Pavel Reva

Today, EURO 2012 football championship is one of the most desired and discussed topic in Ukraine and Europe. It is the first time in Ukraine’s history when four cities (Lviv, Kiev, Kharkiv and Donetsk) preparing to hold such big scale event. StayEuro ltd. takes active part in this event helping the football fans finding accommodation in Poland and Ukraine, and the landlords achieving maximum load of their properties.

Being in the center of expectations and interests intersection of both sides (tourists and landlords), processing plenty requests for accommodation and conducting additional research, I’ve collected valuable information about established situation.

What does majority of tourists say about prices?

A lot of fans refuse to travel to Ukraine because prices are too high (worth reading this article for reference England face playing in empty stadiums as fans ‘can’t afford’ trip to Euro finals). Those who intends to move anyways, announce budgets below 30EUR per person per night. A story is spreading throughout the fans that some tourists book apartments at 20EUR/person/night and therefore others hope on similar price.

What do we hear from landlords regarding prices?

TOP1 phrase in our ratings is ‘The main thing is not to miscalculate. To not make a bad bargain, but do not be left with nothing‘. Second one is ‘…foreigners prepared a lot of money for EURO-2012 anyways‘. A story is spreading throughout the landlords that some owners rented their properties at 100 EUR (or even 200EUR) per person per night, and therefore they also expect such revenues.

What main priorities fans announce in their requests regarding accommodation?

1. Lowest price.
2. Availability of beds in the right quantity.
3. Distance to the stadium, center of the city and Metro.
4. Number of rooms and its separation.

What are landlords focusing attention on in their offers?

1. Conveniences in apartment (TV, Internet, hot shower, air conditioning and etc.)
2. Distance to the stadium, center of the city and Metro.
3. Availability of beds in the right quantity and number of rooms.
4. Price.

This situation reminded me story, where three blind men were describing an elephant by touching different parts of its body. In fact, such gap between customers and providers appears in many industries on the markets. I’d suggest following things for each part:

For landlords. Pay attention on real priorities and needs of your clients instead of looking back at your ‘colleagues’. Move closer towards your customer rather than position your offer in relation to your competitors.

For tourists. Pay attention on additional factors required for convenient residence (especially, considering difference in ukrainian and european level of service) and also be aware about the real cost of particular property.

And you, my friend, how often do you see offers of products and services you’re interested in that don’t correspond your real needs?

In everyday life we mostly see evident things and often don’t pay attention on what’s happening at background. It is hard to discern true relation until you will have a conflict of interests. Ukrtelecom is the hugest telecommunication services provider in Ukraine with which my interests collided today.

I’ve become a customer of Ukrtelecom services last year when I’ve signed contract for having 3G Internet connection on my iPad. Rules are simple – I pay $16 each month and they provide me unlimited access to the Internet over 3G. On December after I’ve purchased iPhone 4S my usage of iPad significantly decreased since I was able to accomplish most things with iPhone. Therefore, day after day I was using iPad less and less. In the middle of February there was a change in Ukrtelecom. According to the documents I’ve received, Ukrtelecom stopped providing their services, and another company titled TriMob ltd. continued on the same conditions. That was replacing of the parties. Also, in document was stated “We hope that you’re as subscriber will treat with understanding change of provider, which is 100% Ukrtelecom company….“. Everything left same except of ability to pay for services. The old method I’ve used one year wasn’t available after those changes and so, employee of the company explained how I can pay for services from now. New payment methods were not clear for me and honestly, I didn’t really had a time to discover it. In the very beginning of March I was disconnected from the Internet because of the debt. Since I’ve used iPad rarely it was not became a big problem so I’ve decided to wait few weeks until the old payment will be available again (according to what that employee told me). Today I’ve received a call from him and was honestly surprised outraged by what I’ve heard…

In new invoice they are going to include payments for two months now – February and March, even if I was disconnected from the Internet whole March. He kindly suggested me to pause my contract for $3. Now, hold on! What’s going on? Both sides have responsibilities. Mine responsibility to pay bills in time, and company’s responsibility to provide Internet access. My fault to not paying bills in time, I admit that. I know that company relies on payments from its customers by certain date each month. For delayed payments there is fee envisaged in the contract. But company doesn’t ask to pay fee, instead it does following: disconnects from the Internet and continues charge same sum as they’ve provided service for whole month. Whoa!

I’ve rechecked contract… This thing wasn’t directly described there. Instead, contract states that company exempts from responsibilities if customer stops paying. But, customer does not exempt from responsibilities if company stops providing services. So, now company is not charging for services it provides. I’m curious what should I pay for?.. Interesting, huh?

Well, company needs to cover its financial risks. So, by certain date there should be specific amount of money on account in a bank. If part of customers won’t pay, there will be a gap. This could be easily covered with credit line and loan interest might be included in fee which company’s debtors (customers) should and will pay anyways. In this way all parties would be satisfied:

• Company avoids financial risks related to customer debts
• Bank earns its revenue from provided credit line
• Customers pay for what they should pay – fee for the debt and not bill for nonexistent service

Now, if we’ll take a quick look at numbers it might be even more interesting. Approx. loan rate is 21%. Internet access costs $16/month. Since, Ukrtelecom disconnects customer right after one month of unpaid bill we can say that the total financial risk per customer is $16. If take credit for $16 in a bank then monthly fee would be $0.28 per month, or including various fees for opening credit and etc. it would be $0.30/month. But company takes $16 (100% each month) while not providing services and so has $0 cost per customer. It doesn’t make a lot of sense watching at small numbers, but it makes a lot of sense watching at same numbers in scale of the whole company which has millions of subscribers. Well, in fact we know that all these numbers counted a bit differently in reality, but fact remains same – company charges for not provided service.

It doesn’t seem that the company can earn customers’ loyalty in this way. I think there should be roughly saying 2 options:

• Long-term – both parties (company and customer) sign contract and both take corresponding responsibilities, customer pays bills in time (if not in time than there might be additional fee included) and company provides Internet access service (postpaid model). But both sides do what they should do.
• Short-term – company provide service only after customer has been paid (prepaid model). In this way company avoid financial risks related to customers’ payments and customer gets exactly what he pays for and when he needs it.

Decide, one or another. But don’t mix models taking all benefits for one side, and leave shortages for another.

I’m outraged not by the sum I have to pay, but by company’s relation to its customers. It’s a robbery-in-law. Can I do something with it?.. No, I’ve discovered contract with my lawyer and see that the company is protected from all sides. Can I change Internet provider?.. No, because it is the only 3G provider in Ukraine so there are no alternatives. Well, this company does many good things for us and I appreciate that. But I’d prefer healthy competition than monopoly on a market. And you?

Haven’t you had cases when things you’ve planned to do weren’t completed in time?..

Regardless of what was the reason for this and level of importance of a task, the fact remains same – plan failed! Plan not implements when our forecast doesn’t correspond reality of the future. Evidently, we can make mistakes in our assumptions during planning.

Can you predict all factors during planning? Human’s behavior, availability of resources, change on a market, weather, currency… The answer is definitely not. Among various factors, there are those which we can control and manage, and those which we can’t.

Therefore, it makes sense to focus on those factors for which you can influence and continuously improve yourself in that fields. Personally, I’m more concerned about my actions and reactions to changes towards task completion rather than factors that are out of my influence. And you don’t?…

In this article, I’d like to touch and discuss only one of those factors. A factor which has #1 priority in everybody’s life. And after dozens of read books and taken master classes, talks with people and ups and downs in real life experience, I’ve compiled a list of properties which I had to realize before I started behave effectively. I call it ‘Properties of Time’, which is definitely not exhaustive but the one which might be extended with your valuable input. Now, let’s go through it.

1. Time is a universal Force and Law.

Absolutely all things obey to time. Time affects all things equally, but each thing is changing in time differently. It is indifferent to you or to someone else as well as it is indifferent to any other things. Noone and nothing could be special in front of time. It might sounds silly, but you can’t earn any bonuses, slow down or speed up the time. However, your feeling, understanding and perception of time might be changed, and they are actually always changing in time. It is important to realize that time is out of your control and influence. Thus, you can’t actually manage your time, instead you can manage your actions in time.

2. Time is eternal itself, but your time is limited.

As long as you do not recognize and accept the inevitability of your death, you can’t begin to live fully. We all have time budget of our lives, year has its time budget, month has its time budget… Week could not be shorter than 7 days and day could not be longer than 24 hours, it could not be stretched or shorten. You can’t add or substract hours from a day. The only thing you could do is to effectively allocate time within a day for your planned activities. So, if you postpone any of your task today, this task will steal time from tomorrow’s day.

3. Time always moves.

When you work, when you sleep, when you talk or think, it constantly moves. Whether you inspired or suppressed, happy or sad, not matter whether you bored or have a fun, time permanently moves. And what is more important, time always expires. Sometimes we might lose sense of time, especially when we’re excited about doing something. How often do you take into account your emotional excitation when you’re planning your next day or week? What are your emotions actually when you’re planning?

4. Time is a universal measure.

We’ve all heard old saying “time is money”. In fact, this means that we just know how to correlate the time we spend with money we earn. Can’t we say in same way that time is knowledge? Or time is connections? Or health? Therefore, time is a measure of every achievement in our life. Time is priceless. Somebody makes $100 per hour, another one makes $10,000 per same hour. Or somebody makes 1 new connection per month and another one makes 20 new connections per month. Do we utilize full potential of 24 hours each day? It is important to keep in mind that time influences all aspects of your life and, therefore, it worth to carefully pay attention on it.

5. Time is always new and unique.

Do you familiar with thought like ‘Oh, no it is hard Monday again’? Or “At last, it is Friday’? Time is unrepeatable, every year is new, every day is new and even every minute is new. Time is unique every single moment. So, why do we sometimes lose a sight of new day just because it’s called Monday or Friday? Everyday we get back home we can find that it is always new. There are new mood, new activities, new energy and so on. Tell honestly, how often do you review your own assumptions which were created by your past experience?

These were the core concepts I’ve realized and successfully implemented in my life. It took a lot of time and efforts, but this also respectively reflected on results. I know you have something to add to this article from your own rich experience and personal point of view. Now join the discussion and leave your comment below.