Taking your Business to Russia. A Guidebook and Historical Overview for Entrepreneurs

As a growing market, Russia holds great economic interest and potential opportunities for international companies, especially Finnish SMEs. Due to their geographic proximity, Russia and Finland have a long history of established business and trade relations. Finland’s major economic institutions were formed during the period when the country was under Russian rule. Also, the two countries had bilateral trade relations for approximately forty years. Nowadays, Russia is acknowledged as one of Finland’s biggest trading partners and the most important direction for internationalisation of small and medium-sized Finnish companies. Finland has a strategic geopolitical position as a gateway between East and West; hence, there is great potential for the growth of trade, investment, technology transfer and other cooperation between Russian and Finnish businesses. The present book is a result of a long collaborative research project between the Hanken School of Economics, Finland, and St. Petersburg State University, Russia. The book is a response to two calls: one from Finnish business practitioners to develop practical guidelines on how to establish and operate small businesses in Russia and the other from the academe to conduct more research on Russia as a turbulent market with high potential for small entrepreneurial firms. What makes this book different from existing guide books on how to conduct business in Russia? First, it targets a very specific audience; namely, Finnish entrepreneurs and business practitioners who plan to establish their businesses in Russia or who already have companies operating there. We believe our target audience will benefit from this narrow focus as it addresses concrete problems typical for Finnish business people in Russia. We also hope that the results of our research will be employed for teaching purposes in business schools across Finland as, nowadays, many of them offer special courses on Russian business. Second, our research team comprises scholars from both Finland and Russia, which offers a dual perspective on this phenomenon. Third, the empirical part of this research is based on qualitative case studies, not on broad statistical analyses. This approach enabled us to go deeply into specific business cases and to perceive the challenges of running businesses in Russia through the eyes of entrepreneurs and managers