The importance of strategic partnership was emphasized by the company president Alexey Isaykin

The sixth training session conducted within the CU School of Global VD employee was held on November 7-8 in the United Arab Emirates. 28 executives and employees from Volga-Dnepr offices across the world were invited to share the classroom and learn from the VD strategic partner – GE.

The first training day was conducted in the GE office in Dubai. The opening speech was delivered by Alexey Isaykin, VD president, and Muhammad Al-Lamadani, Vice President Sales, Middle East, Turkey & CIS, GE – Aviation.

The keynote reports presented by our strategic partner were devoted to development of digital technologies in GE and to aviation analytics.

As a host party the GE representatives gave their VD colleagues an unforgettable tour around the modern information processing center.

The second training day started with the GE leadership training – Fast Works, where participants were presented with the innovative approach to management combining startup potential and management experience.

Digital transformation at work – excursion in the GE modern information processing center

Another GE representative Sohinder Singh, leads customer financing for GE Aviation for EMEA and South Asia, presented “Financial Solutions for Airlines”.

The session was crowned with the motivating and inspiring speech about GE values made by Muhammad Al-Lamadani.

Two days of training resulted in practical work on “VD group digital transformation”.

This is what the participants shared:

Michael Khoroshaev, general director, VD Gulf:
– The fact that the training was conducted in UAE shows a particularl attitude to VD Gulf. On the part of our team we would like to express our gratitude for the opportunity to learn from GE. The way they speak about simple things – with lots of enthusiasm and professionalism – shows their cultural background. Their attitude to the customer, need analysis and innovations make the company the leader in the field.

Sohinder Singh shared the details of financial solutions for airlines

Alexey Kukanov, IT director, VDM:
– The session conducted by Marvell on the second training day was extremely useful. We were taught an absolutely different (from what we practice in VD) cultural approach to innovations, initiatives and ideas:
a) Firstly, with the focus on the customer, they made it possible to organize the ongoing work with changes and improvements (including an opportunity for any employee to submit their initiatives and ideas). We are now building in this mechanism within the Knowledge Center project;
b) Secondly, they are always in contact with the customer when working on the customer service improvement, including pre-sale of a service-to-be as a result of the decision coordinated with the customer;
c) Decision making process on testing new initiatives is extremely shortened, with the risk costs reduced by checking practicability on limited extent and with limited resources;
d) Thirdly, the policy of seeing mistakes as ‘paid experience’;
Also, School of Global VD Employee is a unique venue for the executives from different offices and regions to share ideas, knowledge and experience. Working ‘live’ on common tasks is sort of team-building for such international team. It’s very useful!

Marwan Al-Roub, Executive Director of GE Innovation Centre – Gulf region, is speaking about Fast Works conception

Rodion Nelidov, head of aviation transportation management center, VDA:
– A new approach to organizing and expediting changes in GE – this is what I find the most useful: they learn from small companies which implement innovative startups – which is right. Big companies with thousands of employees and business diversification tend to have communication problems, extra bureaucratic procedures, etc., whereas a group of enthusiasts can take timely decisions and start working on them without delays. The examples are obvious – Apple, Microsoft, Uber, etc. Just think how these companies would emerge.

«CU School of Global VD Employee – is a unique venue for sharing ideas, knowledge, experience!»

Pavel Tereschenkov, technical director, ABC:
– It was very informative and interesting! When the world around us is changing, digitalizing and is turning into something different from what we got used to, it is important to keep pace with the progress. Firstly, I‘d like to thank our senior executives and Corporate University for giving us a chance to keep up with the changes-to-be. Learning from GE proved that aviation manufacturers changing from the inside and ‘selling’ their culture would try to develop a new market segment. Our disputes with colleagues about changes, their necessity and inevitable digitalization were also valuable.
So, as the training outcome
– we have to take steps into a new world of a digital airline;
– it must be a freewill choice of everyone who understands the necessity of being in common field with our customers;
– it’s all about customers – we have to know for sure how to benefit them and make it the fundamentals of our work;
– I’m going to apply this knowledge at work and make it available for colleagues.

Oleg Makushkin, deputy sales director, ABC:
– The GE Fast Works training combined the simplicity of approach and comprehensible way of teaching, and I really liked it. The message from our reputable customer was really important to hear for the colleagues from different departments (operation, sales, etc) – that is our work should be based on customers’ requirements, not on our personal needs.

Denis Seleznev, head of financial accounting department, VDA:
– The presentation of the Fast Works conception made by Marwan Al-Roub, Executive Director of GE Innovation Centre –  Gulf region, was so emotional and impressive that it made you believe in its remarkable ability to change approaches to everything in organization. Collaboration Center with its interaction technologies and conception for mutual (together with customers) decision making was also very interesting. Group work was really beneficial as it encouraged mutual effort on the part of sales people, economists, operational managers, and allowed to see the problem from different perspectives.

The session was crowned with inspiring speech about GE values delivered by Muhammad Al-Lamadani

Oleg Serdinov, leading engineer of engines troubleshooting, VDTM:
– I really enjoyed the GE presentation; their visual brand-new aids are impressive. It’s really worth setting as a goal! As for the system for engine monitoring, we’ve been utilizing a similar to the GE diagnostic system for the ABC fleet for a long time already. It works well, though with criteria modernization used in GE it will be better! Thank you for the excellent training organization!