Armenia Digital Award: what projects are eligible to apply
YEREVAN, June 24. /ARKA/. The IT industry and the digitization process are at the center of Armenia's political and social agenda. In recent years, especially after the COVID pandemic, many have begun to note that the digitization process has accelerated both throughout the world and in Armenia.
Armenia Digital Award will reward successful Armenian companies and specialists in this digital industry. Yevgeny Mishchenko, the organizer of the competition, the founder of E-Commerce & Digital Marketing, spoke to ARKA about the event.
ARKA: You're launching the Armenia Digital Award competition this year. Please tell us about the competition itself, how you came up with the idea of holding it in Armenia, and what are your main goals?
- Yevgeny Mishchenko: When I moved to Armenia, I realized that the market of all things digital is in a premature state here. I talked a lot with various local companies and concluded that there is no complete understanding of how important digitalization is for business transformation. Their clients are all online and they expect goods and services to be online as well, although the businesses are not fully ready for this. This is how the idea of Armenian Digital Awards, which I launched with my E-Commerce and Digital Marketing Association, was born.
What kind of projects are eligible for participation?
- Any kind of project can be represented. That is, some people think that this is an IT competition, but this is not entirely true as this is a competition open for any business that has an online presence.
You can nominate a website, mobile app, or an online store. We consider online stores separately because we want to evaluate not only the website itself, but also the entire customer experience.
You can also nominate startups, innovative products with artificial intelligence, and online advertising campaigns.
You can nominate professionals who are involved in digital marketing or e-commerce in companies so that the market learns about them and they get their recognition. Moreover, these nominations are free for professionals, that is, participating in them is easy and interesting. This increases both the capitalization of the specialists and the value of the companies as HR brands.
What about the rest of the participants, will they have to pay to participate in the competition?
- Yes, other participants will need to pay for two reasons. The first reason is to have such a minimal filter that would exclude companies that they do not believe they can win. And the second reason is that organizing the competition, the advertising, the voting at the next stage, and further work are not free. I plan to hold another conference on digital marketing this autumn, where the awards ceremony itself will take place, and this, unfortunately, is also not free.
Is there a pool of projects that you selected outside of the competition as the best?
- For now, we accept applications fr om all market participants. Yes, I have my own list of projects that I definitely want to see in the competition. But I think that they will all be there anyway because they're totally worth it.
How is the market reacting to this initiative?
- The market reacts, let's say, cautiously. Something similar was organized here in 2018, and before that in 2013. These were website competitions. This is why the market does not yet have a strong understanding of what competitions and awards are and why companies need to participate in them. That is, the main thing about the competition is that it is a good marketing tool, it is advertising, because people will come to the website to vote and learn about many companies. Well, the victory, of course, is a brilliant advertising tool that can be used everywhere.
Many companies are skeptical. There is a lot of distrust, and some do not believe that the competition will be transparent and fair. That is why I put my effort into attracting a decent jury. It consists of leaders of large Armenian businesses, digital industry professionals who most people know. The list of jury members is posted on the website at awards.am/jury/
Everything will be transparent: how the people vote on the website, how the jury members vote. That is neither I nor anyone else, even technically, will have any opportunity to somehow rig the results.
Can we say that this competition is a kind of summing up the trend towards digitalization and the development of the IT sector in Armenia? How do you assess the changes in Armenia over the past decades in terms of digitalization and the promotion of new trends?
- Undoubtedly, a huge step forward has been made. There are many businesses in Armenia, including IT outsourcing companies, that really employ top-tier professionals, but, unfortunately, they work for Western markets rather than for the local market.
Digitalization itself is progressing in Armenia; in some sectors it's fast enough and in some sectors it's slower than it could have been. That is, now it is super positive that almost every grocery and food chain already has its own delivery and its own website, as well as a mobile app.
I think Covid played a significant role here, same as in Russia and elsewhere in the world, this pushed this process forward. In my opinion, the taxi market gave a very big boost to digitalization. There are four or five taxi apps in Armenia now, and it's very convenient for the customers. There is some monopoly, but there are still alternatives to this monopoly. This is very cool.
It's also great that the public services sector is also progressing. Yes, there is a lot of room for improvement, but the progress is evident. This does change things a lot and increases transparency.
In my opinion, there is progress, but it's too soon to consider this done. The main thing is that further development should accelerate. That is, we have seen what has happened over the past 10 years, and the same progress will be made over the next 2 years.
Do you think Armenia has crossed the line where the fight for transparency has become more of a hindrance to the user experience?
- That's a good question. Like for me a huge problem was registering my address with the authorities. In the past, you had to spend an entire day at a crowded public office, but you would get things done by the end of the day. Now you can schedule your visit online, but you'll have to wait for two or three months I guess. But, in my opinion, this is also some kind of normal step in development. That is, in order to cut off the old inefficient system, something is introduced that can be further optimized. It seems to me that this is just a normal step, it’s just important that those involved in development and those directly responsible for the product get the feedback.
The feedback, in my opinion, does not work perfectly just yet.
Can your competition become a mechanism for feedback, because there are solutions from individual companies that can contribute to a change in the overall government approach to certain sectors?
- Of course it can. Also, experts from the jury are ready to give some feedback on each work. I communicate quite a lot with the community of people who have moved to Armenia in recent years. We even discussed with the authorities that we might take on certain functions and, relatively speaking, develop some services on a volunteer basis. So far we haven’t received any feedback, we haven’t found a mechanism for interaction. But I believe that the competition can be this mechanism. What is bad will be poorly appreciated. This will be a kind of signal that improvement is required in a certain area.
Maybe it’s worth creating a separate category , for example, “The best decision in the public sector of the year”?
- By the way, it might be a very good idea. Now I’m just going to collect government services, make a separate category and let’s see how the users and the jury vote. Why not?
Many of the trends we are talking about are now limited to Yerevan. This is one of the problems the authorities acknowledge: our capital is developing, but the regions are far behind in this regard. What do you think is the reason behind this?
- In fact, I also don’t fully understand why this happens, because high-speed Internet is already available almost everywhere. If you look at the latest statistics, Internet penetration is around 80%, but for every resident there are more than one and a half devices with Internet access. That is, in the regions, everyone has these opportunities and everyone there uses computers, smartphones, tablets, and so on.
The development is slow because there is no customer demand. But this will change soon. Since Armenia is rather small, the entire country can be a single delivery zone. So, no "two to four business days delivery" here.
So, I think the trend will affect the rest of the country pretty soon.
Finally, let's discuss some global trends. Is there a digitalization trend that is already widespread in the developed countries, like the Western Europe, the USA, but has not yet reached Armenia?
- I probably won’t speak from the point of view of digitalization and some technological trends, but from the point of view of customer experience and what customers consume and what is happening, first of all, with e-commerce in the world. There is a trend called Q-commerce, that is, quick commerce. It is already present in Armenia, that is, there is some fast food delivery from restaurants and groceries within an hour or two after ordering. But Q-commerce is not yet present in all areas.
The next trend is Recommerce - the so-called sale of used items. These days many retailers, even large ones, are starting to take back what was previously bought from them, clean it, repackage it, and sell it again. This trend is not here at all yet, there is only list.am, but it's a classifieds website wh ere everything is quite complicated.
Then, of course, there is a trend towards artificial intelligence, which very few companies us in Armenia, but this is also actively developing. Artificial intelligence, in my opinion, will not completely replace humans in the near future, but it will make it possible to perform their functions more effectively in many professions.
Speaking of the Armenia Digital Awards, what are the main dates to consider?
- We will stop accepting applications at the end of June. Throughout July and August, public voting will be held on the awards.am website, we invite everyone to rate the projects that you like. From September 1 to 10, the jury will vote, and at the end of September a case conference on digital marketing and e-commerce will take place. There will be some exclusive speakers, and then we'll award the winners. You'll never win if you don't participate, so I invite all businesses operating in Armenia to submit their applications.
