Retail Consulting: Practice that Affects Experience of Millions of Consumers

In April, students from the Master's programme in Retail Management of HSE Graduate School of Business visited the office of Axenix, a company which offers effective management solutions for Russian business based on wide experience in the field of strategies, innovations and technologies. Participants had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the working atmosphere of the company, which is the legal successor to the Russian division of the international consulting network Accenture.

The company is seen as very prestigious by university graduates in management, and the HSE Graduate School of Business regularly cooperates with Axenix and organises frequent partner events.

Alexey Sidorov, Managing Director of the company, and Grigory Akulov, director of retail practice, told the guests about the specifics of working with retail clients, while senior managers Natalia Nechaeva and Kalina Tsvetkova helped the undergraduates to analyse a recent case from Axenix’s retail practice.

At first glance, the task seemed simple: to determine why the mobile application of a large retail chain was not working efficiently enough. However, young specialists from the HSE University soon encountered their first difficulties while formulating questions to the client’s CEO: the initial information about the work was quite vague, leading to the first hurdle - how to understand the client’s needs? In addition, It was equally important to determine what final result the client expected. This opening stage of setting the parameters of the task turned out to be quite challenging, and the students also needed to determine specific goals and focuses, a plan, and gather a team to implement the solution.

The company's experts shared a solution to the case with the students. It turned out that even in director-level positions, managers can have doubts, make mistakes and need to be able to learn without fear of losing face if they do not immediately provide the right answer. The students appreciated this elegant and highly professional approach. ‘These people are professionals who can make the impossible possible,’ said the participants.

Axenix HR Manager Olga Kazina spoke about career opportunities in the company, expressing her appreciation for the level of training among HSE master’s students, and expressing her hope of seeing them among the applicants for paid internships.

In conclusion, the students thanked the Axenix team and the academic supervisor of the programme, Alexander Lebedev. ‘Today we saw consulting outside of arty presentations,’ the participants noted. ‘Communicating directly with high-fliers is a valuable learning experience. Specifying professional responsibilities and understanding practical consulting will help us build a career effectively.;

Admissions to the programme are open from June 19th to August 15th, 2023.