Tomorrow, March 7, in Cincinnati, USA, a regional seminar with the Volga-Dnepr key customer – General Electric (GE) – is held.

Constant, consistent and systematic customer research in order to meet their needs is the main goal of the regional seminars which are brought to life by the Corporate University and it is also one of the focuses of “Air-Cargo Industry Knowledge Center” strategic project.

The first regional seminars were held in autumn, 2017: in Frankfurt (Germany) our sales managers studied together with Agility and Kuehne + Nagel representatives, and in Shanghai (China) the Volga-Dnepr team exchanged knowledge with the Bollore team.

Not only valuable contacts and positive feedback on high quality of our services were mentioned among the results of these seminars, but also specific solutions aimed at customer requirements implementation for the company services and the areas of mutually beneficial cooperation.

We asked the participants of the forthcoming seminar in Cincinnati to tell what they expect from the meeting with the GE team and why it is extremely important to learn together and from each other.

Sergey Reznikov, Vice-president VD UAC, Head of Operational base in Houston:
– GE has been one of VD Group key customers since the company creation, we’ve established multilevel partnership. The first charter flight to carry GE-90 aircraft engine was in 1994. Over the past 25 years we managed to move from forwarder and broker services to direct cooperation with GE. Since 2014 VD UAC (Huston Operational base) has become the preferred logistics services provider for all GE divisions on corporate level. In fact since that moment we’ve started permanent teamwork to achieve collective success. Apart from obvious business results our companies managed to create stable and continuous exchange of knowledge and experience, which further development would be impossible without.
Signing the strategic offset partnership agreement as an essential part of the Big Order, boosted cooperation and let us define new growth areas.
Developing the cargo supermarket concept, we managed to persuade the customer of the possibility and benefit of work with ABC without brokers. Nowadays ABC is the sole provider of regular cargo operations for GE. It is of great importance that we managed to share the experience of charter cargo operations with ABC and extended the practice of direct communication with the сustomer.
The seminar scheduled for March 7 is one of the effective instruments for the exchange of knowledge and understanding the сustomer needs and requirements. In the list of regular workshops and meetings with GE this event in Cincinnati is remarkable due to its global coverage from VD Group side as well as from GE side. The understanding of global structure and internal communication of our companies is the key to long-term success.

Vasily Borychev, Head of Regions, Commercial Department, ABC:
– This seminar will provide an opportunity to learn and what is more important understand our customer needs. This knowledge will let us improve the quality of services provided and be of more benefit to our customer.
To become a leader of the industry we have to learn from leaders. We should accept the fact that we lack knowledge and that it is important for us to acquire new knowledge.
Learning from our customer means gaining competences and having an in-depth knowledge. The rapid growth of technology development requires continuous studying. We work in a service field which is connected to technology development. Those who are at the forefront of technologies have a chance to be the leader of the field and having gained enough knowledge they have an opportunity to offer revolutionary ideas and technologies to the field. But knowledge is required in this case.
Learning with a customer means being open, honest and ready to share knowledge with our customer to achieve common success.
Learning for a customer – when gaining more knowledge we inevitably improve our skills and therefore our customer can benefit from it.

Andrey Krysanov, Deputy General Director, Niche Products, ABC:
–  GE is the undisputable leader on the international market, having a customer like GE is, in my opinion, not only honorable, but also very useful in all respects. It is crucial for us especially when it comes to conducting joint activities for the exchange of experience and knowledge. On the one hand, there is an opportunity to learn about GE “headache” and quickly fix it, on the other hand, to understand how they manage to maintain a leading position in the market, constantly change and be successful. A few months ago, I was hit by Jeffrey Immelt’s article (GE Chairman and CEO 2001-2017) “How I transformed GE and what I understood in the process.” In this article Jeffrey Immelt gives detailed information about his experience as CEO of one of the world’s largest companies. I will highlight some of the key lessons of D. Immelt which, in my view, are necessary for a successful transformation of the company:
• Discipline and concentration;
• The world does not stand still, one must be able to anticipate change;
• All employees must understand that the upcoming changes are inevitable;
• Leader – a solid and consistent change adviser;
• Listen and act simultaneously, do not be afraid to change the direction;
• Discover talents, learn to do everything in a new way.
Such kind of meetings will let us see with our own eyes how this works, how the leader brings their ideas and vision to their team, implements the planned strategy and reaches the set targets.