(Photo: Sinara-Blagoustroystvo)
In 2008, a private capital firm and a large metallurgical company founded Sinara-Blagoustroystvo using resources from a parent company. Immediately, it was a critical entity in the region, employing hundreds of people and serving thousands of customers nationally. In 2011, after becoming independent from the parent company, Sinara-Blagoustroystvo was bought out by Vasilii Shvets, an entrepreneur with a mechanical engineering background.
Immediately, Shvets began diving into the company's data, understanding its profitability drivers, and highlighting struggling business areas. Once armed with extensive information about the company's current state, Shvets pulled from his background in process improvement within engineering to begin setting the organization up for future success. Getting rid of some of its major divisions, including landscaping and asphalt laying, Shvets initiated a strategic transition, moving the company from largely a service provider to a manufacturing and production giant.
After just three years as the managing director of the organization, Shvets started a wooden container division that showed financial promise. With the production of complex wooden boxes, large wooden shields for the railway, and laying bars for concrete manufacturing plants, the organization began to experience rapid growth. As its customer base expanded, internal teams grew, and revenue targets became more ambitious. Today, with a team of 25 workers, this one sector of the business produces thousands of wooden products each week.
In 2016, Shvets took another leap; his research showed that textile lifting slings were needed all around the world in many different industries, so he hired experienced sewers. At first, just three people were sewing, but now, a team of 20 sewers, one quality inspector, a loader, a mechanic, and a site manager create textile lifting slings, laptop cases, and even cooler bags.
When the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, many businesses couldn't withstand changing pressures and market volatility, but for the team at ATR-Ural, business was booming. With a smart pricing strategy, funds accumulated, and Shvets reinvested those funds back into the business. He purchased additional sewing equipment so more lifting slings could be created and moved the sewing workshop from a rental space to an on-site facility, reducing the cost of rent and shaving unnecessary production costs.
By 2022, the company's focus centered almost entirely on textile slings and wooden products. Now operating as a 100% production-focused company, Shvets' business continues to refine its approach to manufacturing, product delivery, and logistics. To match its new direction and strategic focus, Sinara-Blagoustroystvo was renamed to "ATR-Ural." The company is seen as a stable supplier that weathers storms of all kinds and delivers the highest-quality products.
In 2023, Shvets anticipates that the company will see a revenue of 216 million rubles and a profit of 40 million rubles. It outpaces revenue numbers from its days as a service provider with fewer resources and a much smaller support staff. The ability to pull in these revenue numbers with a much smaller team speaks to Shvet's ability to innovate, improve processes, and jump at new opportunities. He's always thinking about what comes next, what can be learned from the past, and how can things be done more efficiently moving forward.
Looking forward to the future, global expansion plans are deep in development, and Shvets continues to reassess the focus areas of the business. An experimental sewing workshop is creating trial products to sell on marketplaces; to date, these products include backpacks, thermal bags, and laptop bags. He's also considering setting up a workshop to make uniforms to sell to consumers. By employing intelligent business tactics, Shvets successfully deconstructed a massive company and rebuilt it to fit today's needs better.
ATR-Ural has seen many eras, but this one is by far the most exciting for Shvets, the company, and the employees who are critical to its success.
