The Russian market has great potential

Scene 1: A mid sized European company is looking for new markets to expand. The growth of the Russian beer market looks promising…

For sure the market has a great potential, we have to be there.

Agree, the statistics with the growth figures look very encouraging!!!

For sure, but how? Direct sales, local office, distributor, or JV?

We have to have an office there!!!

A first request from a potential Russian customer

Scene 2: After renting an office and hiring new staff a potential customer made a request for a product sample for a trial run.

Good news. We have a first product request for a trial run.

There is no doubt they would be delighted by our quality!!!

Hold on, I have one of our Russian managers on the phone.


Please make sure that you forward the set of documents with the goods that I asked before. This is very important!!!

Do we need to supply all the information?

Scene 3: Sales meeting at the head office

Sales manager: As you know we are going to deliver “Free of charge” pallets for this trial run. Our local representatives in Russia asked a lot of questions and requested lots of documents. Do we need to provide them with all this information?

Sales assistant: I don't think we have to provide more information about our products.

They simply ask too much. It is ridicoulous! I am sure the usual EU standards will apply. Sending them the usual documentation we also use for other countries should be sufficient.



I am afraid that the additional information they asked for will be shared with our competitors, so let’s send them goods with only the EU documentation set.

An unexpected problem occured

Scene 3: a crisis meeting in the board room



Local representative: We have a problem! I just learned that the goods have arrived in Russia but they can not pass customs because we did not supply the necessary documentation. As I noticed earlier we have to submit number of documents for the Russian custom authorities. Without these documents the goods are considered to be contraband.

How to solve this situation. Two scenarios:
1) bring the case to law, pay fines, and full duty will apply; 2) we pay a “facilitator”, we supply the remaining documents and follow the traditional custom procedure.

My advice is to follow the second option and for the next shipment to follow my previous recommendation. Anyway you decide!

Solving the problem

Sales manager: It is against company policy to support corruption, we have to follow official procedures.

Export manager: No doubt, but how to operate in the future ?

Sales manager: we have to apply local knowledge and follow the recommendation of our local staff!