russian software developing industry and software exports

Chapter 1.
Position of Russia in the Global Market of Software
and Software Development Services
and markets of maximum sales. Interestingly, only
around 10 of 20-25 major Russian software exporters
actively communicate with journalists abroad.
Probably, some do not track publications or do not
put links on their websites. However, there can be
only few of such cases. As a rule, companies having
professional PR-managers in their staff perform
intensive monitoring of publications.
Often what poses an obstacle for the news
about a Russian company to appear in international
Mass Media is the condition of non-disclosure of
information stated in the contract or the project by
the customer. For instance, the company DevExperts
that specializes in software development for trading
on a stock exchange and financial markets has no
links to publications in American press because its
USA partners consider confidential the information on
solutions and platforms used.
Another problem is that in the majority of
publications the links to which are provided by
Russian companies these companies do not position
themselves as Russian companies per se or try not to
frequently mention the country of origin. For example,
Parallels calls itself a transnational company. Its founder
is a Russian immigrant who received citizenship of
Singapore. The headquarters of Parallels are located
in Switzerland. At the same time, the majority of
company’s developers are working in Russia.
There are quite many instances when the
company affiliation with a certain country is difficult
to determine. In this survey companies are considered
Russian if they have a legal entity registered in Russia
and software development is mainly performed
in Russia.
But even purely Russian companies are rarely
involved in the promotion of their native country in
the global software market. This mainly concerns
developers of software products produced for wide
groups of users who do not associate Russian with the
development of high-quality goods and products. If
we speak of major customers, more often than not
their managers are free of such associations. They
know the strengths of Russian programmers and that
Russia has successfully solved many complex technical
tasks (e.g. related to implementation of space
programs).
Thus, there is a vicious circle. Companies do not
want to mention their origin for fear that it may
cause reduction of sales. At the same time their
achievements in international markets cannot change
the negative attitude to Russia since ordinary users
do not correlate this success with Russian developers.
Finally, the negative image leads to the situation when
companies do not emphasize that solutions promoted
abroad were created in Russia.
This circle can and must be broken if we want
Russian economy to become less dependent on
world prices on raw materials through the increase
of export share of high-tech companies. Probably, in
this case a strong marketing support of state bodies is
absolutely vital.
The issues of the country image affects the
export of high-tech companies representing various
industries, and they cannot be solved by industrial
groups since they have limited resources compared
to governmental structures (here we would remind
that in 2009 the budget allocated to promote the
favorable image of Russia abroad amounted to
USD 1.4 bn !!!), but without their participation the
effectiveness of state funds to advance Russia in the
global market is extremely low.
The conclusion regarding cooperation with the
press is as follows: last year the number of publications
considerably increased, but the number of records for
Russian companies and software industry in foreign
Mass Media can be at least several times more. Many
companies (even quite large) are not involved in
any PR activities. Moreover, there is no substantial
marketing support on the part of the State.
Russia is far better represented at conferences and
research on outsourcing in software development.
If in international press publications mentioning
software development in Russia are only occasional,
any conference without participants from Russia
cannot claim its international status. All surveys on
global outsourcing market also necessarily mention
Russia (sometimes together with Eastern Europe) as
an alternative to India.
The Indian association NASSCOM on its website
constantly refers to Russia and China as India’s main
competitors. For example, the section of last year’s
achievements says that Indian developers managed
to increase exports despite the competition with
Chinese and Russian companies.
Leading research companies, unlike journalists,
are quite objective evaluating advantages and
disadvantages of individual states. Unfortunately,
they still fail to segment the world market of
outsourcing services to clearly highlight the segment
where Russian positions are particularly strong, and
namely complex science-intensive projects requiring
deep mathematical knowledge of specialists. If this
segment could be measured and the share of every
country determined, it is quite possible that Russian
developers would be the leaders by total exports.
To repeat, analysts (probably due to the lack of
objective information) often exaggerate certain
problems in Russia. Thus, they think that by indicator
of political and economic stability it lags behind its
main competitors. But as a rule the evaluation of
advantages and disadvantages based on different
criteria leaves no doubts.
Ratings of Research Companies
Russian software developers have been
represented in international ratings of the best world
service companies since 2002. Over this period the
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