QBiX holding: how five directions became one system
QBiX started out as a single IT studio in 2020. Today it’s five production directions and two in-house IT products under one name. Below is how that happened, who runs the holding today, and how the management is set up that lets seven different directions work to one standard.
“We didn’t set out to build a holding. We were solving a specific problem: physical labour was managed worse than code.”
When I launched the IT direction in 2020, it wasn’t meant to become the core business — but revenue from development turned out to be the source of both the method and the money for everything else. In 2021, Yelaman Babazhan and I decided to open a furniture direction, and during that period up to 60% of the IT direction’s revenue went into furniture production — that was a deliberate investment, not a side effect.
By 2023 it became clear that the discipline we’d built for development — the work order, stage control, criteria-based acceptance — worked in physical labour just as rigorously as it did in code. Managing furniture, installation and cleaning through IT systems turned out to be not an optional extra but our main competitive advantage: a market where almost no one records deadlines and volumes in writing leaves a lot of room for that.
In 2024 I decided to unite all the directions under the QBiX brand. There was no longer any point keeping separate signage — the reputation of one direction needed to work for all the others, not exist in isolation. A year later the merger was formalised legally, and from that point QBiX is one holding, not a set of companies with a common owner.
We tell this story, former signage names included, not for effect but because hiding it would be pointless: contracts signed before 2024 and mentions in search results keep pointing back to it anyway. It’s simpler to explain directly than to leave room for speculation about who’s really behind a particular direction.
Amandyk Samatov · Founder of QBiX
HISTORY
Timeline
Launch of the IT direction
Amandyk Samatov launches the IT development direction and grows it as the holding’s core business.
Furniture direction
Together with Yelaman Babazhan, the decision is made to open a furniture direction. Yelaman Babazhan heads it. Up to 60% of the IT direction’s revenue is reinvested into furniture production.
Self-sufficiency and installation
Furniture becomes self-sufficient and scales up. The installation direction opens: renovation, cable runs, air-conditioner installation, field crews.
In-house IT products and cleaning
The IT direction ships its own products, QBiX Menu and QBiX Build. The cleaning direction opens — the service turns out to be in demand from both corporate and private customers.
Brand unification
The founder’s key decision: unite all directions under the single QBiX brand.
Legal registration
The merger is formalised legally.
The holding today
The holding operates with 5 directions and 2 in-house IT products.
5 directions + 2 products = 7 business units
How the management is set up
Every task at QBiX follows the same eight steps regardless of who the customer is — a public institution, a company or a private individual:
- 01
Request
The request reaches the relevant direction or the tender loop — routing happens automatically based on the content of the request, rather than requiring the customer to guess the right department themselves.
- 02
Estimate
Based on a measurement or specification, with a fixed preparation deadline — the customer knows in advance when they’ll get the figures, instead of waiting an indefinite amount of time.
- 03
Contract
Terms and deadlines are fixed in writing before work begins — including what happens if the scope changes along the way. The prepayment is made only after signing and after the estimate is agreed, not before.
- 04
Work order to the crew
Scope and deadline are logged in the CRM before the crew heads to the site — the crew gets a ready-made plan instead of putting one together on site during the conversation with the customer.
- 05
Delivery with photo records
Every stage is confirmed with photos in the system, available to the coordinator and, if needed, to the customer.
- 06
Checklist-based acceptance
Rework happens before signing, not after — the certificate is signed only once the result matches the agreed checklist.
- 07
Closing documents
The certificate, completion certificate (AVR) and e-invoice (ESF) through the ESF portal — a single format across every direction and every customer segment, which simplifies reconciliation for accounting teams working with several contractors at once.
- 08
Video report
Published on Instagram — openly, with no exceptions, regardless of who the customer was.
LEADERSHIP
Who runs the holding
Strategic decisions are made jointly by the founder and the managing partner — no direction develops on its own without agreement from both. Day-to-day management inside each direction is held by its leaders, listed below by area of responsibility rather than by name: the direction cards on their own sites name specific people. This split — strategy at the top, operations inside the direction — keeps the holding from turning into either a centralised bureaucracy where every decision waits on approval from above, or a scattering of independent teams with no common standard.
Amandyk Samatov
Founder, CEO of the holdingSets the holding’s overall strategy, responsible for the unified IT management loop and the development of every business direction.
Yelaman Babazhan
Co-founder, managing partnerInvolved in strategic decisions, oversees the holding’s production block and the furniture direction.
The names of directions’ own leaders are disclosed on the respective directions’ sites.
PRINCIPLES
Five principles the holding stands on
One standard for every segment
An order for an apartment kitchen goes through the same stages — contract, estimate, work order, checklist-based acceptance — as a contract to fit out a public institution. The only difference is scale, not discipline. We don’t keep a “simplified” process for small orders: an estimate for a kitchen is costed just as carefully as a specification for a tender, because the same procedure applies across the whole holding.
Responsibility isn’t spread thin between directions
Even when a task is carried out by three different directions, QBiX answers to the customer — one contract, one certificate, one person you can reach at any moment. Inside the holding, directions may sort out among themselves who left what unfinished, but the customer is never drawn into that process: for them, the company as a whole bears responsibility. This is a deliberate structural choice, not a coincidence: a single brand means the reputational risk of any direction is a risk for the whole holding, and it can’t be split up any other way.
The deadline is fixed beforehand, not discussed afterward
A work order with a date and scope exists before a crew ever leaves for the site. If anything might shift the deadline, we say so in advance, not after the fact. This also applies to internal delays: if materials arrive later than expected, the customer learns about it right away, not on the day installation was supposed to happen.
Transparency isn’t selective
A video report is released for every site — public, commercial and private, with no exceptions and no split between “important” and “other” clients. The filming format and publication schedule are the same regardless of the contract amount.
Engineering discipline carries over to any physical labour
The practice that emerged in software development — defining the task, tracking stages, accepting work against criteria — works just as rigorously in furniture and installation as it does in code. We don’t consider physical labour any less suited to formalisation than development, and we consistently apply the same management tools to it. A work order in the CRM is the same thing as a ticket in a developer’s issue tracker: both have a definition, a deadline and a closing criterion, and neither can be closed without a confirmed result.
Frequently asked questions
The questions most often asked about the holding’s structure and management model — if your question is about a specific direction or working terms, see the “Directions” and “Business & public sector” pages for more.
How is QBiX different from a single-service contractor?
A single-service contractor closes one task and passes the site down a chain of other contractors. QBiX closes supply, installation, furniture, cleaning and development under one contract with one person responsible — there are simply no seams between contractors, which is usually where deadlines and quality get lost.
Why are the directions united under one brand?
Until 2024 the directions grew as separate businesses with their own names. The founder united them under the QBiX brand so the reputation of each direction would work for the others instead of existing on its own. When there is one brand, no direction has the right to weak work — it answers for the reputation of the whole holding.
Do you work outside Astana?
Yes. The base region is Astana, but crews travel across the whole territory of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Working terms and paperwork are the same regardless of region, and travel logistics are built into the estimate before the contract is signed.
Who is responsible for quality on site?
Work on site is done by foremen and craftsmen with hands-on experience in their field, while the process — deadlines, the estimate, acceptance — is controlled by an engineer-coordinator through an internal system. Responsibility is fixed in the work order and confirmed by photo records and the acceptance certificate.
Discuss working together
Tell us about the task — we’ll pick the direction and the person responsible.