Golden Autumn and Indian Summer brought more activity in our association. In September we held a lot of different events and meetings.

On September 6th, YIT Lentek invited SPIBA Members to join the Business-tour in the industrial zone «GreenState», which was a part of forum «PROEstate». Such zones are still only beginning to develop in Russia, so any familiarity with the experience of creating them is very useful and attractive to many businessmen. The meeting participants visited two different park infrastructures – a factory for packaging the cosmetics “Dermosil” and the Meat Processing Plant “Pit-Product.”

In conjunction with the Association of Industrial Parks, Russia held a roundtable on “The Benefits of an industrial park in front of other commercial real estate to accommodate the new facilities.” The roundtable highlighted the following issues: What is an industrial park? What distinguishes the industrial park from other facilities to accommodate production facilities and what are its advantages? It is a feature of the demand for the product with a focus on the North-West region of Russia.  Photos from the event can be found here.

September 8th, the Marketing and Communications Committee, organized a brainstorming event “Business gifts: from banality to creativity”. Every PR manager knows that September – is the month to order business gifts for New Year. We decided that we should get together and share our experiences, to discuss both good and bad gifts and ideas. Also, at the meeting,  participants were able to share their experiences with real professionals business gifts  with the advertising agency, “Scarab”. Hetman Alexander, commercial director, spoke about the history of business gifts, shared original ideas, but also brought to the office a variety of souvenir that have been most successful.

September 9th  SPIBA hosted a roundtable on “The Food of the Future”, organized jointly with the newspaper “Moy Rayon”. The event addressed the following questions: The current problems for producers of food and beverages, Quality, Materials, and a forecast of the production and consumption of food and beverages. The moderator of the round table was GrigoryKunis, publisher of “My Area”. Active participation in the discussion was attended by the company Fazer and “Lyubimy Krai”, as well as a  well known expert on quality management, Professor Elena Gorbashko, Chair of FINEC.

September 16th SPIBA jointly with the Association of Banks of the North-West organized a round-table discussion on “Problems of automating the exchange controls for foreign economic activity (FEA).” This was the first event that SPIBA conducted jointly with the Association of Banks after a long hiatus. All participants agreed that this cooperation should be developed as acting together can solve many more issues related to banking and financial management for the enterprises of our members.

The topic was rather narrow, specific, but very significant for all participants, as companies spend a lot of time and effort to perform the chore of transferring securities from one organization to another. The event touched on the possibility of excluding the transfer of documents on transactions of foreign economic activity on paper and arrange the documents necessary for the exchange controls in electronic form. The discussion was attended by representatives of the North-West Customs Administration, the General Directorate of the Russian Central Bank of St. Petersburg, the General Directorate of the Russian Central Bank for Leningrad oblast, as well as bank, international business and customs experts. Elena Marchenko, Chief Accountant, Head of Finance Division of BSH Bitowije Pribory made a presentation which can be viewed by clicking on the link. As a result, a letter was sent – an appeal to the General Directorate of the Russian Central Bank for the adoption of specific recommendations and treatment. The meeting was held by one of the most prominent specialists in the legal aspects of exchange control, the Director of Economic and Law Center, Vice-Chairman of the Uniform Arbitration, Tatiana Muslimovna Utepova.

On  September 19, 2011 there was a working meeting of the EHS Committee with representatives of Vodokanal. The event was attended by representatives of such companies as Unilever, Smurfit Kappa Saint-Petersburg, Ahlers CIS & Baltics, Alfa-City, Bautech Engineering.  The meeting discussed the following issues:
– Draft law on water supply and sewerage;
– Installation of metering and modems to them;
– Prospects connections release of sewage collectors to water utility;
– Control of the composition and properties of wastewater
All questions were given full and clear answers from the management of Vodokanal. The meeting resulted in an agreement on Vodokanal solving practical problems of water supply and sanitation, and an understanding and willingness to join efforts to ensure the protection of water resources.

September 20th was the first fall SPIBA Get Together at the restaurant “Russian Kitsch”. Photos can be viewed here. We thank Concord Catering and personally Anthony William Gere for this event!

On September 23th Ashmanov and Partners, a newly joined company of SPIBA, held a seminar on “New ways of promotion on the Internet.” The Speaker, Oleg Barantsev, Manager of Ashmanov, gave the presentation of working with clients and partners of Ashmanov. Oleg gave examples of competition on the Internet, and many practical examples of promotion of sites on the Internet about viral marketing and mobile applications.

September 26th, a third lecture on marketing was given on the topic “Evaluating the effectiveness of marketing and promotion,” which was given by Andrey Alexeev, PhD Dr. Econ. , Associate Professor, Director of “Center of Innovation Development” StPSUEF. You can view the demo here.

On September 27th  the HR Committee of SPIBA held a seminar “Protection of personal data that are relevant to industrial relations”, which was given by Alexander Korkin, lawyer, Pepeliaev Group. Korkin spoke about the new law on personal data; what has changed and what should be done. Elena Lukoyanova, Head of St. Petersburg branch, Experium talked about the protection of personal data in the field of recruitment.

On September 28th SPIBA together with JSC “SEZ” in St. Petersburg, participated in a panel discussion titled “Special Economic Zone of TVT in St. Petersburg – a platform for modernizing the national economy. What is a business in the SEZ project? “. The event was held in the St. Petersburg International Innovation Forum. It was attended by the representatives of the Government of St. Petersburg and the leaders of the SEZ in our city and in Moscow. The discussion was moderated by Ludmila Murgulets and Katerina Sazhina, PR manager of the SEZ project. The panel discussion was attended by both existing residents and potentially interested companies.
During the discussion, participants had the opportunity to compare conditions in Moscow and St. Petersburg, asked questions and exchange views. Participants understood what is needed now as the systematic analysis of existing experiences and problems of the SEZ and the special nature of management and administration in matters of changes in laws and customs clearance, infrastructure development, and obtaining approvals. A particularly acute problem of scientific capacity and staffing and  innovative companies. This is especially true of territories that are far away from the city. In recent years, much has changed in legislation in regards to  SEZs, improved conditions for business development companies and resident, and therefore an increase dramatically in the number of potential residents. This is especially true of foreign companies that want to establish their production facilities.

On September 29th, in the framework of the Innovation Forum at the University of Telecommunications, a discussion on the topic of Quality management in the innovation business was held. During the discussion, participants exchanged views on the matter and approaches that exist in both Russian and foreign companies.

On September 29th in conjunction with the British Consulate, SPIBA held a roundtable on “Energy and the preparation of energy passports”. The objectives of the roundtable were: to provide examples of experiences of Russian and British companies to increase energy efficiency and preparation of passports, to analyze the applicability of the presented experience in Russia to formulate comments and recommendations on the possible application submitted by these experiences. This is a continuation of the project to improve energy efficiency, which this year goes to Russia with the support of the British government. At the Round-table were consultants and experts from the UK and Russia, as well as representatives of major international and Russian companies. Gareth Ward, British Consul General, presented the practices of British companies on energy efficiency in various industries. The meeting was very interactive and interesting. The participants presented their proposals and ideas related to the capacity of the British experience in Russia. There are still many unsolved problems and this is especially to true change in the mentality of the Russian people in relation to pollution control.