The software is going abroad

rabiakhatun

Russia's isolation has shown the domestic IT market that business life is not only Hollywood-style - business partnerships in rich European and US cities. Many countries from Asia to South America want to cooperate with Russian software vendors. A wide range of solutions that replace Western analogues are in demand: from security systems to video communications. According to a study by the industry community RUSSOFT, 48% of domestic IT vendors already have experience content writing service exporting their solutions abroad. Asia remains the leader (34%), and Latin American countries demonstrate high potential - 24% of the surveyed suppliers want to go there, but only 6% are working so far.

"Old Europe" also turned out to be not a "hut" at all and did not turn its "back" to Russia - 29% of companies successfully export their software there, and another 34% plan to come to Europe. Russian cybersecurity systems have become extremely popular in Africa and South America, the study notes.

But openness of the market does not mean success in introducing IT products to it.



Mental differences and ignorance of legislative specifics often become a serious barrier

noted by export market participants.

For example, the Middle East and Central Asia are quite specific regions for Russian vendors, where the cultural pattern of each country has a very strong influence on the business environment, Andrey Krekhov, Director of Special Programs at ICL Services, shared his experience in a conversation with RSpectr. “And long-term cooperation with mature Western markets has developed a corresponding behavioral business model for our business. But in the East and Asia, this experience does not work, even communication is built completely differently,” the expert explained.

"In Southeast Asia, entrepreneurs prefer to have long conversations on abstract topics before starting business negotiations," Pavel Frolov, founder and producer of educational robotic systems "ROBBO", told RSpectr about the differences. "In Europe, businessmen limit themselves to small talk and immediately get down to business."

Pavel Frolov, "ROBBO":

– In countries where businessmen like to bargain, for example, in India, it is worthwhile to better explain the value of the offer. This will allow you to justify the cost of products and services. This can be done, for example, by drawing an analogy with a well-known global brand from another sphere.

Another barrier is the difficulty of translation. "Big problems in communication begin where potential partners do not know either Russian or English. We are particularly acutely faced with this in Asian countries," Sergey Ozhegov, CEO of SearchInform, told RSpectr.

COMPETITIVE FACTOR

Oleg Kravchuk, head of the export committee of ARPP "Domestic Software", director of work with foreign and strategic projects of "Code of Security", believes that it is easier to negotiate partnerships in those countries that have already thought about technological independence from well-known global software brands. Where opportunities for localization of products have been created, there is trust in solutions and data processing in the cloud on their territory.