Strategic Marketing in Russia: The Evolutionary Step to Extend Technology Development Centers and Maximise Your Marketing Efforts in Russia

In a previous article in this series, I discussed the tremendous impact that the global communications phenomenon has made on traditional marketing methodologies and how business must be ready for the challenge of "instantly marketing" their products and services to a new world economy that is without boundaries and barriers. Fund-amentally, there are two underlying keys to success that must become core competencies of U.S. companies pursuing opportunities in the Russian market. The first concept is that of the Technology Development Center (TDC), and the second concept is that of Relationship Asset Management (RAM).

TDCs provide both the technology development infrastructure and the marketing infrastructure that allows a foreign company to quickly enter the Russian market. This model dramatically reduces the normal business inertia as well as the costs of an overseas deployment. In addition, a local TDC can substantially reduce the risk of introducing new products and services in the Russian market by leveraging their local relationships and understanding of local culture, plus it expedites the distribution process.

RAM is the second critical concept for entering the Russian market. Essentially, RAM is a new science designed to clarify, inventory, and leverage the role that existing relationships play in the success of the company. It establishes a formal management process with the goal of providing a proven infrastructure that allows the entire company to utilize and benefit from existing relationships at all levels of the organization. While RAM is a relatively new concept, it is rapidly gaining acceptance and becoming a significant success factor for U.S. companies entering the Russian market.

So it is only natural that the evolutionary path of TDC and RAM strategies would lead to the next marketing paradigm - the Strategic Business Center or SBC. The strategic business center basically differs from a TDC in depth and scope of services offered. The SBC is designed to provide a much higher level of functionality by combining technologists with a complete turnkey sales, marketing, and business development environment. The unique concept provides the right resources that allow companies to quickly gain a substantial market presence and aggressively market to a rapidly growing foreign economy.

Since the SBC is also leveraging the advantages of RAM strategy, it allows the new market entrant to participate and benefit from the existing SBC relationship web. The relationship web provides access to key stakeholders in the new market. The SBC relationship extents to customers, employees, suppliers, investors, analysts, universities, government agencies, media, and the community, and they are all designed to compress the time to market and insure success for you and your company.

Perhaps the single most beneficial facet of the SBC paradigm is that it lowers the total cost of entering a new market while increasing the likelihood of success. The combination of affordable and skilled technical resources combined with the rapid market entry and leveraging of existing relationships allow the waters to be tested at a fraction of the cost of formal foreign market deployment. Best of all, most SBC arrangements allow the company to acquire some or all of the SBC assets should business conditions warrant an operational buyout. This essentially future-proofs the model and insures continued success in the event of full corporate deployment at a later date.

Properly utilized the SBC is likely to become a standard model that allows technology companies to evaluate the impact of a foreign market on their business. The time compression and cost efficiencies are too great to be ignored in the highly competitive global marketplace.