'I am where they need me the most'
<p>
Mila Sidorina has been responsible for marketing and communications at CWT for almost 10 years and at the joint corporate business Vipservice for half a year. She has been working in business tourism for an impressive 15 years. Mila says it was her natural need to share the knowledge and experience from being a part of the global chain that has led her to become the Head of Corporate Department in April 2019. Her need to be where they need her the most.
</p>
<p>
We spoke with Mila and found out her strategy on the new position, and what new solutions she wants to offer to the clients.
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
'Mila, how do you regard your appointment at Vipservice, the second one in the last six months: as a promotion or as a challenge in a new environment?'
</p>
<p>
'If I have to choose, I'd say the second. For me, this new role is mainly an opportunity to help the company's corporate team take the service of business trips to a new level.
</p>
<p>
'I actually started my career in a similar position—back in 2004, I was working with clients at CWT. Later, they required my services in marketing and internal communications: I needed to help inspire the team. You can see now that I'm used to being on the front line, in the middle of the main tasks and business events. That's why, when CWT became a part of Vipservice, I moved from Saint Petersburg to Moscow and became responsible for the holding's corporate marketing and external communications. And I've brought my skills in working for a global company with me: standards of choosing a team, successful cases of strategic management of travel programmes and proactive communication with clients. And all of this is based on love for the brand and constant quality assessments. Given the company's course for globalisation, it's all relevant. Managing Director of Vipservice Irina Solovyeva took note of my experience and the desire to share it with others and offered me the position of the Head of Corporate Department of VIP Corporate Travel. And I'm always where they need me the most'.
</p>
<p>
'What would you say is your main task as the Head of Corporate Department at Vipservice?'
</p>
<p>
'Creating a strong team of professional managers and establishing the kind of business relationship that our company and our clients expect from us. And this implies being able to communicate, hear, listen and work effectively with other departments of the company. Having a systematic approach, at the same time being creative, being able to distance yourself from the daily routine and look at the client and business processes with fresh eyes. Being flexible and making decisions that benefit both parties.
</p>
<p>
'The current demands of corporate market lead us to embrace the paradigm of 3Ps: Plain, Productive, Profitable. But this 'simple' philosophy is actually not that simple. To implement it, you need clarity, honesty, discipline and intellect. This is the direction I've chosen for my team and myself'.
</p>
<p>
'Who are the clients of Vipservice, and why do they choose your company?'
</p>
<p>
'The clients of Vipservice are government institutions and big international companies from different industries, the main ones being construction, oil and gas, FMCG, retail, pharmaceuticals and IT. From my answer, you can already tell that the level of requirements to us as the organisers of their travel is very high. These companies are focused on achieving big results and expect it from every project.
</p>
<p>
'The way we work today is by immersing ourselves into the specifics of the industry for each client and analysing the numbers and algorithms that employees use when making decisions. Our task is to organise this data and use them to create a company Image for each industry reflecting their preferences in terms of comfort, discipline, flexibility and economy. These analytics help us conduct consultations with our current and especially our new clients so we can give them practical and proven advice for optimum travel solutions, right 'in the entryway'.
</p>
<p>
'Our goal is to make a client choose us with their heart not just for the way we treat them but also for our intellectual abilities'.
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
'What steps have you already taken towards this goal?'
</p>
<p>
'First of all, I would like to work on the internal processes of my department: get rid of complicated business procedures, the inertia. To organise the documents in a simple and clear way.
</p>
<p>
'Moreover, we're about to enter the 'hot' summer and autumn of 2019. We need to be prepared for the projects we've been thinking about for the past year so we can launch them in the nearest future. First, an updated corporate web—Portbilet Corp, which will cover all the questions of travellers and companies in great detail. Second, integrating hotel content from HotelStar, which will give us a unique algorithm for direct communication with hotel service providers for our corporate clients. And finally, in autumn, we will launch a new BI instrument of predictive analytics'.
</p>
<p>
'And what's going to happen with corporate marketing at Vipservice?'
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
'I will still work on it closely but in a different capacity. I've been very thorough with selecting the new corporate marketing person, and together we will be able to make more targeted offers to potential clients. This breakthrough would not have been possible without analysing first-hand information that I get from the clients themselves.
</p>
<p>
'We also want to engage with clients more in an informal setting. At the Vipservice office, we now have a beautiful amphitheatre, and we want to invite everyone for a Doors Open Day. I personally am a fan of networking, and my dream is to launch a series of events for clients called 'Re-discovering', where we would talk about different work and life 'discoveries'. I think it could be an interesting project that would create more common ground between us and bring business partners together.
</p>
<p>
'I'm sure that the changes in personnel will give a new life to the development of corporate business at Vipservice. The VIP Corporate Travel team is very optimistic about the future'.
</p>
