Anton Tsailinger, president at ALS group and Stanislav Svarichevsky, the group's general director, have always planned to build a big corporation. Having started their business from scratch five years ago, now they run one of the leading Russian IT companies that produce 3D graphics for computer games and animation for major foreign companies.
Born in 1966 in Leningrad, Tsailinger first did not plan any business career. He started taking pair figure skating lessons when he was four years old. He attained the title of "master of sports", though he was not satisfied with his sporting achievements. Of Austrian descent on one side of his family, his family had been persecuted during the Soviet Era and he was given few chances in sports.
"I was not a promising sportsman because I was officially banned from going abroad, even to take part in the championships. It was so annoying!" he said. He hoped that Gorbachev's perestroika would change the situation. Having been recruited by the army, where he served for two years, he decided to become a professional sailor, but was again prevented from leaving the country.
"It was the last straw and, in 1990, I emigrated to Austria," Tsailinger said.
In Austria, Tsailinger began working as a figure skating coach, then enrolled at Salzburg University, but soon switched to Graze University where he studied marketing and management. Having graduated in 1996, Tsailinger was hired by a consulting agency that rendered services in consulting, advertising and crisis management. In 1999, he came back to Russia for personal reasons, though he didn't plan on staying long.
"My Russian fiancee wanted to finish her studies at graduate school in St. Petersburg and then we planned to move to Austria," he said. During his temporary stay of over a year, Tsailinger, who was always interested in computers, took training courses as a system administrator and started looking for interesting business ideas.
It was in the spring of 2001 that he met Svarichevsky, who had already run a small IT company specializing in web site development and programming as well as a non-commercial informative web resource at
www.render.ru. Born in 1975, Svarichevsky graduated from the St. Petersburg State Bonch-Bruevich University of Telecommunications and started his own computer business when he was 24.
"When we first met each other we wished it had happened earlier," Svarichevsky said.
"It turned out that we had both looked for interesting business partners for a long time and, eventually, we succeeded."
Tsailinger says that at that time Svarichevsky had a variety of interesting business ideas to share but they both understood that, in order to succeed, they had to change the company's focus.
"It was just after the big collapse in the IT sector in 2000, when we started doing business together," Tsailinger said.
"At that moment, it became unprofitable to do programming and we decided to switch to computer graphics. And our Internet resource has helped us a lot in developing the new business line."
They were among the first companies in the world to start integrating 3D technology into the panoramic IPX photos. The new technology soon became popular and, in 2002, they signed their first big contract with the RBI construction company. The order was to make a presentation for RBI's upcoming "New Star" project and include a virtual tourof the buildings that the company planned to construct.
Having gained work experience, in 2003, Tsailinger and Svarichevsky decided to start collaborating with the Western companies that produced computer games. They soon succeeded in making 3D graphics for the first and second versions of "Spellforce" by Phenomic games. Then the realization of 3D production projects for such well-known computer games as "Legend of Kay", "Emergency 3", "Nightshift" and others followed.
However, they were still looking for a unique and as-yet unoccupied business niche and soon their search paid dividends. They decided to start producing casino slot machine games and signed a contract with Atronic Austria, a subsidiary company of Gauselmann AG.
Having produced different computer games, Tsailinger and Svarichevsky said that they always dreamed of animation production.
"It was much more than just a dream - we want to go to Hollywood," said Svarichevsky.
"And that's not a joke. We set that as a strategic aim at the very beginning and planned to reach it in seven to ten years. However, our turnover grew rapidly and made it possible to realize it sooner. Now we are very close to fulfilling our dream and producing a full-length animation film," said Tsailinger.
Over the last five years, ALS Group has grown from a staff of three in 2001 to over 50 employees. With such rapid rates of growth, one of the major problems the company faces is a shortage of 3D graphics designers.
"It is a very serious problem that we need to solve," Tsailinger said.
"There are just no educational institutions to prepare specialists working with 3D graphics. Moreover, it is hard to find good drawers even among professionals. Many of the arts school and academy graduates are just not able to draw well."
In their desire to find a solution to the employment problem, the ALS Group management tried to make an association of 3D graphics studios to train personnel in the field.
"We got no response from our colleagues at other companies. They all think that competitors cannot join in a professional association," said Tsailinger.
"It's amazing that they don't understand that we really only compete on the labor market," he said.
To resolve the problem, ALS Group is in the process of creating its own educational and informational center which will open in autumn. There they plan to run courses on 3D graphics that will last from one to six months and provide students with an opportunity to take educational bank loans for the period of three to five years.
"We need to get young people interested in the promising and interesting field that 3D graphics is. With, an average salary of 28 thousand to 42 thousand rubles ($1,000-$1,500) per month, they have unlimited opportunities and stimulus for the development of their professional and creative abilities."
As successful businessmen, Tsailinger and Svarichevsky think that one of the most difficult things for them was to find like-minded partners.
"If you want to succeed in business, you should be able to work hard and always take the chal¬lenge of scaling new business peaks," Tsailinger said.
