Yugstal

What helps Yugstal LLC successfully participate in tenders and develop? What makes the company able to outsource procurement work? We talked about this and many other things with Andrii Zaika, Development Director of Yugstal LLC.

What is Yugstal today?

In ten years, our company has grown from a small trader to a trader-manufacturer of metal structures. Today we have two areas of activity:

- sale of rolled metal products that we purchase;
- production and sale of metal structures, finished products, and semi-finished metal products.

The assortment of the company includes 1,500 units of products, and during its entire operation on the market, it has completed orders for 180,000 tons of metal products for more than 1,000 government and commercial buyers.

Yugstal

Today the company employs more than 70 employees, and the fleet includes 60 pieces of equipment that are constantly updated. However, people are the main value of Yugstal. Each employee is an individual but at the same time a cog in the internal tuned mechanisms of the company. Thanks to this, we continue to grow and develop steadily.

How do you work with procurement in Yugstal?

In our company, I and a few other specialists are mainly involved in tenders. In addition, to develop and gain new experience, we regularly involve third-party performers in the preparation. The model of the Yugstal company is built in such a way that allows us to partially outsource the work with procurement. Of course, we do not entrust the performers with everything, from the moment of searching for a purchase to the moment of receiving money – this process is never carried out by only one person.

Yugstal

We have been in public procurement since the inception of Prozorro in 2016. During this time, we took part in 1,098 tenders and signed, based on their results, 334 contracts with a total value of the supplied products over UAH 316 million.

Most often, we participate in the procurement of the following goods:

1. Alloys.
2. Reservoirs, containers, and pressure vessels.
3. Plates, sheets, tapes, and foils associated with structural materials.
4. Construction rods, rods, wires, and profiles.
5. Lines, pipelines, pipes, casings, tubing, and related products.

How did you choose a site to participate in the procurement?

As far as I remember, SmartTender.biz was one of the first platforms for holding tenders, and we chose it for work even when there were purchases in paper format. We continue to use SmartTender.biz since it has a convenient interface: all information on tenders is conveniently placed in its place.

How do you determine the bidding to participate?

There are no clear criteria by which we select tenders. Over the years of work, we have learned to pay attention to all the nuances in the terms of tender documents, so we immediately see in which procurement we can participate and in which we cannot.

We know where and at what price this or that product can be found, and how to sell it correctly. Therefore, the only reason why we can refuse to participate is the absence of the product needed by the customer or the inability to purchase or manufacture it.

What will help suppliers win more often?

Public procurement provides for the availability of financial resources from the supplier. The higher the purchase price, the greater the financial resource must be – it cannot be otherwise. At least this is the situation in the segment in which Yugstal is represented. And of course, teamwork plays a big role. Therefore, it is important that the people in the procurement company know their business and work well.

What distribution channels do you use besides purchasing?

We have established business relationships and our customer base that know us and are convinced of the quality of the products that we sell or manufacture. For 10 years we have developed our name, and now it works for us.

To consistently get good results, it is important to work on all fronts. You cannot single out one sales channel and rely solely on it. Everything in the sum: public procurement, commercial bidding, and direct sales – gives us exactly the result that we have.