Having recently returned from Russia, I was impressed with the rapid pace of growth of the IT market in this dynamic country – the number of internet users there has grown more than 800% over the last seven years. Since entering the Russian market in 1993, Dell has developed new and unique ways to build our business there. Looking ahead, our expectation is that in five years time, Russia will be our largest country from a share perspective in EMEA.

At Dell, we’re always listening, identifying and responding to customer needs. Meeting with customers in Russia gave me insight into their day-to-day IT challenges including how to balance increasingly demanding IT requirements in a manageable and straightforward way. Our response to this is simplifying IT, making technology more accessible, easy to buy, implement and manage. Our team in Russia has just unveiled Dell’s Simplify IT strategy in St Petersburg. Co-sponsored with our partner Intel, we’re hosting a series of conferences for customers, partners and media in Russia’s largest cities.

Russia represents challenges in terms of meeting our customers’ needs; its vast territory, multiple time zones as well as complexities around mail and distribution networks, means that delivery of products and services can be challenging. As such, we recently expanded our service support infrastructure to reach customers and consumers in 76 cities all over Russia.

Dell has also adopted a unique sales approach in Russia that enables us to reach more customers in a flexible way through partners. Our partnership agreements have grown in sync with the market, with different distributors for consumers, small and medium enterprises and corporate customers. We now have 15 authorized distributors across the country and our partner network is set to grow in line with local demands.

Our retail presence is another exciting growth area for Dell’s business, offering consumers some of the most technologically advanced products available in Russia today. I visited Dell’s Moscow store and it was great to see our Inspiron and Vostro ranges. You can see me and some of the Dell team in the store in the photo below.

All in all, Russia brings Dell the opportunity to set new standards in IT innovation. It’s all about responding to and meeting our unique customer needs here, ensuring an innovative and efficient product and services offer delivered through a range of effective platforms.

Left to right: Konstantin Korviakov – Dell, Jean Jacques Maucuer – Dell, Malozenkova Anastasya – Nexus, Pim Dale, me and Chibisov Vitaly – Nexus.

Note from Lionel: The EMEA Team posted more photos from Russia on the Dell Flickr site.