Back and Mommy

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Hi again. I have not been here for a rather long time. My passion for the playground and park equipment has not disapeared. I am still in love with my job.

There have been some changes in my life. Now I look at our production from the point of view of a mother. I will repeat the words of millions of parents: It is a wonderful thing to have a baby. You become younger, again little things matter, you look at her joyful eye and realize that all you have done in your life has no such a great value, as her smile, full of joy. You feel that this is your greatest project. You see and feel the result of the energy you have spent and the result loves you as you do.

Playing with her in the playground is the best way of spending free time. And the joyful thing is, that the very free time is a mandatory thing and this is the only case when being forced makes you happy.

Love your children and love the one who is with you and takes care of both of you.

Visit the New Web Page of the Company

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For a long time I have not been here. Now I am pleased to announce about the construction of Magnon’s new webpage www.magnon.am. The design is made with the help of Artak and I have contributed as much as my knowledge of marketing is.
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I develop this web site with great pleasure and one may say with love. My father founded this company when I was about 13 years old and we grow together. I know every little detail of this company. That is why; I am the very person who developed the webpage. I am proud of the page named production. You can find there all products in details. The photos are collected from all playgrounds around Armenia.

Go Back to Your Childhood

Once in a while just stop and think of a childhood. What is it? Is it just a period of time that each of us has or time which will influence and serve as a base for the rest of our life.

“We Create Childhood” isn’t it too responsible slogan? We are asked at “Magnon” to think of a slogan for the company and we came up with the word “Create”. You may say that playground equipment production has nothing to do with the Creation. Just give us another chance to prove the opposite. With the help of steel and paint we create impression, we create emotion and experience that will remain with the children during all their life time. The playground equipment will always be associated with the pleasant time, feeling of happiness, friend making and imagination.

“We Support Imagination” – may sound like exaggeration of a role that equipment made of metal may play in the life of a child. Again give us a chance to support our statement. Go back to your childhood when the world was not so realistic and was full of imaginative friends. Make a list of places where your imagination worked best. I am sure that there will be a line where you will mention playground. Playground is the place where children can join their imaginations and creat a big and wonderful world.

This is it. Help us to make a choice. Your opinion is too important for us.

The Hope and the Light

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I was just thinking what to post the time when the world is struck with crises. “Magnon” is not an exception. It was greatly influenced but will for sure survive. “Magnon” has a spirit. It is not a company just producing playground equipment. It is a Hope and Light.

You may think how a company can be a Light or a Hope. The secret is its employees. They are scientist. It is Hope as with the opening of its brand new state-of-art building MBC (Magnon Business Center) the company will have the space it needed. This will mean hiring new employees and creating larger administration. The scientist will change their nature of work and will become administrative workers as they once were. This is the Hope.

The Light of the company is the project of opening Research and Development Department. All scientists will have a chance one more time to practice their knowledge and do the job they were prepared to do. This is the Light of the future.

If you have a time just visit AGBU blog and have a bit of spiritual information.

The Contribution to the Society

Financial Contribution

Arthur Hovsepyan is one of the benefactors of the “Mother Lady of Armenia” center which is a nunnery and a center for orphans or the children from poverty-stricken families. Now these children have a playground both in their center in Gyumri, and summer camp in Tzaghkadzor.

All contracts with the orphanages have been signed without revenue. Now all Armenian orphanages have their playgrounds which are under the care of specialists from “Magnon” Company. The same is true for some of the nurseries.

Also the company provides scholarship for the students with good academic performance. The exceptions are the children of employees who get it without any testing.

Job creation

Joblessness is a problem for Gyumri. The majority of the population is educated but hasn’t appropriate job. The men leave the country and find job in Russian Federation for supporting their families and don’t come back for many months.

“Magnon” Company is a working place for 52 employees. This number varies depending on the size of the contract. There are more than 30 temporal employees. The salary is higher than in the companies in the same industry which make possible to provide normal living conditions for their families.

Public Service

There was need for such kind of production as Soviet time production was rough and of low quality, no luxury was permitted. Due to the Soviet ideology it was a sign of inequality in the society. After the collapse of the USSR mainly by the means of media people learned of the life in developed countries and they felt a natural desire for the delicate and high quality production.
The production of the very company was a good start for creation of parks and playgrounds in Armenia. Now there are 47 totally new and 35 reconstructed playgrounds which are full of colors and comfort.

The playground and sport equipment are not only an entertaining place for the children where they develop their imagination and interact with each other, it is also fast and easy way to develop children’s physique.

When “Magnon”’s production first appeared the bunch of imitators began copping the production with low quality materials and without keeping safety standards. Now the management of the “Magnon” Company wants to persuade the governance to implement safety standards for playground equipment production.

If you walk round Gyumri you will notice a big number of benches, trash cans, pavilions, lampposts and shelters produced by “Magnon”. Its production is spread all round the Armenia.

The Need for the Product

After the earthquake in 1988 and the following collapse of USSR in 1991 a big number of international organizations came to Armenia with different missions. They were aimed to support Armenians to regain their normal life flow. There were benefactors who were aimed to make the childhood of the Armenian children better. At the end of 1990s the primary needs of the children were partially solved and the next one was their mental and physical well-being. They needed conditions for out-of-door activities. It was enormously expensive to import weighty playground equipment. So there was a market niche in Armenia for producing it locally. By a happy chance “Magnon” Company got it.

“Magnon” Company is the only specialized company which produces playground and park equipment in accordance with US safely standards. It is the market leader with its quality. It has low dependence on the county’s political life and is financially firm.

From the beginning the market of playground equipments was nearly empty. The existing playground equipment was rough and coarse, they lack colors and wasn’t safe enough. So “Magnon”’s production was real innovation for the current market. They were colorful, nice looking, firm and incomparably safe.

As a rule each customer who orders playground equipment returns for expanding the contract. The point is the playground equipment is so nice that after they are installed the customer realizes that it needs fences and a gate. Later on they also feel need for lampposts, trash cans and benches. So a satisfied customer orders all the rest at the same place.

Since 1999 “Magnon” has installed 86 playgrounds in 13 cities and 6 villages around Armenia. There are 12 playgrounds in Yerevan.

The Challenges

Everyone was exited but at the same time they were frustrated, as the customer was checking each and every little detail. It wasn’t a usual case for the people who had spent most of their life in the Soviet Union. The employees missed the development work a lot, so they began doing it with great pleasure and enthusiasm. But again they had a strange demand from the customer. They had a deadline which happened to be really “dead” and the time was short. For a Soviet people the time could have been expanded easily and without any penalty.

The concepts like competition, market share, price leadership and alike were alien things for Arthur and the management of the company. They had to learn business from the very beginning. So happened that their first customers were Eastern organizations like “Mother Lady of Armenia”, USAID, Peace Corp, World Vision and alike. All of them had Eastern working style and demands. So Arthur began managing his company in the same fashion as the customers were used to see in their countries. He learned how to treat them, also he succeeded in negotiations. These organizations were the first sources of information and the experience in business that Arthur had at that time.

In fact the company didn’t have any marketing department. It was known among Eastern organizations which had experienced a lot of troubles working with the locals who had Soviet working style. As Arthur was honest and trustworthy person and could suggest the service and production they needed in the way Eastern people were used to, he got a lot of orders and soon expanded his company. His company became well known in Armenia.