When you take every opportunity as a learning experience, nothing seems to be out of reach. Today we discuss succeeding in the networking business, reaching for the mountain tops and dreaming of space with Tarass Popovs, Board Member at Baltic Premier Partners and our esteemed Extreme Champion!
Hello, Tarass! You are the first Champion from Latvia we have a chance to interview, so excuse us for being a little excited here 😉 Speaking of first things, do you remember how your partnership with Extreme came to be in the first place?
I started working in the networking business quite some time ago, I remember the moment coincided with the Chantry Networks wireless solution appearing in our portfolio back in my Siemens Enterprise Communication days. It was very exciting to learn new technologies myself and offer them to our customers. Over the years, Chantry products bloomed under the wings of Enterasys Networks, eventually to become part of Extreme as part of the acquisition. So that’s how it all started for me.
You’ve been instrumental in the growth of BPP’s status of a top Extreme partner in the Baltic region for a number of years now. What are your biggest lead-generating projects to date?
Since our business has grown historically from wireless, this is the field where we have very deep knowledge and expertise. Not only from a purely technological point of view, but also in terms of business perspective and values our proposed solutions bring to our customers.
That being said, we have had the honor of participating in delivery and support of one of the biggest, if not *the* biggest, public Wi-Fi networks in Latvia. We also have a strong presence in the higher education sector with the solutions that are based on Extreme Networks technologies. Some very valuable customers in healthcare, too.
But in any case, every new project, potential or finished one, large or small, is exciting. It’s not just about delivering technology, it’s even more interesting to see what kind of value does the proposed solution bring to the table. Not to mention that there’s always a learning experience to be gained, with each new case or customer story we learn something new. That’s also very exciting.
You’ve delivered solutions to both central and regional government agencies of Latvia and Estonia, among others. What are the biggest technical challenges and business opportunities you’re seeing in your markets right now? How does your partnership with Extreme fall into this landscape?
As far as technology is concerned, I should mention fierce competition, there are many different vendors who are also very active on our markets. Also, some customers from the public sector still remain quite conservative, when it comes to choosing specific brands.
What it basically means, if you wish to compete successfully, coming forward with very high expertise in technology is not enough. You also need to show deep understanding of our customers processes, as we typically don’t compete with a piece of hardware, but rather certain technology features and how they translate into business value. This is why we spend a lot of time to explain to customer values and benefits they may gain by using Extreme Networks technology.
Sure, there are a lot of business opportunities, mainly in offering higher value to the customers infrastructure, reorganizing business processes to hybrid working models or extended customers demand for security and visibility of their networks. Extreme has a perfect offering to cover all these challenges, especially with the Infinite Enterprise concept behind ExtremeCloud IQ. I’d also like to mention that our colleagues from Extreme with whom we are working on a daily basis are very supportive, too!
You have clients coming from lots of different other verticals as well. Is there a universal secret recipe to running a great account?
Sadly, no. The beauty of it all is that every customer has their own challenges and demands, requiring highly individual approach. You need to be very attentive in each case. But it’s more fun that way, isn’t it? 😉
Are there any types of projects or industries that you particularly enjoy working with?
That would be education, healthcare and service providers.
Before starting up Baltic Premier Partners, you spent 3 and a half years leading Siemens Enterprise Communications as a Country Manager in Latvia, prior the company’s rebranding to Unify and a later acquisition by Atos. It’s also worth mentioning that at that time, you were in your early thirties. How did that experience translate into your future business at BPP?
Honestly speaking, working in Siemens Enterprise Communications first as a sales manager and then as a Country Manager, was a great learning experience for me. Those were the times of learning by doing, as many things were changing very much, very fast, both in the internal and external business environment so I needed to adapt quickly to these dynamic shifts.
Which would eventually turn out to be very helpful for Baltic Premier Partners. We started the company by doing management buyout of Siemens Enterprise Communications operations in the Baltic area. The customers knew us and had a lot of trust in our team’s experience.
Today, Unify is BPP’s main vendor for unified communications, IP telephony and contact centers solutions. Have you had any particularly interesting joint projects that would also involve switching, wireless, security and/or management solutions from Extreme?
Somehow, there haven’t been to many joint projects where we were bidding both Extreme Networks and Unify solutions. But of course, Extreme makes for our main offering if the customer needs infrastructure solution to connect IP telephones or servers for Contact Center. That being said, we have many customers with whom we started a successful cooperation with Unify solutions and then successfully expanded it with the Extreme Networks portfolio.
Would you agree that a Vendor/Partner dynamic is something that can make it or break it for any project? What do you value the most in your partnership with Extreme?
Of course, I wholeheartedly agree. The Vendor/Partner dynamic is key to achieving success in our projects. What I value the most in our colleagues from Extreme is their openness, quick reaction to requests, which sometimes can be pretty far from standard, and of course creativity in proposing solutions for even the most complex of projects.
If not the networking business, what would you be doing in life?
I consider travelling and visiting new places my biggest passion. I’d like to be able to spend more time exploring the world and learning about different cultures.
We also know you enjoy a good skiing trip. Your favorite destination?
I haven’t been to many skiing destinations yet, but Italy is definitely my favorite one so far!
You’re a fan of Richard Branson. What do you admire most about the founder of Virgin Group? Speaking of which, any chance we see you in space anytime soon? 😉
Having read several books by Richard Branson, I admire the man’s creativity, focus and determination. As for the space… let’s just see how it goes. 🙂
