Contrary to the autumn mood and the coming cold, October has been unusually rich in terms of the number of meetings and activities of SPIBA. The autumn season – it’s the most creative and active time!

We have successfully passed the September election of the Finance Committee. The Chairmen of the Committee brought a lot of fresh ideas and suggestions, and literally from the beginning of October organized one event after another. We invite everybody to pay attention to the activities of the Committee and invite all SPIBA members to attend meetings and we invite all employees of business that are responsible for finance.

On Tuesday, October 4^th we held an open business meeting on the topic “The current financial state of Russian economy”. This event was another in a series of meetings with Maxim Oreshkin, a leading expert in Credit Agricole CIB. We would like to remind everyone that Maxim had already spoken to us in April, and, like the last time, his report in October provoked great interest and an active discussion. The report analyzed global trends and the most critical areas of the world economy. Unfortunately, the predictions of Maxim on the growth of national economies has become less optimistic. This is primarily due to the current state of the economy in the world. However, unlike 2008, Russia is in a better position due to correcting problems that arose during that crisis. It is not as overheated as in 2008. In general, Russia is in a better financial shape in terms of its growth potential. We hope that at the next meeting, which will be held in the spring, the situation will stabilize and we will hear a more positive outlook.

October 6^th we held a scheduled meeting of the Working Group HR Committee. It was decided to conduct jointly with the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation and the newspaper “Moy Rayon”. On the November 16^th, we had a Round Table on the topic “Social responsibility of business in outsourced personnel”. This is quite an acute problem, both in terms of employers and companies providing personnel, and from the side of the workers themselves.

October 12^th, Finnish company «ISKU» invited our association to visit Finland House to take part in our traditional programLook@it, which was organized with the participation of companies «IskuInterior» and «UPM-Plywood» and which fit within the framework of “Days of Helsinki in St. Petersburg”. The participants got acquainted with the modern interior design solutions for public buildings and visited the exhibition gallery, where they saw the products, which were created as a result of the innovation of «IskuInterior». It’s always interesting to follow the development of technologies that literally affects us all, and to see the results of their application in practice. Finnish companies are particularly distinguished by their ecology and life-style comfort. Photos from the event can be viewed in the gallery.

The next day, October 13^th, the Finance Committee and Taxcom company conducted a business meeting on the theme:“Changes in the application of VAT on the transactions in the domestic market” with Olga Duminskaya, Deputy Head of Department of Administration of Indirect Taxes Tax Service, Federal Tax Service Advisor of the Russian Federation with a presentation: “The new invoices and new rules for working with them”. After a professional and very entertaining story about the calculation of VAT and a subsequent emotional discussion, the speaker admitted her love for VAT. We have even proposed the idea of ​​creating a SPIBA “Club of Tax Lovers”, which could become a separate division of the Finance Committee. It’s wonderful, when you’re dealing with professionals of such a high level and moreover they  genuinely love their job! It is these people that make SPIBA such a particular community! Congratulations and thanks to our Finance Committee!

At the end of the event the company Taxcom demonstrated their program complex “Filer”, which can greatly simplify the tax declaration and the exchange of sets of documents. High-tech has got to the holy of holies –flow of tax documents! Life is getting better!

On Friday, October 14^th, there was an event organized by the Environment, Health and Safety Committee on the process of implementation and certification of integrated environmental management system. It was a very informative presentation and discussion on this topic, conducted by professionals of the highest level – Elena Alekseeva and Svetlana Monastyrnaya. The presentation can be viewed on the page of the event.

October 18^th, the Marketing Committee in conjunction with PR-agency Press-Papier of the Stockholm School of Economics held the meeting “Crisis PR: theory into practice”. The meeting was attended by representatives of both PR-communities and law firms. The General Manager of Press-Papier, Gleb Krampets told us about real cases of crisis PR in real companies. On the side of lawyers Egor Noskov, managing partner of “Duvernoix Legal” made a presentation. He shared his experience of the interaction of lawyers and PR-managers for companies in crisis situations. The meeting was ended by a presentation by Alexey Kedrin, Director of Corporate Communications and Information of the brewery “Baltika”. Alexey  emphasized the need to prevent crisis situations through media communication.

On Thursday, October 20^th, Finance Committee organized a meeting –“Currency control: instructions for use. Forecasts on the rates for insurance premiums in 2012”. Participants listened to a magnificent performance by Elena Yakovenko, Head of the Foreign Exchange Controls in Credit Agricole CIB, which was dedicated to the most frequent violations of currency laws and measures of responsibility for them. Elena also answered numerous questions by the participants. Anna Belinskaya, expert-methodologist of Intercomp Global Services finished the meeting – she told SPIBA members about up-coming changes in the 2012 legislation in the area of ​​staff costs for insurance premiums. More information on these changes can be found inthe presentation. Please contact us with any questions or suggestions on topics! Remember the SPIBA hotline!

October 26^th in the “Corinthia Nevsky Palace” hotel took place the main event of the year for our Association -the Annual General Meeting of Members. The guest of the meeting was Mr. Alexey Chichkanov, Chairman of the Committee for Investments and Strategic Projects, St. Petersburg. The meeting was held in the format of open discussion on “How to increase the attractiveness of St. Petersburg for investors?” Our members are always interested to know “Where the wind blows” and what you can expect from the government. The government has also become more interested in getting feedback from the business community. One of the issues that was put forward during the discussion was information and consulting support for investors through a newly created Agency for Investment. Here it could be possible to get information first-hand, without the help of intermediaries. Thus it could become possible to create a “One Window” shop for businesses and to prevent the occurrence of some bureaucratic hurdles. What may be the function of this agency? What is the international practice in this regard?

In the final part of the meeting we held the awards ceremony for SPIBA’s most active and creative members, those who made the greatest contribution to our organization this year. To see the faces of our heroes, as well as to recall the feeling and atmosphere of the evening you can see photos and the accompanying presentation.

Thursday, October 27^th, the company Tikkurila shared their unique experience on the relationship with the unions. Elena Rozanova told about the history of the formation of trade unions, lawsuits and the action taken by the company to finally come to a constructive cooperation with them and to create a positive atmosphere within a company. The event created great interest amongst our members. We were even asked to repeat it as an “encore”! Unique items are unrepeatable, so stay tuned for our schedule! Do not miss any future opportunities!

On October 28^th we had a Halloween party in the Abeerdeen bar! Scottish beer, freak-show and a friendly atmosphere warmed the guests of the party that was dedicated to this most terrifying holiday of the year!

In the traditional format of Look@it, we visited W Hotel, which was opened in June. They provided us the history of the concept and the unique brand WOW, they told us what is next for the hotel chain W, the difficulties faced by the company Starwoods when entering the market of St. Petersburg as told by the managers of W. We were introduced to a unique approach to guest service “Whatever Whenever”. The hotel, with its sophisticated design hotel, restaurants, gourmet MiXup and many other surprises during the WOW fascinating examination of the hotel – this is what we all remembered very well. Such is the power of an exclusive brand! We decided that we could use something of this in SPIBA. For us, the highest design WOW – this is our talented members with its unique friendly and open atmosphere, which we all create together.Whatever whenever for business development and pleasure of our members!

This is a great end of our creative October. Now it’s festive November’s time!