Interview with a Graduate: Department Manager at Decathlon and Business Owner Mikhail Khatmullin

16:27, August 27, 2020

Read an interview with our graduate and get the inspiration from his success story!

Mikhail Khatmullin:

«Business is always connected with risks, and the best way to handle them is to foresee several development scenarios».

A young manager at Decathlon network (retail supplier with 60 retail shops and an online store, with over 1 billion turnover a year), as well as an owner of his own business now lives in Moscow. Mikhail graduated from GSEM with a Bachelor’s degree in Economic Theory in 2014 and a Master’s in Financial Economics in 2016. 

– Mikhail, please share your first steps in business with our current students. Beginning is always difficult and hard.

– While still studying at the university, I got a job as a logistics specialist. I was used to the high level of workload, my day was planned from dusk till dawn: work, studies, I even managed to go to the gym. And after I finished my Master’s, there appeared some free time for my dream to start my own business.

There was no hope for seed funding. Knowing from my studies that the most important thing in making any decisions is to analyse the data on the subject, I assessed the search frequency on Yandex and realised that the statistics showed clearly a growing trend. A market saturation indicator for me was a comparative analysis of prices on AliExpress and in Ekaterinburg local shops. The goods were 30% more expensive in the shops, which suggested that the local market was relatively free.

In was in 2016. I created my own group in the social network VKontakte and started buying devices on AliExpress and selling them piece by piece. I needed to stand out somehow, and as I understood that the main problem of the post-Soviet market was the quality of services, I paid a lot of attention to each client, organised delivery free of charge, in a very specific time (usually during non-working hours). This strategy paid off: the clients brought their friends. There was no chance of bulk buying then, so I was selling with a minimum margin. Seeing happy clients gave me strength. The scope was slowly growing, and wholesalers started to approach me. I was beginning to understand the demand and marginality of goods. From the start of my business I had been keeping detailed accounts, recording stock turnover, clients conversion, which allowed for efficient purchasing.

– What lessons have you learnt and would like to share with our students – future economists and businesspeople?

– Lesson one: persistence pays off.  
10 months after my first purchase from AliExpress, the stock and the number of clients were so big that I opened my first store in the city centre. The values remained: best service quality and lowest prices. All that time I kept my regular job in logistics, although the income from my business was already bigger that my wage. In 6 months I opened the second store, it was in 2018.

At that time, Decathlon found my CV on the Internet and offered me a high management position. I got this job thanks to my business experience. My wage doubled, and the time I could devote to my business decreased at the same time.

Lesson two: business needs continuous control and optimisation.

Implementing time management techniques, I redistributed time between my job, business and family. And the result was evident shortly: +500% turnover a year. I should note that I used almost all the business earnings to open new stores. I opened 9 over 4 years, 3 of them are operating today.

Starting from 2019, the market segment I was in has been in stagnation, but our principles of doing business allowed for growth. Every crisis makes my business stronger. A year ago, I was transferred to work permanently in Moscow for my Decathlon job. A month later there was a sabotage incident and I had to let go all my sales managers in one day. I could give up and close down, but I knew that this was just another crisis that would make me more sustainable. I managed to hire a new team online and the business started operating and growing again.   
  
Lesson three: always have a plan B, whether it is for a sales manager, a store location or a product range. always connected with risks, and the best way to handle them is to foresee several development scenarios and react immediately to any external or internal factors.

During the quarantine period, we launched an online store and deliver all over Russia. I also opened a new line of business. My business earnings are twice as big as my wage, however, I do not want to leave my job being guided by the antifragility theory, and I still invest the profits to new projects.

– What was the most useful thing you learnt at the university? What subjects were your favourite?

– I would like to thank the university for analytical skills and the lack of fear to experiment. Mistakes only make you stronger, this is undoubtful.

My favourite subjects were Mathematical Analysis, Microeconomics, Game Theory and Mathematical Programming. 
 
Dear students, you’ve done the right thing. What is next depends not only on the university but largely on you. Good luck!