Success Stories
Kazakhstan

Consulting the Consultants

A young consulting company worked with an EDC Manager to develop a strategic plan for growth. The company has been able to achieve its goals, benefiting from a 431 percent increase in sales and a 95 percent increase in productivity.

Appex Group is a young consulting company that signed up to be one of the first clients of the Astana Enterprise Development Center. The Appex Group focuses on accounting and business evaluations, and conducts seminars and training for CIPA-EN.

Despite recent entry into the market, the dynamic duo leading Appex, Nourzhamal Ospanova and Lyudmila Nekrasova, clearly understood the need to strategically plan for growth. Astana EDC Manager Jania Adilbek started working with Appex in September 2005 and developed a Strategic Action Plan (SAP) with actions for the period of 2005-2006. The SAP identified four strategic issues for the company: service offerings, organizational structure, internal monitoring systems, and marketing strategy.

After following the recommendations laid out in the SAP, the company increased its service offerings by introducing new specialty courses such as ISO-9000 training. Appex also followed up on contacts supplied by Ms. Adilbek, and invited a highly qualified ISO consultant, Mr. Alexey Kharlamov, from Almaty to assist in preparing content for ISO-9000 training. The company also established a Department of Quality Management Systems and hired three people previously trained by Mr. Kharlamov to implement ISO standards for clients.

Ms.Adilbek also worked with her colleague, Yerlan Akishev, to bring in Zharkyn, a small polygraphic printing company, as Appex’s first client for ISO-9000 training. Mr. Akishev had written the SAP for Zharkyn and had identified business processes as a major problem area for the company. The company was looking to implement ISO-9000 with a reliable partner when Mr. Akishev connected it with Appex. On November 7, 2005, the two companies signed an agreement valued at $19,000 for the implementation of ISO-9000 standards. The companies also signed a second contract to print the first issue of Appex’s new magazine, Sustainable Growth of KZ.

Based on the implementation of the SAP’s actions, Appex witnessed a sales increase of 431 percent, a productivity increase of 95 percent, and a positive change in the quick ratio of 164 percent. The Appex Group Director, Ms. Ospanova, said, “We are grateful to EDP and its qualified Relationship Managers, who helped us introduce a new service (ISO-9000), create the necessary infrastructure, and find our first client.”

Back to Success Stories

Back to top