The new head of the IT block of "Airplane" Dmitry Samozhkin - on the strategy of digitalization and the prospects of the IPO "Airplane Technology"
In the past few years, the developer "Airplane" pays special attention to the development of IT - both for internal use and in terms of developments that would be in demand in the foreign market. The group went through several stages of digital transformation, and one of the last steps in this area was the unification of the IT teams of the Aircraft into a separate business unit. Dmitry Samozhkin, managing partner of Airplane Technology, appointed to this position in July and responsible for digital transformation, spoke about where the group and IT unit are now moving from the point of view of IT in an interview with TAdviser in October 2024.
Samozhkin
Dmitry, as part of the transformation strategy of the Airplane group, all its IT areas have recently been consolidated, and a new business unit, Aircraft Technology, has been created, which you headed. Why did you need consolidation?
Dmitry Samozhkin: "Airplane" is a full-fledged proptech company. In addition to development, our group has such areas as the Airplane Plus apartment solutions service, a management company, funds... And we have already gone through several stages of digital transformation. The first stage was about the introduction of solutions that ensure the fundamental stability of the company, such as ERP, then the basic level of products of the "hygienic" minimum was built. To date, we are moving to the third stage, when we need solutions to improve the efficiency of the company.
If at the start of digitalization it was rational to have its own IT teams in each direction in order to ensure deeper interaction with business, now, within the next stage, it is logical to combine IT teams into a separate business unit. This avoids duplication of solutions and approaches, simplifies communication, and improves product quality. We are not abandoning close partnerships with businesses, but moving to a more orderly and manageable structure. Therefore, the board of directors decided to merge. This is a logical evolutionary step in the development of the company and speaks of the maturity of the IT function.
How is the new business unit designed? What legal entities are included in it?
Dmitry Samozhkin: "Aircraft Technology" is organized on the basis of a separate legal entity. From a single legal entity, work is carried out with both an internal business customer and external clients. Its perimeter includes all the IT products of the Airplane group. We have several directions. The first is products for internal use in commerce, including our website, CRM for customer interaction, etc. The second is products for managing development processes and finances. The third is the HR unit, solutions for automating personnel management processes. We have brought some of the products from our portfolio to the external market and are successfully selling, for example, the Aircraft 10D platform. Moreover, we offer it not only to developers, but also to organizations in other industries.
How many people are now united by "Airplane Technology," and how many of them are developers?
Dmitry Samozhkin: With the formation of Aircraft Technologies, we reorganized and redistributed forces between teams. Since 2019, we have worked in a decentralized hybrid IT management model: each business unit formed its own IT team, but there were also competence centers (for example, on AI) that performed specialized tasks for all departments. It was this structure that at the initial stage of digitalization of the company made it possible to quickly automate all areas and develop a number of IT solutions in a relatively short time. But it also led to the emergence of duplicate functions, especially at the level of project management. When creating a new unified model, we ordered the structure and auxiliary functionality. At the same time, the staff of developers was retained.
Now about 80% of the team is precisely the developers. Key competencies are Python, JavaScript and C#, the most popular programming languages in the world at the moment. For several years we painstakingly gathered professionals and formed a team with high skills, they create our products based on the latest versions of programming languages, frameworks, use the latest Kubernetes, actively use DevSecOps, ProdOps and even Architecture as Code (AasC) in practice.
Dmitry, are you planning to change something in the approaches to IT management in the group of companies?
Dmitry Samozhkin: Previously, a decentralized management model was at the heart. And now we have already changed the structure and approach: we have a more stable organizational model, formed based on the creation of a value chain for the client. All teams are united around key business areas and create products that close the tasks of these areas.
For example, IT solutions for the commercial block should reduce commercial costs and increase business efficiency, and for development - help build efficiently and on time, ensure safety at the construction site. After combining products and teams around value creation for the company and the end customer, we have unified end-to-end goals, priorities, planning.
An example of a cross-cutting goal is the economics of construction. It affects not only finance, but also the development block, design, etc. To solve this problem, teams create different products: for cost management, implementation of estimates, closing documents, purchase management. Together, they are built into a single product chain that allows you to manage the construction economy.
Thus, the digitalization of processes allowed the company to reduce the cost of construction by 15%, reduce the time and increase productivity by 20% by 2 months. Only in procurement, due to the figure, the number of tenders without increasing labor costs increased by 40%, the share of orders completed on time increased by 21%, and the trading cycle decreased from 30 to 14 days.
In addition, as part of the IT transformation, we have automated more than 60 business processes thanks to RPA Sherpa (Robotic Process Automation) technology. The effect of the introduction of software robots is already more than 3,100 hours a month, or 3.7 million rubles. RPA allows you to improve the company's performance without attracting new employees, but only by redistributing functions.
With your appointment to a new position, are some personnel changes also planned or, perhaps, have already taken place among the leaders of IT areas in the group?
Dmitry Samozhkin: Yes, of course, we have already made some permutations. For example, earlier we did not have CIO in the group in the classical sense - that is, a person who is responsible for technology and development speed. Now we have it, Pavel Savelyev was appointed to this position. Three CPOs have also been appointed: Igor Gerolaitis became the CPO of development, Evgeny Kolchak became the CPO of commerce, Nikita Berezyuk became the SRO of HR Tech.
Thus, our organizational structure has already fully formed. When transforming this business unit, it was important to build an organizational model, which, on the one hand, most effectively meets the needs of the business, and on the other hand, corresponds to the best practices of IT companies. Our team includes many specialists from Ozon, VK, Yandex, T-Bank and other technological leaders. We adopted their practices and built a matrix structure of autonomous agile commands.
And most importantly - "Airplane" and before that there was a strong IT team, so all the mentioned appointments were internal, we did not take on the key roles of people from the outside, we promoted our own.
How do you evaluate the group's current IT/digital strategy? Will there be changes in it in the near future?
Dmitry Samozhkin: If we talk about strategy, then there are two key vectors. The first is technology as a driver of business efficiency. Development is now a difficult time, and technology should help the company not only survive this period, but become an order of magnitude stronger and more stable. As a result, we paused the development of those products that do not bring obvious business results at the moment. At the same time, we have strengthened work on solutions that we consider key. Among them, for example, funding management is about how we manage project financing, how quickly we coordinate it, how we manage the loan portfolio, payment limits, etc.
The second vector is technology as an independent business. We expect that on the horizon of 3-5 years, Aircraft Technologies will be able to become an independent technology company, enter an IPO, and our products will become recognizable and in demand on the market. Let me remind you that Airplane entered the IPO in 2020, and a few months ago Airplane Plus held a pre-IPO.
This year we launched the first IT solutions on sale, and we see here great potential for commercial success and good development prospects.
From what you say, it looks as if the focus of the Airplane group has shifted somewhat lately from the point of view of the technology business. Less than a year ago, at the Big Day Airplane event, such theses were voiced, from which it followed that the development of the technological direction as a separate business did not belong to priorities. Now the priority of this direction, it turns out, has increased? What is this connected with?
Dmitry Samozhkin: Yes, the priority has increased. "Airplane" has always believed that technology allows businesses to grow. At first it was a "pen test," but now, after bringing our products to market, we see that there is real demand for them, and now it is a matter of scaling and sequence of actions. There are all the opportunities and conditions for building a successful business.
As previously announced in "Airplane," the IT budget of the group in 2023 amounted to over 10 billion rubles. What amount will be released this year? For the current year, the plans previously stated a "multiple increase" in investment in IT.
Dmitry Samozhkin: Our share of investments in IT relative to revenue remains. But, in my opinion, money is not the main measure of the seriousness of the attitude towards IT within the company. This, of course, may be some benchmark: standard "Airplane" spends a slightly larger percentage of revenue on this than other developers. But we know many striking examples that show that it is possible to be super efficient and a small team to create great value. Therefore, I would not like to compare this indicator with earlier periods or with other companies.
Probably, the key aspect is our products and the value they give business measurable in specific figures: increasing the speed of construction, reducing costs, increasing the sustainability of the company, etc. For us, the main thing is how much our solutions give us and our partners, and not how much money we spend on IT.
Which IT areas require the most investment now?
Dmitry Samozhkin: The key focus is the completion of the financial transformation in the company. The second is the development of products for development. And the third is commerce, because this area is responsible for the quality of relations with our clients, and we want them to be comfortable working with us. For example, we are developing an online transaction service, thanks to which the client can independently form an agreement and send it for registration to Rosreestr. And all this is in a single interface, in a personal account on the Airplane website, with minimal or even no manager. Without visiting the office, without paperwork, at any convenient time and anywhere - you only need a device with a browser and a network connection.
The request on the market has already been formed - we conducted a study, interviewing respondents planning to buy real estate in the next six months: 72% of respondents showed a clear interest in the ability to conduct the entire process completely remotely. The development of an online transaction in the real estate market began during a pandemic in 2020, and today the ability to issue it remotely does not surprise customers much. However, the mechanism of the online transaction is still being formed and there is no fully digitized process in the market. There are difficulties in digitalization and automation of this process, one of which is the variety of possible deal scenarios and subtleties in each of them. An experienced manager knows all of them and easily distinguishes them thanks to the accumulated expertise, but when automating the process, all this must be formalized and embedded in the product logic. And the client at the same time should receive an understandable interface that does not cause difficulties and questions.
With your appointment to a new position, will something change in the approaches to replacing imported IT solutions with Russian or own developments? We are talking, for example, about BIM solutions, for computer-aided design, etc.
Dmitry Samozhkin: Five years ago, Samolet made a very correct decision to create its IT products. Thanks to this, now we are not in such a difficult situation as some other large companies in the fields of development and industry. SAP Ariba, for example, we replaced our own purchasing platform, and to replace SAP Success Factors, we developed an HR platform in a short time.
The most difficult area is perhaps the design you mentioned. We, of course, do not plan to create solutions in this area. Now we are working closely with Russian vendors and testing their products. These are Renga and NanoCAD. Our task is to assess how much they will allow us to maintain the performance indicators that we have now, and upon completion of the pilots we will make further decisions.
You have a lot of your own development, but, probably, you also use some ready-made Russian products. Which ones could you single out?
Dmitry Samozhkin: I think it is possible to note "1C" here. Even 2-3 years ago, when we considered the issue of introducing an ERP system, it did not pass under our 1C requirements. She could not do several key things for us, and when working with a large amount of data, and we have it very large, there were questions about performance. Then there was a huge gulf between SAP and 1C, but 1C significantly improved the functionality, and we are ready to consider options for working together in the future.
For which processes?
Dmitry Samoshkin: As a basic ERP for financial, tax, management accounting. For part of the personnel processes, we already use "1C: Payroll and HR Management."
How do you assess the current level of digitalization of "Airplane" compared to other major developers in Russia?
Dmitry Samoshkin: There is a problem with digitalization in the industry, because there is often a gap between the point of view of owners, shareholders and Chief information officers. The latter do not always clearly convey to people who make decisions how and what specifically digitalization will affect, but are limited to general slogans. We no longer have these questions, Avtomol has been developing and implementing IT solutions since 2019, we have received specific data that we can operate on. Our team closed not only the basic functionality in the field of digitalization of the development cycle, but also automated related processes. And then for us any development is about optimizing business indicators.
To a large extent, we are pioneers because we are creating solutions that no one else has on the market. In particular, in procurement, we have an AI model for predicting material prices, which helps to plan purchases, purchase what is necessary at lower prices and, accordingly, improve construction efficiency. Another example is that we linked the current construction plans to an automatic recalculation of the financial model. This allows you to accurately predict cash flows and track the economics of projects. We have a lot of such products.
"Airplane" does not stop there, continues to develop its products. If we see that a new promising technology has emerged, we evaluate it and think about how to implement it in our solutions in order to increase their effectiveness. Now we are actively looking at the topic of AI agents, this is such a tool of the future. We are talking about generative AI, which will automate different business processes. He will understand himself that he needs to take a certain action, and not wait for a team from a person. AI agents can be perceived as very smart RPA networks.
For example, an AI agent sees that there will soon be a stage of project financing, and he must look himself in different directories whether all the documents are ready, at what stage of readiness they are, and issue recommendations to the specialist, highlighting problematic points.
The next step is multiagency, it is the ability to launch several AI agents at once, which will perform different roles in the process, based on this, offer different solutions and, as a result, consider and prioritize them on their own. Let's look at the example of the tender procedure. You have a purchasing specialist whose main KPI is price, there is a project team for whom material quality and supplier reliability are important, and there is a manager who is responsible for the overall economics of the project. It is clear that they look at the process from different angles. The logic of multiagency is as follows: it is necessary to ask the agents roles, they argue with each other, they perform a hundred, two hundred iterations in a very short time, and the neural network evaluates their arguments and learns. The accuracy of forecasts increases immediately by 20%. We believe in this technology and are starting to put it into practice.
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