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Olena Leshchynska: «...that a foreign investor feels confident»
«Our team is doing its best to ensure that a foreign investor feels confident, protected and could work fruitfully on its business project in Ukraine», - the Head and founder of the group of companies GESTORIA UKRAINE, Оlena Leshchynska tells us during our meeting.
The operation of the group of companies is aimed at full-service support of business processes. The group includes also an accounting outsourcing provider and a law firm.
-Mrs. Oleno, please, tell us how the Company was born?
-The idea of creating such a service was born for a while. The decision to implement such an idea was made at the end of 2012 after my trip to the USA. I saw the work of the accounting companies and demand for the lawyers there. The name of the company is borrowed from my Spanish past. In Spain, the companies providing services for business (accounting, legal services, and etc.) are called gestorias. The first company was opened in early 2013. By this time, I had already developed a business plan, and a lot of activities were done to give a good start. The start was really good, we started working with a large european holding. It was a “ticket” to the world of big business. I am really grateful to the fate and to my team, because we completed this project successfully and then continued to cooperate with the partners of this holding in Ukraine. But, unfortunately, the war has made its own adjustments. Maidan movement in the end of 2013 and annexation of the Crimea in the beginning of 2014, and the war in eastern Ukraine. It was very hard, but we survived and even became even stronger.
– At that time, many companies preferred to cooperate with lawyers and accountants “in the office”, so why outsourcing?
– I know all the problematics of business, as the saying runs, inside and out. At the time of the establishment of the first company, I already had a decent work experience in both business and government structures. It was necessary to develop the business model itself, to develop the schemes of import and export transactions. I dealt directly with drafting contracts, sorting out the tax problems, i.e. defended the interests of my company during inspections. All the shades of my work were well known to me, as a user of the services that our team now offers to our clients.
Nowadays, outsourcing is a very promising area. The whole world has come to this a long time ago, and we are already getting here to.
– What is the company's strategy at the present day?
– These days we keep developing. The main strategy is to expand our services and geography of rendering services.
GESTORIA UKRAINE company has a long and successful experience in supporting the Start Up processes for the foreign companies in Ukraine. We cooperate with business representatives from many countries around the world.
Our team is doing its best to ensure that a foreign investor feels confident, protected and could work fruitfully on its business project in Ukraine.
Our goal is to make the start of the companies the most comfortable, to help to adapt the business processes to the local conditions of management and functioning as quickly as possible. We offer a full range, from the initial legal consultancy to the transfer of the ready-made company to the investor for further work. We also provide full support in the course of business activity – the legal and accounting services, HR record management, marketing research, assistance in customs clearance and other issues.
At the moment we are actively working with foreign companies and foreign citizens. There is a desire to present our company to international service consumers as a reliable partner in Ukraine.
– Is there any top-priority business organization that you work with?
– No, we are interested in all of them. We provide services in different fields of economics and law. We still have the so-called professional passion. Apparently, our team consists of enthusiasts and people who really love their job and respect their profession. Otherwise, they simply won't be able to work with us, the work keeps us in good shape all the time, a lot is kept on the enthusiasm and strong team spirit.
– What is the current situation with market competition in the field of full-service business support?
– There is supreme competition; we have to work in a highly competitive environment. That’s fine; competition forces you to move forward. Another fact is bad, unethical competition, which damages the concept of outsourcing, offends the intellectual professions such as lawyers, accountants and economists. It's no secret that the Internet is full of borderline bids of accounting services, business registrations, legal services and most of them are not responsible for their work. Our people are trustful and many come to us with previous experience of working with such fail-experts. It costs more to solve a problem than to prevent it.
– Thus, the key problem is not in competition, but in persuading a potential client of the benefits of cooperation. How do you do that?
– It's quite simple, as a rule, a potential client is almost ready to make a decision in favor of our further cooperation within the first hours of communication. Most clients can immediately appreciate the professional approach of our specialists, the experience of our employees in exercising issues. In fact, the main criterion is not even the price, but credibility of our team. It is not easy to make decision and entrust your finances, your business or serious legal disputes to another company. We recognize the value of trust; we endeavor to use all reasonable diligence to justify it. Afterwards, it is very pleasant to hear the most heartfelt thanks from our clients. That means a lot; at this moment you realize that your business is in demand and that people really need us. Then it was worth it, all the work was worth it.
– What projects performed by your company were the most interesting?
-There were many different projects, each of them is interesting in its own way. Probably the brightest is the construction and equipping of a factory in the Kiev region. We’ve accompanied this project at almost all stages of implementation, from investment to commissioning, production and disposal of finished goods. It was very difficult; a huge volume of work, but it was interesting and ambitious project.
–What has changed since 2014?
– Regarding our company, we experienced the strongest activity decay in 2014. It was also difficult until the middle of 2015, and then we experienced the increase; now we are developing rapidly. We have one ongoing issue, we are constantly fighting for additional square meters of office space in our office center.
