We have in our team only those who do the hiking: in what way does Gorgany choose their workers?

11 Sep 2018

Andriy Bandrivsʹkyy, the graduate of Key Executive MBA program of Lviv Business School of UCU (LvBS), during the meeting within a visit of Alumni Company Visit in his company, told that building your own company on values and ideas is crucial at Gorgany company. Together with his wife, Oksana Donets’, they share their experience of traveling, staffing and entrepreneurship with the graduates of Lviv Business School of UCU.

Gorgany

The meeting were held at one of the brand shops of Gorgany company’s network. The homelike atmosphere were created by tasting the snacks for travelers and teatime which the owners organized on the improvised tourist table.

Personnel. You can feel that in our company we do staffing according to our values at the very beginning, as Oksana Donets’ notes, even when selecting the personnel we walk by a rule: we have in our team only those who do the hiking. It makes the communication easier and creates some kind of community, around which the company’s customer base is formed. Andriy tells about the diversity point, that it, more than likely, can be called with one word «True Travel», as in the product line which the shop offers, there are mainly the travel gear, the same is the slogan on the banner «Experts in tourist gear».

Gear and traveling. Oksana Donets’ and Andriy Bandrivsʹkyy are the married couple of experienced travelers that’s why they started their story straightway with practical pieces of advice concerning the gear, as for them personally this is some kind of fetish. They note, that for the successful journey one backpack of 15 kilos in weight is enough. There you can put food, tent, sleeping pad, sleeping bag, clothes and other necessities without any problems. «Traveling is not rest, but extreme sport. This is an opportunity to reset, get bright emotions and new store of knowledge», — Andriy Bandrivsʹkyy said.

Gorg2

Traveling helps to develop marketing

Traveling as business. They can talk a lot about traveling, but one of the main rules, as Andriy says: «When you need something, it finds you itself. For instance, a person with a boat on an uninhabited island, or a local citizen who will show you the way. In business it is the same: you get pleasure mostly from the process, and the ultimate point is rather a pleasant bonus. You can believe in a miracle and it eventually happens! And all the boundaries are only our imagination, and you have the power to deal with it.»

He added that every journey gives you a new experience and forms a vision. Traveling helps us to also develop our business, especially marketing. 

Their own brand. The company foundation story started nearly 10 years ago by the accidental meeting in the theatre and idea to be entrepreneurs. In that time, Andriy came back from studying at PhD program in England, and Oksana just graduated from the University. Currently, the Gorgany network has 8 shops in 7 cities of Ukraine, Online shop, they are the distributors of the well-known brands of tourist gear and there are 80 people in the team. Although, the main operational activity Andriy and Oksana have under their control, their work allows them to travel up to one month and several times per year. Besides, traveling inspired the married couple to create their own brand Turbat.

The married couple told about their travel to the Papua New Guinea islands, and Oksana also added that the idea to go to the island together with LvBS graduates has been in her mind for a long time.