Russia, a fast-changing market - An approach to meet recent and upcoming business-impacting changes properly, exemplified by the medical technical sector.

Abstract: Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and especially during the last decade, a multitude of changes and reforms affecting the business environment of the Russian Federation were observable. This thesis discusses already existing findings and theories dealing with business-impacting changes in the Russian market and investigates their impact on companies operating in the medical technical sector. Moreover, it is examined to what extent networks serve as a mediator between recent and upcoming business-impacting changes and medical device companies. For this purpose, an explanatory multiple case study is conducted which comprises two cases of medical technical companies as well as two institutions which are very familiar with the Russian market. The empirical analysis is based on a framework which summarizes in literature identified business-impacting changes. These are the membership of the WTO, the increasing overall wealth of the Russian population, different political programs to fight corruption and to decrease the extent of bureaucracy as well as various kinds of health care reforms which are launched to deal with the poor health care outcomes of the Russian Federation. Contrary to findings in literature, it is found that the WTO membership as well as the launch of different political programs has no notable impact on companies operating in the medical technical sector. Different health care reforms and an increasing overall wealth of the Russian population, on the other hand, have positive impacts on the demand for medical device products. Moreover, access to well-established networks in the Russian market is a possibility for medical device producers to evaluate the actual effect of business-impacting changes and to initiate corresponding activities. It was found that a clear distinction between different kinds of networks, such as business and social networks, cannot be clearly made for the case of the Russian market.