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“First concrete cutting firm in Russia”
Russian concrete sawing and drilling contractor Yventa, based in Zelenograd northwest of Moscow, is an example of a contractor working in Russia’s emerging concrete sawing and drilling business.
Although business is good for Yventa, the biggest threat is the unrealistic and fluctuating prices for concrete cutting services.
Yventa was formed in 1991 by Jury Pimenov and Juri Panferov and as with most other concrete cutters in Russia their work is divided between contracting services (70%) and sales of concrete cutting equipment and diamond tools and repair of equipment and retipping (30%).
30% increase per year
Yventa is one of Russia’s 15 to 20 professional concrete cutting contractors and started out with only the two founders and now has 15 employees. The company mostly operates in the Moscow region. Annual turn over for their concrete cutting work is about EUR 1 million and sales and repair represent another EUR 300,000. Even with the strong competition Yventa has been increasing its business by around 30% every year and with their location in Zelenograd, just outside Moscow, they are able to save a lot of time and money. “We picked the Zelenograd location for several reasons,” says Juri Panferov. “Most of all we have easy access to the worksites. Moscow has a terrible traffic problem inside the city so we would loose hours in traffic if we were nearer the downtown area. Zelenograd is also an industrial area with good access to supporting industries and jobs.” Zelenograd was formerly known as the ”Silicon Valley” of the Soviet Union due to its many computer factories.
Unfair pricing
Jury and Juri are satisfied with the development of their business but competition has got a lot tougher since they started. “We were probably one of the first professional concrete cutting companies in Russia and we had no competition at all at that time,” says Jury Pimenov. “We were mostly using Dimas and Partner equipment and when we went to a job with our western equipment our clients and others on the site were very impressed with our efficiency. This resulted rather quickly in new concrete cutting companies popping up on the market offering the same service at much lower prices and with no training at all.” He also says that several companies, like a nearby pulp factory, decided to buy their own equipment. When they did not know how to use the equipment they called Yventa to do the job. Although Yventa was fortunate on this occasion they have lost work under similar circumstances and from other unskilled contractors operating on much lower prices.
“It also sometimes happens on a big job where the client hires a professional contractor for a couple of weeks just so they can get a grip on how they can do the job themselves,” adds Pimenov. “The contractor only gets maybe just 10% of the job. Even the standard pricing between professional concrete cutters varies a lot depending on whether the job is in the Moscow region or in the countryside. For a Moscow wall sawing job we charge EUR 260/m2 and in the countryside you get around EUR 75 for the same job. For core drilling we charge EUR 1.1 to 1.2/cm in Moscow and around 50 cents in the countryside.” Unfortunately this type of difficult market creates corruption and bribes are common in order to get jobs.
Hard to find skilled workers
Another problem Yventa and many other professional concrete cutters face is the difficulty to find skilled workers. Most of the young people do not want to do practical work and are not interested in being trained. The average salary for a concrete cutter ranges between EUR 400 to 600/month. This is compared with the average minimum salary throughout Russia of around EUR 110/month and rising to about EUR 150 in the Moscow region. “The young people in Moscow are more interested in getting office jobs in the city where they can make more money. On an average Russian construction site maybe 10% of the workers are Russians and the rest are immigrant workers, illegal or legal mostly from countries like Uzbekistan,” says Pimenov.
All training and education of concrete cutters needs to be done by the contractors or their suppliers as there are no training schools for this trade. Russia has not yet any official branch association for concrete sawing and drilling contractors or demolition contractors.
Target: To become biggest in Moscow
Despite strong competition and the need for Yventa to set up its own employee training scheme, the company is doing well and all company employees are well trained in concrete cutting methods. During the company’s 15 years in the business Yventa has built up a strong network of clients. Common projects include the re-development of former factories into shopping and business centres, car parks, apartments, underground and subway work.
“We have a good reputation both from our knowledge and our equipment and our goal is to become the biggest concrete sawing and drilling contractor in the Moscow region,” says Pimenov.
Yventa is also distributor for Dimas and Partner products and is also repairing the same brands as well as other. Their own equipment is also supplied by Husqvarna and have several hydraulic wall saws and wire saws with power packs as well as core drill sets and floor saws.
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