaurov is the example of a truly international entrepreneur. He is the founder of the Flexify.IO, the information technology company that operates in the Philippines. Before that he used to be the director of Product Development at Acronis, international technology company. Sergey explained to us that in order to start your own business you need to find a niche and ways of looking for that niche could be quite different. 'Take the example of FindFace App. A Russian team created this face recognition application, while thinking how they could distinguish themselves from other companies on the market. The decision came easy. The FindFace had to become the fastest searching tool, producing the most accurate results. And it did. The speed at which it operates is 0.2 sec, and search results are better than those of its competitors.'

Once you have identified your niche and developed your product accordingly, you have to start looking for the best application of your product. FindFace App is currently used online by people who wish they could find others when they have nothing else but their photograph. The application compares the visual information from social networks with the downloaded photograph and provides the results of the search. In case of the match you get the profile information of that person, including the name, interests, friends, etc.

But this is only the first step of the Russian innovative company into the global market. They are eager to apply their technology in business. Sergey Kandaurov has told us that one possible way of doing so is introducing this technology to the FMCG segment. Compact cameras can be installed over the cash-desk so that they could capture the face of the buyer. Afterwards, the snapshot could be downloaded to the FindFace App. The company can know who that person is, what his life revolves around, and what they bought in the store. Next time this person comes, they might be offered a personal discount on their favorite drink, because now the company knows what that drink is.

The takeaway for global business is that first you need to spot your niche. As we have seen, sometimes, it does not even take you to develop a new product, but to optimize the existing one. Second, you should be thinking out-of-the-box, trying to sell it. The target audience might be larger than you can imagine.

By Natalia Belova (GB student, intake 2016)