Svetlana Kiselchuk
General director
In UCMS Group since 1998
Education:
Saint Petersburg Mining University
Saint Petersburg Forestry University
Specialization “Management in Economics”
Good question. There are two ways to start here. The first – 1998, when I came to Sсla, June 1, I remember it clearly, because the first working day began with a fire alarm. We were sitting in Moscow on Smolnaya Street. I also had such an association, because I am from St. Petersburg and work on Smolnaya street too. I came as a consultant for ERP systems and was implementing logistics
Before Scala, I lived in St. Petersburg. And in 1997 I got married and moved to Moscow. I started working while still studying at the institute, worked as an accountant-economist, in different systems: 1C, Parus and many others. But these systems worked poorly, and I was in close contact with the consultants who set them up.
That is, even before Scala, I was interested in how the systems work, and I realized that they are all sharpened purely for accounting.
As for the organization of other business processes, for example, smart warehouse loading, preparation for production, cost calculation, this has always been a problem. Having learned from friends about a vacancy in Scala, I took a chance and went, although I had not worked in a foreign company before.
I had several interviews – with HR and with a consultant, he later became one of my mentors. In general, they hired me, and I started setting up logistics, sales, purchases for Scala clients. I had very interesting projects in different parts of the country, I traveled to many cities, went to study in Budapest at the Scala Academy. In 2003, I started a large project in St. Petersburg. I constantly went on business trips and then decided that it would be more efficient to simply transfer to the St. Petersburg office. What I did in 2004.
It so happened that in 2004 a part of the Scala company was bought by the American company Epicor, and the new owner was more interested in R&D than consulting and implementation. Therefore, a lot of my colleagues left Scala.
Thus, in 2005, I followed my colleagues to Conteco as the head of the consulting department.
We had a service to support the ERP system Scala, for configuring modules – salary and financial; including setting up consolidation, mapping, and transformation of the chart of accounts, financial reporting, when it is necessary to collapse the data of ten client companies, expand in different directions, get beautiful numbers brought to a single accounting standard.
In 2006 Conteco merged with the UCMS Group to launch a new product – Quinyx (now UCMS WorkForce or UWF). It was one of the first offers on the Russian market of software based on SaaS technology.
The Scala Payroll Bureau also joined the UCMS Group. So we had an experienced staff of consultants, our own program, and we also continued to provide implementation services, plus payroll outsourcing. In the new structure I was engaged in consulting and in 2008 became the head of the branch in St. Petersburg.
I already had interesting projects related not so much to implementation, but, first of all, to the start of projects for outsourcing payroll and HR administration.
In 2010, another change took place – I was elected to the position of financial controller within the UCMS Group. I have implemented and standardized Scala for UCMS Group offices in all countries. It was an interesting period, because in 2010 we traveled to all our countries of presence in the CIS and Europe, we were in Romania, Poland, Hungary, Cyprus. Configured and brought all systems to a common denominator in order to receive reporting according to the corporate standard.
There were very interesting tasks – to control the formation of reporting, budgeting, accounting policy, monthly and quarterly reports. And not only for UCMS, but also for clients.
Then a new task appeared – it was necessary to build an accounting outsourcing department from scratch , Andrey Petrovich Shabanov (CEO until 2014) asked to assist Svetlana Makashina (note: Head of accounting outsourcing until 2014). We analyzed what processes can be improved, what expectations are there from customers, not so much from the point of view of an automator, but from the point of view of building a business process.
Then there were changes that radically changed my future destiny. At the end of 2013, the day before the New Year’s corporate party, Andrey Petrovich came up to me and said that he was planning to leave the company. It was a shock for me. And then he added that the founders offered me to become the head of UCMS Group Russia. It was even more shock, it was completely unexpected. We worked with him for a very long time, he was an absolute professional for me. It was difficult to pick up this high bar and lead, because Andrey Petrovich was known for many years as an excellent leader who assembled such a cool team. It was necessary to gain trust so that colleagues would adapt to the change of the head of the company. I was very much supported by all my colleagues and department heads. With Natasha Alenicheva, Tatyana Khomenko – at that time our HRD and Chief Accountant – we had a brainstorming session almost every day how to solve this or that problem. The task was not easy even due to the fact that then, in 2014, our owner planned to sell the outsourcing part of the business. And by that time the main business of the company had changed, since 2011 we have become a service company.
Outsourcing is our main activity, it was necessary to improve the quality and develop further.
2014 was a difficult year, and the change of ownership happened only in 2015 – part of the business was acquired by 1C.
At that time, we had several key goals. Task number 1 was to develop expertise in 1C. I think we have done this very successfully; now we are one of the strongest ZUP implementers. Our expertise has improved tremendously. We can implement, and add functionality and integrate with any other systems. We perfectly understand what the client wants when outsourcing payroll or HR administration. Now I am really proud of our implementation team and support, led by Sergey Pulnikov.
The accounting department has also grown – from zero to a third of our business, which is very significant. A lot has been done to achieve such results – we created a methodology department and added human resources. I know for sure that there is no ready-made outsourcing specialist, there is no institute that would teach an accountant who would be able to work in outsourcing. Therefore, we also organized our internal UCMS Academy, which solves the problems of internal and external training. In these courses, our specialists transfer their customer service expertise. Plus, we have a regular webinar cycle for both clients and our employees.
In 2015, we decided to move to the East due to the geopolitical situation.
This year it’s six years as I have become a CEO. Now we have four cities and three countries.
We have combined several excellent expertise in the company: outsourcing of accounting functions, development and consulting, and there are so many plans.
We will continue to grow and improve.
Outsourcing is a unique opportunity to plunge into such a variety of client businesses. In “normal” life, not a dozen employers would have to change.
Unity and dedication, professionalism, dedication to work, when, without hesitation for a second, a colleague will help you, and you will help him at any time of the day or night.
Mice.
I will not be original if I say that this is family and work.
Faith, Hope, Love.
This is not a city, but a village near St. Petersburg, where I grew up – Toksovo. This is a lake land, which is more than 500 years old, where people went skiing in winter, and in spring everything was buried in greenery, in summer everyone swam in the lakes, and in autumn there were always a lot of mushrooms and berries. I have visited a lot of placec, but I want to come exactly there.
I didn’t plan to be the CEO at all … so I would work as a financier or accountant. In the fourth generation, by the way! 🙂
This is a verb – you have to move every day and move everything around you, this is a constant action, an aspiration.
PROFI – we are a super-team of professional workaholics and like-minded people!
We help clients build or rebuild business processes. This is the first thing. Second, a lot is based on human and professional relationships.
Many of our clients, changing jobs, come to us again. This is a very important indicator, I think. Business is based on relationships, and we are a humane provider, you can always negotiate with us and find a solution to any problem. And the third is our huge consulting expertise. Coming to us, the client receives not only high-quality service, but also our knowledge, our experience.
25 years is a wonderful age when you understand that together we can do everything, and at the same time we want even more! The team gives strength and confidence that the next 25 will bring us and our Clients even greater success and prosperity! Thanks for the team!
A river in the village at my grandmother’s. Right behind the house, on the bank of the river, there is a haystack and a large weeping willow. We climbed to the very top of the haystack and slid down, as if from a hill, into the river – it was cooler than any water parks out there, which no one had ever heard of.
It was simply unrealistic to wash us afterwards, my grandmother had twelve grandchildren, and she drove us out of there. We thought that it was precisely because then we had to wash us from silt in all places. Now I understand that when a company of twelve grandchildren aged from two to thirteen jumps from a height of three meters into the water … my grandmother was simply scared for us.
At the age of ten I was picking hops – a very prickly long plant and besides, the hop cones are very light, for example, one bucket – about a kilogram. I collected as much as 12 rubles, it was a fortune! Spent on a silver pendant.
At the age of thirteen, I worked as labor practice at a curtain factory – I cut out pioneer ties, the norm was 300 pieces a day. I hated ties … For three weeks of practice I earned as much as 18 rubles and gave it to my parents – everything went to school fees 🙂
At the age of fifteen, I sewed custom-made clothes, took orders for embroidery and knitting.
Well, the first serious work was already at the institute – these were the dashing 90s, and I spent money on the way to the institute.
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