Interview with the owner of the Blest company S.A. Savchenko.

Serhiy Savchenko, owner of BLEST. Interview about the company's activities at the intersection of 2021 and 2022


How do you assess the past year 2021? How did it affect BLEST?

To some extent, this is becoming a standard answer in today's realities: the year was difficult, but we have objective indicators - these are numbers. They show that we have grown by various indicators compared to last year. This is conventionally 10%. Although we were betting on 25% growth. Therefore, from the point of view of the plan, we did not achieve it. But from the point of view of the market and what is happening on it... And according to the reviews of other market players, the Ukrainian furniture market is not going through the best of times. If you put everything together, it turns out that we lived it not badly.

In your opinion, how were the 20th and 21st years similar, but also interesting, how were they significantly different from each other?

These years are united by the coronavirus, which has not gone anywhere. And they are distinguished by the fact that people are initially very wary of something new and unknown, and later this wariness becomes much less. We have already come a certain way in terms of living in the pandemic, we have experienced lockdowns and gained experience that allows people to react more calmly to the situation.

But the most strange and unexpected thing in the 21st year was the situation with prices. As a rule, always against the backdrop of a crisis, prices go down: for raw materials, components, food products... Almost everything. After all, demand naturally decreases and prices respond to this by decreasing, according to the law of the balance of supply and demand. And in the 21st year, we saw the opposite situation: against the background of disproportionate demand, prices went up, despite everything. For raw materials, energy carriers, products, etc. This is the fact that makes last year very different from many others.

And what are the main successes of the company last year that you would like to highlight?

There were very cool new models. By the way, I recently showed an American furniture agent our new products and it made him WOW. We have opened several new stores and we have finally found the right store design for our premium Individual brand through experimentation. They turned out to be very comfortable, cozy, harmonious. Just super! I don't even want to leave there. In my personal opinion, these are the most beautiful stores in all furniture centers of Kyiv.

We were very pleased with the opening of new stores in the regions by our dealers. At the beginning of the year, we admired the new store in Vinnytsia from our Uzhhorod dealers. And we went with them further to Poltava. And already in December, before the New Year, they opened a new WOW store, in their original style and format, which suits them better. This is something we are also proud of.

Plus, this year we had record production figures. The best of the last four years. In general, the year was filled with big and smaller, local victories. It is pleasing that, in general, there were clearly more victories than defeats. So the year can be called successful.

How do you currently assess the dynamics of the company's development? Considering the fact that 2-3 years ago you significantly updated the management. How do you rate the results?

Until the moment when we partially renewed the management, we had, in my opinion, about five years of stagnation. In other words, the company was in a certain stagnation for five years. And it is clear that I had high hopes for the updated team. It is clear that the pandemic and the corona crisis, according to my subjective assessments, greatly affected the results that the renewed team could still give. It is clear that in such conditions it is already inappropriate to talk about some "cosmic" results for these two years, but the fact that we are growing year after year in such conditions is a positive factor for me. I think it was possible thanks to our whole team.

Can you name what was not done in the 21st year? Are there tasks and projects that remained "in the plans" and were not successful for some reason?

Yes of course. Firstly, there was a great hope to launch a new production in the 21st year, which we called Contract, but I can say that for reasons beyond our control it did not happen. The start of production was postponed to the 22nd year.

We had high hopes for the American exhibition (High Point Market - note). Among all the exhibitions at which we were represented in America, the October one in the 21st year was the most positive and promising in terms of feedback on our products. However, so far, we have not received any results from the exhibition in the form of orders and deliveries of furniture to the USA.

Serhiy Savchenko, owner of BLEST. Interview about the company's activities at the intersection of 2021 and 2022

How do you assess the past year 2021? How did it affect BLEST?

To some extent, this is becoming a standard answer in today's realities: the year was difficult, but we have objective indicators - these are numbers. They show that we have grown by various indicators compared to last year. This is conventionally 10%. Although we were betting on 25% growth. Therefore, from the point of view of the plan, we did not achieve it. But from the point of view of the market and what is happening on it... And according to the reviews of other market players, the Ukrainian furniture market is not going through the best of times. If you put everything together, it turns out that we lived it not badly.

In your opinion, how were the 20th and 21st years similar, but also interesting, how were they significantly different from each other?

These years are united by the coronavirus, which has not gone anywhere. And they are distinguished by the fact that people are initially very wary of something new and unknown, and later this wariness becomes much less. We have already come a certain way in terms of living in the pandemic, we have experienced lockdowns and gained experience that allows people to react more calmly to the situation.

But the most strange and unexpected thing in the 21st year was the situation with prices. As a rule, always against the backdrop of a crisis, prices go down: for raw materials, components, food products... Almost everything. After all, demand naturally decreases and prices respond to this by decreasing, according to the law of the balance of supply and demand. And in the 21st year, we saw the opposite situation: against the background of disproportionate demand, prices went up, despite everything. For raw materials, energy carriers, products, etc. This is the fact that makes last year very different from many others.

And what are the main successes of the company last year that you would like to highlight?

There were very cool new models. By the way, I recently showed an American furniture agent our new products and it made him WOW. We have opened several new stores and we have finally found the right store design for our premium Individual brand through experimentation. They turned out to be very comfortable, cozy, harmonious. Just super! I don't even want to leave there. In my personal opinion, these are the most beautiful stores in all furniture centers of Kyiv.

We were very pleased with the opening of new stores in the regions by our dealers. At the beginning of the year, we admired the new store in Vinnytsia from our Uzhhorod dealers. And we went with them further to Poltava. And already in December, before the New Year, they opened a new WOW store, in their original style and format, which suits them better. This is something we are also proud of.

Plus, this year we had record production figures. The best of the last four years. In general, the year was filled with big and smaller, local victories. It is pleasing that, in general, there were clearly more victories than defeats. So the year can be called successful.

How do you currently assess the dynamics of the company's development? Considering the fact that 2-3 years ago you significantly updated the management. How do you rate the results?

Until the moment when we partially renewed the management, we had, in my opinion, about five years of stagnation. In other words, the company was in a certain stagnation for five years. And it is clear that I had high hopes for the updated team. It is clear that the pandemic and the corona crisis, according to my subjective assessments, greatly affected the results that the renewed team could still give. It is clear that in such conditions it is already inappropriate to talk about some "cosmic" results for these two years, but the fact that we are growing year after year in such conditions is a positive factor for me. I think it was possible thanks to our whole team.

Can you name what was not done in the 21st year? Are there tasks and projects that remained "in the plans" and were not successful for some reason?

Yes of course. Firstly, there was a great hope to launch a new production in the 21st year, which we called Contract, but I can say that for reasons beyond our control it did not happen. The start of production was postponed to the 22nd year.

We had high hopes for the American exhibition (High Point Market - note). Among all the exhibitions at which we were represented in America, the October one in the 21st year was the most positive and promising in terms of feedback on our products. However, so far, we have not received any results from the exhibition in the form of orders and deliveries of furniture to the USA.