IT Technologies and COVID-19: Which Business is Not Afraid of The "Plague of The XXI Century."

 

For almost two years now, our life has been going on in the conditions of the spread of the new coronavirus infection COVID-19. The virus is conquering new territories with incredible speed and completely changes the usual rhythm of life.

 

Due to the mandatory limitation of social contacts, our whole life has shifted to a remote format. We can no longer live without the World Wide Web. Telemedicine, working remotely, meetings in the Zoom, distance learning in schools and universities, shopping, entertainment, and even sports have moved to the Internet. It is impossible to imagine how our life would have developed in a pandemic if not for high technologies that help society stay as much as possible in its familiar environment: work, study, communication, meet, and confront an unknown person.

In such a problematic epidemiological situation, the role of the IT industry has dramatically increased. Moreover, an extended stay in self-isolation allowed people to understand how indispensable Internet technologies are in ensuring each individual's life and the life of the entire society.

 

These technologies are helping to contain the spread of coronavirus infection while allowing businesses to keep running. As a result, many businessmen have changed their priorities. Even companies that traditionally provided their services offline tried to adapt their services to the conditions of the new reality, showing efficiency and ingenuity.

 

Russian businessman Alexander Boyko, the leader of the Internet technology industry, did not have to act quickly and resourcefully. As he has long been dubbed by the media, an honest businessman has built his business through the global network for almost 20 years. As a result, he has long become an expert in this field.

 

As if foreseeing that our life would move to the World Wide Web over time and wish to make business more transparent for participants in market relations, Alexander Alekseevich Boyko, together with the shareholders of international funds, including the American one, founded the B2B-Center company in 2002. As a result, the company became one of the first players in the Russian e-commerce market in the business-to-business segment. The company develops software for corporate purchases and sales, but the main product of the company is the electronic trading platform of the same name. Initially, companies from the electric power sector, RAO UES of Russia, organized their tenders on the platform created by the B2B-Center. Later, tenders began to be announced by customers from other industries - mechanical engineering, defense industry, metallurgy, petrochemistry, etc. Thus, the platform is currently used by over 700,000 Russian and foreign companies from various industries.

 

However, the path to success was not easy for Boyko. The idea itself was sound, the software worked, but the business stalled at first. Then, the business owners were required to switch to electronic trading since the buyers themselves did not want to automate their work.

Thanks to cooperation in the 1990s with many power engineers, Alexander Boyko decided to get clients among the numerous subsidiaries of RAO UES. Thus, he named his first trading platform "B2B-Energo". As a result, some energy companies transferred part of their tenders to B2B-Energo, which became known to Russia's head of RAO UES. As a result, electronic trading became a standard in the energy industry, and thousands of corporations' suppliers began to use the platform.

 

When RAO UES ceased to exist, many of its subsidiaries changed their approach to procurement. The entrepreneur has developed a new plan based on the federal government procurement law. Under this law, officials were obliged to purchase goods and services at public auctions, both online and offline. Brazilian public procurement system was created in consultation with B2B-Center.

 

B2B-Center has created a trading system for conducting auctions by state and municipal enterprises "B2G-government procurement". The administration of the President of the Russian Federation and the government of the Krasnodar Territory began to use such a platform. In total, there were about 7,000 participants on the site, quite a few, given the scale of the government procurement sector.

 

Boyko actively pursued the introduction of standards that would oblige officials to spend money only on electronic trading. After all, it would be easier for the authorities to track them, and electronic platforms would receive colossal turnovers. In 2010, the authorities finally decided that the entire state order must go through the Internet. But the municipalities of Moscow and Tatarstan, MICEX, RTS, and Sberbank were chosen as trading operators. B2B-Center was left with nothing.

 

But the talented entrepreneur had another plan. Alexander Alekseevich literally contacted all the oligarchs, interested many companies, and got new participants in his electronic trading system.

Then everything went well. Despite the emergence of similar companies, B2B-Center has become a leader in the Internet industry and still holds the palm.

How did Alexander Boyko manage to organize everything so clearly, promptly, and correctly? How did the businessman manage to organize well-coordinated work and develop his business in this way?

 

Alexander was born and raised in the city of Tiraspol, Moldavian SSR. However, the future businessman came to Moscow for higher education. In 1986, he graduated from the Moscow Forestry Institute, majoring in Forestry Engineering. In 2003, he graduated from the Russian State University for the Humanities, majoring in Economics. He also got his Ph.D. in Economics.

 

In what fields did Boyko work? First, in the 80s - in the Ministry of Defense of the USSR, in 1989 - in the 2nd Central Military Hospital named after Mandryka as an agronomist. Then, for 5 years (since 1990), he worked at PC "Ozelenie" as deputy director.

In 1995-1996, he managed investment events with the Harvard Club and Harvard School of Business.

 

Since 1996, Alexander Boyko has been vice president of the All-Russian Association of Privatized and Private Enterprises. From 2011 to 2017 - Chairman of the Russian Union of Self-Regulatory Organizations of Arbitration Trustees.

In 2006-2008, he was in charge of the project to create a regulatory framework for technical regulation in the electric power industry of RAO UES of Russia. In 2003, he held the position of Chairman of the Board of Directors of IC "Energy Renovation Center" LLC (operator of the B2B-Energo system).

 

Alexander Alekseevich was awarded several awards:

 

• Order of Merit in the Field of Informatization from the UN Commission on Informatization;

• diplomas of the winner of the E-Commerce and Trade-2004 Conference-Contest in the following categories: The Best Operator of an Electronic Trading Platform, The Best Electronic Trading System, The Best Integrated Solution for Building a Universal E-Commerce and Trade System, The Best Industrial Electronic Trading Platform;

• Winner of the 2nd All-Russian Forum - Exhibition "Goszakaz-2006" in the category "The best electronic trading platform for organizing public procurement." 

Boyko is the founder of the very prestigious Leader of Procurement Activities Award. The prize has been awarded annually for 10 years.

 

Boyko has more than 20 information and analytical articles wrote by him. He was interviewed for business periodicals such as Kommersant, Vedomosti, Open Economy, World Economy, etc.

Andrey Aleksandrovich Boyko, the commercial director of B2B-Center, has achieved great success in this field. Walking from an ordinary employee to a managerial position, Andrey meticulously researched the field of activity of Alexander Boyko. As a result, he became a worthy partner and continuer of the family business.

 

Alexander Boyko and his team organized a transparent procurement process in the trading and a procedure in which all tenders, auctions, etc., were regulated and subject to specific rules. Thanks to the B2B-Center system, business managers can control the entire trading procedure in real-time. The system stores information about all processes taking place on the site. This means that you can see how the price was set for similar transactions at any time. All this makes it possible to avoid "kickbacks", which allows you to create a competitive economy and a civilized market.

 

Also, an essential task of the B2B-Center system is identifying shady suppliers by checking potential bidders against the database. Dishonest participants on the site are not registered and are excluded from the bidders. As a result, out of 500,000 applications, only half become registered. They remain in the database with all the details, but a corresponding mark is made, and re-registration is almost impossible.

 

The model of doing business using Internet technologies created two decades ago by Alexander Boyko was absolutely ready for force majeure situations, which include a new coronavirus infection. However, during the pandemic, the company only strengthened its position in the Russian market and once again proved that it was a leader in its industry.

The technologies introduced by Boyko and other entrepreneurs play a crucial role in maintaining the sustainable functioning of society in conditions of quarantine and forced isolation during a pandemic but can also have a longer-term impact after the end of COVID-19.