Swedish IT leader and innovater in telecoms
This April 2024, we get to know George Makarenko, General Manager of Callgear, who was raised in Stockholm and reflects on his journey from telecom projects in Russia to managing family assets in Dubai. Joining Callgear, he navigated challenges like the pandemic's onset, achieving US$ 60,000 monthly revenue, and expanding with AI integration. His focus remains on fostering innovation and entrepreneurship within his team while aiming for geographical expansion.
Callgear is an advanced call management system and call center solution. They help companies to complement their corporate digital eco system with Callgear. Their tool helps clients to get a holistic view on their calls and sales team, their performance, set team KPI's, analyse their inbound leads and generate more leads with the same marketing budget.
Hej SBC Member!
Share a bit about yourself, including your journey both personally and professionally.
George Makarenko, General Manager of Callgear
I will probably start to say a few words about myself personally. My name is Georig Makarenko, I was born in Moscow and raised in Stockholm. I believe that the late 90s and the early 00s was the absolute best time to grow up in Stockholm. I have the most wonderful childhood memories. Today, I am already 34, most of my adult life has been between Moscow and Dubai. I have two wonderful daughters. I am a big cat lover, and i am very fond of outdoor activities and football.
My professional journey started in a company called Scandinavian House (SH). The company was headquartered in Moscow, with nine branches in Russia. The main business of the company was to distribute Swedish manufactured products to Russian Telecom Operators, including logistics, Mobile Network Planning, Base Station installation and configuration, as well as optical cable installation. It was here where I developed my passion for the Telecom Industry and in depth understanding of its impact on our daily lives. I was participating in many "milestone projects", sometimes during harsh weather conditions, in order to provide the best quality Mobile Network Services to the subscriber.
I loved the feeling of improving the quality of life for the people, while everyone is using a mobile phone, these days. Actually, it is probably what we use the most. However, after three years in SH, I decided to relocate to the UAE to manage our family assets and implement operational structure for the daily business routine. Most of it is still used today by my brother. Nevertheless, the passion for telecom stayed with me, with a certain IT development to it, and as it happened, I joined Callgear. Callgear was initially planning to penetrate the US market, however as I joined, based on my market knowledge, broad business network, we gave it a shot in the UAE. It worked fantastically well! The market responded faster than we could handle at the initial point.
Within Callgear, could you elaborate on the significant milestones and challenges you've experienced on your path to becoming the General Manager? What lessons have you learned along the way?
The very first challenge, which turned out to be an opportunity, was that we got our Service License on the 11th March 2020 and went into lock down on the 26th. The first few weeks, probably even months, everyone was in panic. No one had any projections on what will happen next, hence the need or urge in investment in a new IT tool, was not the top priority for most of our customers. However, when things calmed down a bit, a Virtual PBX solution turned out to be the perfect solution to maintain business operations, despite the restricted movement. Actually, we used it in our marketing materials and sales promotions.
In term of milestones, the absolute first milestone we achieved was US$ 60,000 in monthly revenues. We understood that this number could not be achieved by chance. This number meant we have validated the market, and we can further invest into business development. We started to rapidly expand in term of daily marketing spent, manpower etc. That is where the challenges came. Rapid expansion is always a challenge, new staff need to be educated of the product, after all, it is more of a complex IT product, rather than simple daily use Telecom product. We constantly had to expand our credit limits with our suppliers, manage the cash flow, basically the usual stuff. Having said all that, I personally learned that if there is a plan to build a big company, a corporation, it must be managed as one from the very beginning. What I mean is, that even when you are 5-10 people working on a project, the communication, reports interdepartmental processes must be as if you are already a large corporation. Even though it might feel a bit silly, it will definitely make the "scaling" part much easier.
Looking ahead, how do you envision the evolution of the technology utilised by Callgear in the coming years? For example with the increasing impact of AI across various industries, how do you anticipate AI influencing Callgear?
George and the team
Well, the good news is, we have had AI features in Callgear for a few years already and we are constantly developing and implementing new ones. A great example is call analysis or call assessments. On average a midsize company of approximately 20-50 sales staff, will need to have at least two people, listening and assessing the calls. In this scenario a lot of human factors are involved, such as quality of the analysis, sick leaves etc, which leaves a big room for human error. With the help of AI, we can achieve an 85% accuracy rate with no human involved apart from downloading and analysing the data. Since the trend is that we have more and more communication channels, not only traditional voice channels, but we also have messengers, we are introducing an Omni Channel Solution. This will allow our customers to communicate with their clients in their preferred communication channel. It is obvious that the amount of data that will need to be analysed is huge, hence AI is crucial. On a personal note, I believe that AI is a technology that will help the customer journey and improve operations for many businesses.
George and the team in a meeting
As a leader within Callgear, what guiding principles and values do you prioritise, to foster a culture of innovation and excellence within your team?
I believe our strength lies in our values and how we are structuring our team and departments. We allow each person to create, propose, participate in the development of our company. On top of that each employee, department chief etc, have a clear set of KPI's where he/she can directly impact on his/her own income. Therefore, you can say we are functioning as a network of entrepreneurs who are collaborating.
Lastly, what are your long-term aspirations, both personally and professionally?
In my life professional and personal it is very interconnected. A personal event can impact my work and vice versa. To be honest, I want the current trend to stay, and I am not planning to change the vector too much. Of course, we have geographical expansion plans which I am very excited about and with these come challenges, which I look forward to as well. I have noticed that I mature, grow, and develop in crisis, probably like most people, hence I always look forward for new ones. In summary, I plan to head in the same direction as I am going now.
Thank you George for sharing your story with us! We wish you all the best with your passion for technology!
George Makarenko, General Manager, Callgear
Email: george@callgear.com
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