My client was POBEDA Group LLC, one of the leading companies in the technical support market for events in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The company specializes in full material and technical support for events of any scale: from rental of tents, stage structures, sound and lighting equipment to furniture and related infrastructure. The main office is located in Saint Petersburg, and since 2015 the company has been actively working in Moscow, delivering more than 1,500 projects per year and holding leading positions in several segments of the event industry.
In normal periods, POBEDA Group has about 50 employees. During seasonal peaks, the team expands to 200 people by involving external specialists and contractors. This model allows the company to scale resources flexibly for large festivals, city events, sports events, and corporate projects, without creating a permanent excessive payroll burden. At the same time, strong seasonality and capital-intensive infrastructure make the business sensitive to any change in demand.
Against the background of a sharp decline in the event services market, the company faced a classic anti-crisis challenge: to keep profitability and business control while volumes were falling and uncertainty was high. The existing organizational structure, accumulated fixed costs, and duplicated functions in the administrative block started to pull margin down. At the same time, it was critical to keep the operational ability to serve a portfolio of 1,500+ projects per year and not lose service quality.
I was invited to the company as a financial manager and anti-crisis manager, with a mandate to review the cost model and organizational structure. My task was to reduce overhead costs, make the cost structure more flexible and manageable, and do this without breaking the business model or creating risks for contract performance. The focus was on systemic transformation, not one-time cuts.
The first step was a structural reorganization of administrative and management personnel. I analyzed functions and workload, identified duplicated roles and overlapping areas of responsibility between departments. Based on this, the administrative staff was optimized by about 50% through the reduction of duplicated positions and enlargement of responsibility areas. It was important that the changes did not destroy manageability: key processes were redistributed, described, and assigned to specific roles.
In parallel, I initiated the liquidation of inefficient production units whose functions were already effectively performed by external contractors. This reduced fixed costs for maintaining internal units without reducing service quality, because operational work was kept through reliable external suppliers.
The next stage was a change in the cost structure, first of all in payroll. I transformed part of payroll from fixed costs into variable costs, linking payments to actual completed tasks and work volume. For operational and support functions, a daily payment model for completed tasks was introduced. This made it possible to match costs with real workload more flexibly.
This transformation reduced the business dependence on fixed costs, especially during periods of lower demand. The company received the ability to adapt quickly to market fluctuations, reducing pressure on P&L without damaging project execution quality.
To secure the effect and prevent a rollback, I introduced strict budget control. Limits for key expense categories were set up in the accounting system, and approval and control of costs became part of the regular management cycle. This helped remove spontaneous expenses that had previously diluted margin and gave transparency to the overhead cost structure.
Budgeting stopped being a formal process: limits became a real management tool, not just a plan for reporting. Department heads received clear boundaries and responsibility for budget discipline.
As a result of the implemented measures, overhead costs were reduced by about 30%, while the company kept its operational ability to serve a portfolio of 1,500+ projects per year. At the peak of the crisis, the company passed through a difficult period without losses: in 2020, it recorded a positive financial result with profitability of about 2%.
The important result was not only the fact that the company stayed positive in the crisis year, but also the base created for further profitability growth. The renewed organizational structure, flexible cost model, and built budget discipline allowed the company to target margin growth up to 25% by 2025. In practice, the crisis was used as a window of opportunity to restart the financial model of the business and increase its resilience.
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