#6159
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strana.ru
March 26, 2002
Cooler Business Heads Seek "Sustainable" Growth for Long-term
Sky's no longer the limit, though Russia's back on the radar.
By Michael Stedman
High-yield returns on investment seen in the heady days before Russia's economic crash four years ago have been replaced by more realistic and sustainable performance from big business, company executives were told in Moscow Tuesday.
The critical corporate issue now was to achieve well-founded growth, and pre-meltdown returns of 40 percent had given way to cooler deliveries of between five percent and 25 percent, a top specialist declared at a "strategy round table."
Senior delegates from Russian and foreign-owned corporations gathered to hear his assessment that a key issue facing managers responsible for the Russian market was "managing corporate expectations downward" as the domestic economy powered forward.
It's no longer "the sky's the limit," the Economist Intelligence Unit's Russia and East European expert Daniel Thorniley told the conference.
And the key task for regional managers was to push that message hard in boardrooms back home as a newly fast-moving economy and a good business environment was putting Russia "on the radar screens" of chief executive officers in foreign lands.
"Most country and regional managers want to get another good commercial year under their belts in 2002," Thorniley said. "And the good news is that most think they will be able to achieve this."
Perceptions of Russia were still colored by "the CNN view" of unreliable joint venture partners and mafia trouble, delegates were told. But a better long-term perspective was now producing business strategies which could be sustained.
"Making moderate investments in infrastructure and staff, looking at steady regional expansion, considering partnerships and joint ventures with Russian partners and considering tactical, strategic alliances with other Western companies are all part of this strategy," Thorniley said.
These could be set against negative reports which were "97 percent garbage," he added.
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