IT Is Key to Russia's Modernization

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The Russian business landscape is a challenging one for any company operating in the country. A new economic reality has evolved, and for providers of information and communication technology solutions it is imperative to be responsive to the needs of this continually evolving market.

Last year, the Economist Intelligence Unit carried out a survey of managers in the world's fastest growing economies. The EIU polled 537 senior-level executives and managers in the four BRIC countries, the United Arab Emirates, Mexico, South Africa and Vietnam. The results show that managers place a very high value on the role of information and communication technology in business.

In Russia, respondents were overwhelmingly positive about the impact of information and communication technology on their firms' results, with 91 percent of respondents saying it had a positive or very positive impact on overall performance over the past five years.

The survey results also contain information of interest to the Russian government as it pursues its modernization agenda. The two top external hindrances to IT use among companies in Russia were the absence or ineffectiveness of any government strategy to encourage the adoption of IT in society and the poor state of national telecommunications and Internet infrastructure.

In the current economic environment, companies need to simplify information and communication technology management to reduce operating expenses and free up resources for innovation to drive their business forward.

The second issue is training. In my view, the responsibility lies with the IT provider to insure that clients can make effective and efficient use of the solutions provided.

There can be no doubt that success in the new economic paradigm hinges upon modernization, something President Dmitry Medvedev has emphasized repeatedly. Earlier there had been some hope that Russia could coast along in a protracted period of modernization on the back of high commodity prices, but the crisis proved these hopes were false. Instead, it is now more clear than ever that information and communication technologies will be key to modernize the economy.

Economists have correctly highlighted worker productivity and technology infrastructure as two areas in which Russia has the most catching up to do. And this is why I continue to believe in the enormous potential of information and communication technology in Russia.

IT fluency in Russia has increased eightfold since 2000 to include about 25 percent of the population. This impressive growth rate represents an enormous opportunity for providers of information technology and personal computers. IT has already emerged as a separate, stand-alone sector of the economies of more developed markets, but it is just beginning to do so in Russia.

For all of the downsides that an economic crisis brings, one clear upside is that it forces a general re-examination of efficiency and waste. If the turmoil of the late 1990s taught us anything, it was that sometimes the hardest hit markets could indeed emerge in a better position than before a crisis. I believe that the outcome of the current recession will also produce similar surprises as the world readapts to the new economic paradigm of the 21st century.

Mikhail Zaskalet is the general manager of Dell Russia. Richard Lourie is on vacation and will return to this spot in two weeks.