Karas Group co-founder: Being close to compatriots is one of our company’s main principles

2020-04-28

The interview of Tigran Yuzbashyan, co-founder of Karas Group National Food Chain, with ARKA and Novosti Armenia news agencies as part of  the special project #SaveBusiness - How has your activity changed since the outbreak of the coronavirus? T. Yuzbashyan - After the outbreak of the coronavirus, our activity has not just changed, but one of the main directions has completely changed - serving visitors in the halls. At the moment, we have only a delivery service and a Take It service. - How popular is your delivery service? What do they mainly order? T. Yuzbashyan - Karas Group has always had a delivery service, and we are one of the market leaders in this area. Our focus is always on the quality of the food delivered, the speed of delivery and the work of the staff. However, in connection with the current situation, we even more coordinated and concentrated our efforts on further development of the delivery service, providing customers with more advantageous packages. Both the Karas Group National Food Chain and the Tumanyani Shaurma Fast Food Chain during this period have made customers a number of very interesting offers as part of Take It delivery service. Many probably believe that during this period, food delivery indicators should increase, but there is one very big BUT: people stay at home these days, they have a lot of free time. Therefore, they mainly prefer to cook for themselves, and they also save money, since there are no forecasts for the future. The fact that we worked and developed the delivery service for many years and held strong positions in the field, of course, helps us. It turns out that in this regard, our companies are now in a more comfortable position. And for many restaurants that did not have a delivery service and only now, taking into account the current situation, they decided to introduce it and entered the market, of course, it is very difficult. - What is the policy of your company under quarantine? T. Yuzbashyan - I will say this - we tightened our belts. We began to reduce costs in all areas - rent, various services, marketing activity and more. We are trying to minimize our costs in order to be able to exist in such a situation. It is very important to understand that if a business can resist a crisis, then after exiting the crisis, it will work very efficiently - more efficiently than before the crisis. As for cost reduction, I can say that you start thinking about it only when you come to the crunch, and before that, when everything is fine, you don’t think about the reduction. Therefore, we can say that any crisis has its positive sides. The crisis forces us to optimize the business: this must always be done, and it is very important in any business. - How do you explain to yourself what caused this whole situation with coronavirus? T. Yuzbashyan - I call those general processes that are happening all over the world and this worldwide economic crisis, the redistribution of world assets. Thus, certain “powerful families” created all this, similar to a movie, in which, it turns out, the actors are states, and none of them could refuse their role. Unfortunately, this scenario makes an attempt to "kill" the entire business, and human losses are already hundreds of thousands. - Do you count on state assistance? What specific activities could support the business in this situation? T. Yuzbashyan - Over the 15 years of the Karas Group’s activity, we have never been waiting for the state’s assistance, as also now. I do not think that we should hope for the help of the state. We should act on our own, and we are taking all possible and impossible steps to lead our company out of the crisis with honor. Nevertheless, if the state helps our area, we will be very grateful. At the moment, the only step the state has taken is to provide interest-free loans to pay taxes and salaries. From the very first day, when the state of emergency was declared, our company stood next to the state and decided to regularly provide the citizens, medical staff and law enforcement officers isolated in Tsakhkadzor and other places with tasty and nutritious food before the end of the state of emergency. Hundreds of compatriots receive from us a traditional barbecue. Being close to compatriots is one of the main principles of our company. We decided to certainly highlight the fact of providing such large-scale assistance to serve as a contagious example for our partners and other food outlets. Naturally, this is not self-promotion, as some representatives of the sphere noted, but an initiative to consolidate forces, to provide all possible assistance in difficult times for society. - Russian restaurateurs already call the situation in the field catastrophic and devastating. Do you agree with this rating? How would you describe the situation in this area in Armenia? Is there a preliminary calculation of the damage caused to the sphere by the coronavirus? T. Yuzbashyan - Both in Russia and in Armenia, the restaurant and tourism sectors were simply in a disastrous situation. As for our company, we somewhat mitigated the losses thanks to the delivery service, although our damage, in any case, is enormous. When the crisis is over, and we all return to normal life, and I still can’t imagine what this new normal life will be like (many experts say that life will change significantly), our company will be in a relatively favorable position. After any crisis, when there is not much money left in the hands of the population, people begin to use the services of companies offering more affordable service options. Of course, we have always been among those companies that offer the best quality-price ratio at the market. In our sphere, this crisis will primarily affect higher-class restaurants, since they not only have high prices for which the population will not be ready, but they also relied on an active tourist period between May and September. As you know, such restaurants earn a huge part of their annual profits during the period of the largest influx of tourists into the country. And since in the near future a zero influx of tourists is predicted, restaurants of a class above ours will be in a very difficult situation both now - during the crisis, and in the post-crisis period.