Entering Russian Market of Passenger Transportation : Case of Veolia Transdev

Abstract: Each day more and more companies choose to become international and to expand to new markets looking for bigger profits. However, many of them end up carrying big losses only because they lack a deep and detailed analysis of a new market they have chosen to expand to. Therefore, the authors of this thesis decided to conduct a deep and profound analysis of Russian public transportation market. Russia presents a fast developing economy which shows very positive development signs. Russian market became more approachable and less risky in legal terms since Russian membership in World Trade Organization in 2012. Thus, Russia can be a very interesting market to expand to. For the accuracy of the analysis it was chosen to concentrate on the public transportation sector of the market of Moscow, as this city has 12 million passengers per day and big transportation and traffic problems. It was chosen to conduct a case study and take a Veolia Transdev Company as an empirical example for the market analysis. This company was chosen due to its wide international presence and successful and sustainable growth. Now the company started to lose its grasp and lately has been experiencing financial problems. This company is not presented in Rus-sia, so it serves for this study as a potential entrant to the Russian market of public trans-portation. Hence, the analysis was conducted from the view of the company that is looking for new markets to expand to. The experience of Veolia Transdev was integrated with the market analysis conducted with a help of two models combined together: PESTEL and Porter‟s Five Forces. As a result, it was discovered that Russian public transportation market limited to Moscow area can be very profitable; it has plenty of opportunities to be exploited by international companies of Veolia Transdev‟s size and experience. As for a specific case of Veolia Transdev, company could become successful in this market with a right integration of its experience. Moreover, after the conducted research authors believe that Russian public transportation market could help Veolia Transdev‟s future financial success and could be-come one of its major profit sources. This paper provides a very descriptive analysis of Russian public transportation market limited to Moscow area for Veolia Transdev. The chosen market proved itself to be open for new entrants; to be full of different domestic and international suppliers with a low negotiation power; to have a high popularity of pub-lic transportation and poor competition from local public transportation providers.