Luc Jones, Partner in charge of Antal Russia’s IT/Telecoms recruitment practice
When a downturn hits the global markets, one of the first areas to fall victim to the slump is information technology. Russia is no exception to the rule although whilst the banking, finance, real estate and construction markets collapsed in early autumn, many in the IT industry believed themselves to be immune as life continued as normal; at least until the end of 2008.
However the extended New Year provided a serious reality check, with budgets frozen for all but the most essential projects. Faced with sharply reduced projected revenue streams in both hardware and software, as well as the related add-on services, technology vendors were quickly instructed by their HQs to put hiring freezes into place, followed by redundancies in areas which were not considered to be core business.
This in turn led to local systems integrators laying off staff, especially in what they considered to be the ‘nice to have’ parts of their business and concentrated on what would bring them business in the very short term. First to go was often the ‘Director of Strategy’ as companies moved away from long-term thinking to how to pay salaries and survive the next quarter!
As 2009 wore on with the worldwide market outlook appearing increasing bleak, some firms made the decision that they could either sit around and wait (or read ‘hope’) for better times to appear around the corner, or they could go out and fight for the business that was there, which was primarily in the government sector. Yet to employees aged under 30 who had only ever witnessed the good times in their careers, it seemed as though the world had come to an end; those who survived the 1998 crisis realized that business hadn’t stopped overnight (as it had done just a decade before) but it meant working harder for less reward – although that would at least ensure survival.
Employers also began to use the recession as an opportunity to replace what turned out to be average hires, with what would hopefully turn out to be stronger staff. Contrary to popular belief the market was not suddenly awash with thousands of star candidates ready to work for a pittance; in fact here at Antal we found it became much harder to persuade people to change their job and leave the security of familiar surroundings. The market began to witness a number of changes at the senior level in foreign hi-tech firms as regional directors felt that new blood was needed to jump-start their Russian operations, and we are still seeing such changes today.
But more importantly confidence is finally returning to the industry, with senior decision-makers correctly forecasting that money spent wisely on IT generally translates into an increase in ROI. The old expression that ‘one needs to spend money to make money’ is what we are currently witnessing, no doubt helped by a rise in the price of natural resources, Russia’s key export. And this in turn has led to firms realizing that they need the strongest professionals on board to drive their businesses until we return to better times. If there were people who still believed that customers would queue up to by the best technology, they have almost certainly now disappeared!
