Russian security market is forecast to keep growing in the following years, as several major international events such as 2016 IIHF World Championship and 2018 FIFA World Cup are coming up in Russia. Meanwhile, the government in Russia has highly focused on safe city and transportation security projects, whereas global security suppliers has targeted their market strategies on verticals more than usual.
Groteck Business Media, the leading B2B publisher and event organizer that has been serving security, telecom, IT, and broadcasting in Russian market, today co-hosts a seminar with Messe Frankfurt New Era in Taipei, Taiwan, talking about current Russian security market. Andrey Miroshkin, the CEO and owner of Groteck Business Media, and Olga Inshakova, Project Director of Groteck Business Media, presented a full aspect of current Russian market trend and a series of professional suggestions in terms of investing in this market.
Russian security market is forecast to keep growing in the following years, as several major international events such as 2016 IIHF World Championship and 2018 FIFA World Cup are coming up in Russia. Meanwhile, the government in Russia has highly focused on safe city and transportation security projects, whereas global security suppliers has targeted their market strategies on verticals more than usual.
CCTV and video surveillance devices and access control systems will still be taking up the largest proportion of imported security products in Russian market. While premium security systems imported to Russia are mainly manufactured by the U.S., European countries (GB, Germany, France, Italy, and Poland), Japan, and Israel, the component and systems equipped in these systems are mostly originated from China, according to Inshakova'. Interestingly, some hi-tech products in Russian market are mainly provided by Taiwanese, Chinese, and Korean suppliers.
As Miroshkin mentioned in the seminar, there are some basic options for the suppliers who intend to invest in the Russian security market; however, some potential issues need to be considered while making business call. For example, as care-free as it may seem, hiring a distributor cannot be merely about selling and delivering products to the end users. Handling promotion and advertising campaigns through independent local distributors can lead to disappointing outcome, especially when the distributors do not fully understand the investor's product lines and target verticals.
On the other hand, representative office could be a wiser choice. Running business through representative office suggests having better control over both promotion and distribution. However, Russian authorities forbid representative offices directly involved in commercial activities. In order to legally take part in commercial activities, the investors may consider opening branch offices to engage in commercial activities legally in Russia. Educating your customers is crucial in the Russian market, according to Miroshkin. Lacking of informative connection with the customers can easily give the competitors an upper hand. Furthermore, to make sure the promotion worth every penny, the investors need to think Russia-wide, because business works differently from Siberia and from Moscow – that is the reason for hiring more than one professional representative in Russia.