Photo: from Rimma Vagapova's personal archive

The breakthrough of import substitution in the beauty industry, cooperation with the state, ways to combat bureaucracy. The editors of "Made in Russia" talked about this and many other things with the general producer of the project "Beauty Event: Made in Russia" Rimma Vagapova.

– How did the idea to create a forum for entrepreneurs from the beauty industry come about?– Two years ago, I took part in a meeting of the expert council on foreign economic activity of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy.

Then I had the idea to create such a platform, where both foreign and domestic brands will be placed. This was done in order for our firms to get acquainted with other countries.

I decided that the format of video presentations is quite convenient and popular: short and capacious videos showing the main priorities of a particular product. After that, I began to explore the possibilities of our market in the field of cosmetic products. In our country, not only women take care of themselves, but also men. And in order for our brand to be recognized, in particular about the segment of beauty salons, it was necessary to create a landscape where people would get acquainted with our products. Moreover, to create a living landscape where you can test everything, get to professional master classes. There was also an idea to fill the forum with a business program, because I believe that associations currently play a big role in entrepreneurship. This is a team spirit, the possibility of collaborations. Our participants are very satisfied. They find partners, clients and prospects for further development. Communicating with participants who have been to past conferences and are at these, we learned that new companies have appeared, interesting stories of brand creation, products. And I understand that entrepreneurs invest in our products not only the commercial component, but also love. It's cool, and there's a lot of success behind it.

– You were subsequently able to involve representatives of ministries in the project. That is, the state also helps the beauty industry?- of course.

The fact is that the business has a vision of what needs to be done. There are certain tools that are necessary for the business to develop actively. The authorities have such tools, so, of course, such meetings and communications are very important.

– It turns out that your main task is to bring business and the state together so that they can help each other?– Yes, this is one of the highest priorities.

There is such a story that people believe that they will do everything better themselves, no one will help them. But these are ossified, old installations that need to be changed, because now there is a huge range of support from the state. You just need to learn how to use it, and if something is missing, then you need to talk about it, discuss it and somehow influence the situation.

– Where should entrepreneurs who need help contact?– For example, after the last event, we organized a social movement of entrepreneurs and professionals of the International Beauty Platform.

We created it recently, after the second platform. Leaders of various directions gathered. We met regularly, almost every week, as a working group. We collected justifications for where and in what regulatory act changes or additions should be made. With this question, as the chairman of the public movement, I spoke at the Eastern Economic Forum with the question: "What needs to be done, supplemented in regulatory documents in order to create equal conditions for foreign suppliers and our Russian manufacturers?". This has already been included in the protocols of the Ministry of Industry and Trade. We are waiting for the results in feedback from them. We have also raised this issue here. And so we organize such working groups, so if we talk about the beauty industry, then you can join us. We will gather professionals from this industry. It happens that there is a desire, but not the fact that it is correct. Only in a group of professionals can you make the right decisions. After that, it will be possible to raise questions concerning the authorities.

– Who should the working group consist of in this case: representatives of ministries or professional experts?– At the first stage, the working group should consist of professionals.

This is necessary in order to work out and understand how significant this problem is. Perhaps this is the vision of only one person. And if a group of people sees the problem, then it is already possible to conduct dialogues and build more extensive working groups with representatives of ministries.

Read more interesting news in our Telegram channelAuthor: Polina Rozina

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