The FINANCIAL  -- Brain Source International Georgia, the biggest recruiting company in the Caucasus, has been named a Golden Brand in 2008 for the second times. Michael Lelashvili, Head of BSI Georgia, declares that their company recruited 115 executives in different companies in 2008.

“Demand for highly qualified managers hasn’t decreased. In comparison with the year 2007, order growth was about 17% in 2008, despite the August events in Georgia and global economical crisis,” Lelashvili says.

Head of Brain Source International declares that during the recession demand for qualified top managers has increased, but the company prefers to be more careful in terms of the crisis and is controlling its budget more carefully. The company also plans to have some new additional services in 2009.

Q. What is the importance of being named a Golden Brand 2008 winner for you?

A. Every kind of award is important for the company in terms of acknowledgement. But it’s a double pleasure for us to be named a Golden Brand for the second time. We have managed to keep stability in the company even during the recession period in 2008 and accordingly being named a Golden Brand is much appreciated. We can say that the Golden Brand award holds quite big influence at our company.

Q. How does the Golden Brand award influence your company’s advertising and promotion?

A. We have been cooperating with the Golden Brand managing group for a long time already. After winning the Golden Brand awards, it was possible to notice an expansion of our products and growth of sales in our company. Our advertisement in The FINANCIAL’s newspaper has quite a big influence on our company’s popularity. Golden Brand

When Golden Brand awards established the list of those people who would determine the winning companies, it was clear to them that our company has highly qualified service. Brain Source International is a leading company on the Georgian market and this fact is very important for us.

Our company remains the most preferable brand in Ukraine , where we have our head office. Being named as Golden Brand in Georgia for the second time conditions the attraction of more clients and increases potential clients’ trust towards our company.

Q. What is the story of your success that contributed to making you be named a Golden Brand?

A. The main principle for our company is to have European standards throughout our network. Since the creation of our company we have been trying to formulate European standards in our company. We are a successful institution in terms of returned expenses and investments which have been sorted out by our company.

In spite of the economical crisis, we haven’t felt a reduction on demand for our service. According to this, we think that our success is conditioned by the care we put in to our work. Individual approach to each client order and our dependence on each of our customers and employees is the main success of our company.

We have very serious orders and it should definitely be mentioned that none of our clients have ever been displeased with our chosen personnel. We are devoted to our work and we have managed to bring new standards to the Georgian market since 2006. I am able to say that European standards are the main success story of our company.

Q. Brain Source International has been taking part in HR activities including organizing events and participating in presentations. What was your annual budget for advertising in 2008?

A. When the company’s budget is counted, we plan to allot 10-15% for marketing activities from our total turnover. This is an ordinary amount for a company to spend on marketing activities.

It is worth mentioning that we aren’t directly advertising our company; we instead promote the plural activities of the company. Our advertisements and interviews published in The FINANCIAL newspaper, receiving Golden Brand awards etc, attract our target audience. As we search for chief executives, this kind of advertising is mostly important and useful for our company. With the help of The FINANCIAL our information is brought to the reader who then becomes our potential client. With minimal expanses, we have gained maximal profits in our relationship with The FINANCIAL.

Q. As 2008 has been a year of economical downturn, many companies have reduced their staff. Accordingly demand for new employees has decreased. How did the recession affect your company’s income?

A. Staff reduction hasn’t been necessary at our company. On the contrary, we have in a way benefited from other companies’ staff reductions. As when a company reduces staff by 10 to 15 people, it needs one who can manage to replace the functions that previously several people held.

Demand for our company has risen because companies are looking for qualified personnel. We have not had an increase of order cuts. During the recession we have developed some new services, for example outsourcing, having temporary staff. If a company has to cut their employees, in some cases they don’t want to permanently free them from their positions. In some cases our company has hired temporary personnel, but for minimal salaries.

All in all the recession hasn’t affected our company’s economics, but during the crisis, while stating the company’s budget, we prefer to be more careful. If a company is looking for a Chief executive, it has to pay much for the service, but these kinds of people are always needed for a company even during an economical downturn. A company should exist in terms of intellect, so qualified personnel will always be needed.

Q. Do companies still demand highly qualified managers?


A. Some of our client companies have not cut but instead increased their staff during the crisis. Demand for highly qualified managers is growing. At the moment there is a lack of new level qualification managers on the Georgian market. If the number of employees is big, it’s hard for me to search for qualified staff. Our orders are for highly qualified and highly educated personnel, and demand for them will never decrease.

Q. About what percentage of demand on highly qualified managers raised or decreased in 2008?

A. As I have mentioned above, demands for highly qualified managers haven’t decreased. In comparison with the year 2007, order growth was for about 17% in 2008 apart from the August events in Georgia and global economical crisis.

Q. In 2007 BSI Georgia got 70 top management professionals employed at different companies. How did this number change in 2008?


A. We employed 115 personnel in different companies in 2008. In 2009 we plan to raise this number and get even more people employed.

In 2008, Brain Source managed to develop some additional services and we divided the company in service terms. We have different groups in our company who work on outsourcing, on recruitment, training and consulting. The division of services was caused by increased demand on our company.

In 2009, we will bring in some new services. We plan to increase our services until the year 2010 and then we plan to become a huge service company which will provoke interest in our clients.

Q. How have the global financial problems affected your company?

A. We realize the hard economical situation of our loyal clients and for some of them we have decreased the sum of our service. With this kind of step we have tried to help them in their time of need. We have also changed payment methods for some of them.

Financial problems made us abolish our project of training some students within our company and reimbursing their expenses. We aren’t training students at the moment because we are thinking about possible future problems and therefore acting more cautiously.

Order demands haven’t reduced yet, but the situation could change if the crisis enters in to a harder phase. But so far we haven’t felt any real financial problems at the company though.

Q. What was your company’s main direction in 2008?

A. We had 3 main directions in 2008. The first was Executive Search and recruitment, employing high and medium qualified managers. The second was Outsourcings service, hiring temporary staff to serve our client companies. The third direction was HR rule consulting. These kinds of directions have made us raise our incomes in accordance with the past years.

Q. Are the famous world brands companies: AREVA T&D, ABB, Development Solution, Kraft Foods, Silk Road Group, Nemiroff, Philip Morris, J&J, major banks in Georgia, continuing their relationships with you and how many new companies were added to the list of your clients in 2008?

A. The companies you mentioned are but a small number of the companies who are our clients, as some of them don’t wish to be named. Some companies have raised their orders in regional scales and they ordered staff from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Armenia. We attracted 20-25% of new companies in 2008. There has always been a lot of yearly growth, but not previously so significant. When we entered the market we had only 4 client companies and this number has been growing continuously since then. Some of our client construction companies have temporally stopped due to the crisis. Some new companies were added to this list, like Natakhtari, which is our exclusive client, Alcatel, a Channel whose MOSCOW head office we cooperate without any problems, Tskali-Margebeli, Medical centre Cito and some others.

Q. What services does your company offer to its customers?

A. Our company offers customers several services.

1. Executive Search and Recruitment. BSI Georgia recruits top and middle managers to international and leading Georgian companies. We build knowledge in the following business spheres:

• B2C markets
• B2B markets
• Services markets
• BSI Network

2. Staff Leasing and Outsourcing

Brain Source International Georgia covers the whole area of workforce management for your company, serving as a One Point of Contact, thus managing all relations and contracts with employees and sub-contractors:

- Search and selection, recruiting

- Trainings
- All HR admin from hiring through to terminating the contract
- Payroll and all related tax payments
- Staff scheduling
- Work safety
- Working clothes
- Insurance
- Meals
- Transportation to and from sites
- Lawsuits

3. HR Consulting

4. Personal Researcher

The Personal Researcher will be hired by a client to accomplish “Job market research and short-listing of potential candidates” using all kinds of sources such as the internet, media and their own network of contacts.

Q. What will your company’s major direction be this year?

A. Our main direction will be keeping the reputation that we have at the moment. If we take the first quarter of the year 2007 and the first quarter of the year 2008, our rhythm is being maintained, improved even. Apart from the fact that we have to face more economical problems, we are counting on developing outsourcing services. Recruitment is already stabilized on the market, in this issue we are already famous and the Golden Brand awards helps us to prove that we regularly justify the hopes of our clients. Recruitment orders are already consistent, now it’s time to offer new services to our customers.

Q. In 2007, in an interview with The FINANCIAL, you mentioned that your network of regional offices allowed you to successfully implement assignments in most CIS countries, including Georgia, Ukraine , Moldova, Belorussia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. Which new countries have been added to this list and how did the regional offices work during the recession?

A. In these countries we have our own companies. Our company’s activities have been very popular in Kazakhstan. Some of the Georgian companies brought specialists from Ukraine . There have been cases when our company employed Georgian personnel in different CIS countries for example in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

There are some problems in countries which have been affected by the economical crisis. Ukraine has faced some serious economical problems and demands on recruitment orders have reduced on the market by 50%.

Small sized companies have left the market and we have stayed as the monopolists. We have employed about 4,500 personnel through our outsourcing service. In most of our regional offices we have faced reduction problems, but in Georgia we still haven’t felt the full strength of the recession. We are concentrating our forces on overcoming the crisis.

Q. Do you still continue partnership with the international recruitment network AIMS International and how have they helped you too attract candidates from the rest of the world?

A. Brain Source International is part of AIMS International Company ranking the 1st largest Executive Search Consultancy in the world spread across all 5 continents in over 40 countries. AIMS International specializes in the recruitment of CEOs and board members for local and international businesses. Our team of dedicated consultants possesses the skills-set and experience to challenge the most complicated search assignments across a variety of industries. We place quality at the centre of everything we do and solicit candid feedback at every opportunity in order to continually improve our services for our clients. We build strategic partnerships with our clients by delivering the best solution in a timely and responsive manner. We strongly believe that our success is best seen in the success of our client companies.

Q. How has the recruitment business in Georgia developed?

A. In my view, this business is starting to develop step by step and already has its limits. When we first appeared on the Georgian market, we were the only company which was oriented on top management. After some period, new companies appeared on the Georgian market which were oriented at all kinds of vacancies.

This business is not developed enough yet to generate demand for creating an Association of Recruiters, in order to create special rules for this business.

We don’t think that our company has competitors on the Georgian market. Our company has existed since the year 1999 and has enough experience and resources to be proud of our work. We also have quite big faith among our customers which is really important for us.

Q. Who are your main competitors on the Georgian market?

A. The point is that I don’t think we have any competitors on the Georgian market. None of the other companies have stolen orders from us and none of them have been named better than Brain Source in any nomination.

On the Georgian market there are some serious and fast-growing companies but we aren’t competitors. We are oriented at different kinds of segments. All in all this business in Georgia is just beginning to develop.

Q. How do you choose the personnel who become your recruitment consultants?

A. Our company has no demand on having any concrete experience. The most important thing while choosing personnel is to have good communication skills, ability of presentation. Of course it’s good if a person has experience in the recruitment sector, but we train our personnel so that they get the most needed information anyway.

The most important thing for the person to have is analytical ability. Any of our personnel may start from a consultant position and become one of the Partners of our company. It depends on their dealer’s eye and their motivation.

Q. How many employees do you have in the company at the moment?

A. In Recruitment Service we have 6 employees at the moment and 18 on Outsourcing. 24 people are employed in our Georgian branch office.

Q. What was the potential of your company in 2008?

A. Our service is our potential. Our standards and motivation, dependence towards our work has been the potential of our company. Team spirit in our company is the best potential for Brain Source.

Q. What are your company plans for 2009?

A. In 2008 we developed recruitment services. For the year 2009 we plan to offer new kinds of services to our customers and to keep stability at our company.

Written By Tako Khelaia