Pavlo Daniman, a MIM-Kyiv graduate has been in charge of Nova Poshta, a Ukrainian household name for courier delivery marketing for more than a month. He shared his wartime experiences.

Here is Pavlo in his own words.

- You took the new position during the active stage of the war. Why?  

- I had been offered the position before the war and had to start there on March 1. Because of the war, I started later. However, I did not have any hesitations. I believe Nova Poshta to be one of the key actors in the Ukrainian economic revival. 

- What were your main challenges? 

- Adapting to customers’ war-inflicted needs is our main challenge. That’s why we are revising our service portfolio. We are launching services that are unimaginable before the war. Sending personal belongings is one of those services. We are offering delivery of private belongings packed in bags or boxes in Ukraine. 4 million Ukrainians abroad also need that kind of delivery. We are offering it in 24 European countries with an 80% discount. 

Businesses must operate during the war to keep the economy running. Our new landing informs about operating e-commerce outlets that offer our delivery. More than 500 businesses use our landing to reach out to their customers. 

Identifying and eliminating bottlenecks is my priority. Late deliveries, unfriendly app or inconvenient location of our offices, etc. does not help our customers war or not war.

My goal is to make the services more customer-oriented. I want our customers to find the way to the office, use the postal vault, or find information on the NP site easily, without any complicated guidelines. The challenges inspire me. 

Together with the reputation management directorate, we run all communication channels with our customers. We are active on our site, mobile app, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn pages. We communicate with our customers on Viber and e-mail.

We also use social media informers, Adpartner, Hybrid, etc. We inform about what we do in the domestic and international media as well. 

- How different is wartime marketing from the normal one? Who are your target audiences under the new circumstances? What are your main messages?

- Our target audience did not change but their needs did. People care about very down-to-Earth things like peace, safety, groceries, and medicine availability. 

As a result, they want to know when our operating offices open, how they can get there because we deliver things that cover their most basic needs. 

We are also active in humanitarian relief deliveries. People are very much interested in this area of our activity. Our marketing is very practical and is aimed at making our services easy to use. 

- Before the NP you worked for the Kyivstar, a company of the same caliber. How similar or different is the marketing in telecom and logistics?

- The companies are very different, first of all in size. Only 5000 people work for the Kyiv star whereas the NP employs 30 000 people. In my 17-year-long career at Kyivstar, I personally knew half of the employees. Here I have just started to get acquainted. Marketing wise the NP is focused on product marketing – we are honing existing products and developing new ones. We also pay special attention to pricing and marketing research. 

- Many domestic companies are pondering over foreign markets. Do you think that war and as a result, the newly developed connections and supply chains may push international operations?

- The NP has been present in Moldova for a long. Our international delivery has been in operation since 2015. We are delivering to more than 200 countries and territories. The war boosted our international delivery. For example, we are offering international delivery of personal belongings with a 50% - 80% discount to 24 countries. We are monitoring our customers’ needs to offer them our solutions whether at home or abroad. 

- How useful are the skills mastered at MIM-Kyiv? Could you tell us about a useful life hack that you have learned at MIM-Kyiv and have been using since?

- Product marketing was an important course in the pre-MBA marketing curriculum when I studied there. That’s exactly what I am doing now.