What role will St. Petersburg play in the global technological progress? How local successes can grow to world-class achievements? The answers to these key questions were searched by the participants of the discussion organized within the Forum "New Economy of Petersburg: Business and the City in the context of technological change."
Global task of the Forum is to identify sectors and segments of the city’s economy, which in the long run of the next two to three decades will be the main points for the Petersburg technological growth - those "seeds" that can grow into a sustainable competitive advantage of the city in new international markets.
Petersburg aspires to become a co-author of the world revolution
On June 1 in the Saint-Petersburg Centre of import substitution and localization (exhibition complex "Lenexpo", pavilion 4) the summer session of the annual forum "Future St. Petersburg", organized by the RBC Petersburg will begin. The first event of the Forum will focus on the participation of St. Petersburg in the global technological revolution. The second day of the forum will be held at the Indigo Hotel, it is dedicated to the topic of the long-term growth of the tourist attractiveness of St. Petersburg.
"Humanity is approaching the stage of the biggest technological changes in its history, when the boundaries between the digital environment, the material world, the intellect and the human body are erased. Communication of RBC journalists with business shows that the current economic crisis, originating in Russia and abroad, does not significantly slow down the highest rate of STP. it is no coincidence that leading entrepreneurs and companies of the city, as shown by the debate at RBC Petersburg in 2016, are interested in technological challenges more than in economic ones", - the head of the project" Future St. Petersburg "Elena Krom explained the relevance of the topic of the first day of the forum.
The task of the Forum is to designate industries and segments of the urban economy, which in the long run during next two to three decades will be the main points for the Petersburg’s technological growth - those "seeds" that can grow into a sustainable competitive advantage of the city in new international markets. Composition of participants and discussion questions - see here…
The topic of the first part of the discussion is "New Economics of St. Petersburg: Business and the City in the context of technological change." The discussion will cover the development of industries in the northern capital, which are usually referred to the "new economy", that is, those areas of activity that are not related to mining and in general ways with rental profit.
Typical representatives of the St. Petersburg of the new economy are: telecommunications companies, pharmaceutical, IT-developers, manufacturers of unmanned aircraft systems, robotics industry, engineering centers - all this business, created in post-Soviet times, makes a bet on entrepreneurship and modern technologies. But one thing is to know about the latest technological trends and use them, and the other one is to be co-authors of the revolution, contributing to the global STP. Does the city have its own achievements made at the international forefront of technological development? And, if so, can the islands of progress become the basis for future economic specialization of the city? To discuss these issues, RBC invited participants of the changes – the managers and specialists of St. Petersburg innovative companies.
An advanced economy cannot develop in legacy urban environment, so the logical continuation of the conversation about the technologically new companies will be a panel discussion "The evolution of urban development: from Leningrad to St. Petersburg of the future." This session of the Forum will be presented in two thematic blocks. In the first one, the main topic will be the change of urban development characteristics in St. Petersburg. What did the post-industrial development bring to the city? Can we say that it has acquired a "human scale", which was generally assumed to be absent in the Soviet era? What will be construction projects look like, which the developers will complete by 2020? Will St. Petersburg be similar to the a US, Asian, European, Soviet or post-Soviet city?
The topic of the second session is "Smart City in Russia and abroad: opportunities, content, timing". It covers the question how the Petersburg will realize in practice the idea of "smart" city, the technological prerequisites for which are addressed in the first part of the Forum. In other words, how St. Petersburg will move from 2016-2020 development to innovative quarters of 2026-2030?
The discussion "Smart City in Russia and abroad" will launch the architectural and developer foresight "Petersburg 2026: a space of utopia and pragmatism". Foresight is a competition for young professionals aimed at identifying the actual problems and ways of territories development, the organization of large-scale discussion of a wide range of leading academics, business and government, as well as to promote innovative solutions with advanced visualization tools. Contestants are seniors and graduates team from leading St. Petersburg universities performing under the guidance of experienced supervisors. "In Russia, the construction and planning regulations do not differ from the rules of the 2nd half of the XX century: the house should have water, electricity and sanitation, and as for the Internet, each person connects for himself. Meanwhile, the development of technology has gone so far that it can no longer be ignored”, - said the head of the architectural and town-planning foresight "Future St. Petersburg" Fyodor Gavrilov. - In the world, this process is already under way - the elements of "smart" cities and entire "smart" cities are already "in the real world." We really want to speed up the process of approximation of the future for St. Petersburg too".
The "Future St. Petersburg" forum is an important part of research and education work, performed by RBC Petersburg (it includes the work of the RBC Petersburg Award Expert Council, Winner projects, etc.). The Forum's mission is to promote the establishment of new efficient and competitive economy of St. Petersburg, which would define the vector of development of the city as a modern metropolis with a high quality of life. The partners of the summer session of the "Future St. Petersburg" forum in 2016 are BIOCAD, Bonava Saint-Petersburg, “Rosstroyinvest" and "Confident" companies.
Cradle of evolution: St. Petersburg found a place in the global "ecosystem"
"Leaders of many companies see a threat not where it really is - they see a threat in the State Tax Inspectorate, etc. Meanwhile, the main threat is the technological gap", - said director general of the biopharmaceutical company BIOCAD Dmitry Morozov, estimating the approach of St. Petersburg companies to risk assessment. This warning is particularly relevant in the context of the large-scale transformations that the world economy is going through.
What role will play St. Petersburg in the global technological progress? How local successes can grow to world-class achievements? The answers to these questions are key to the city looking for the participants organized by RBC media holding discussion "New Economy Petersburg: Business and the City in the context of technological change."
Discussion "The New Economics of St. Petersburg: Business and the City in the context of technological change" was held in the framework of the summer session of the VIII annual forum "Future St. Petersburg".
Starting line
A great research work, which RBC media holding performs for years both within the project RBC Petersburg award, which started in the autumn of 2015, and during the Winner Club meetings, served as basis for the discussion. Speakers at the event were heads of companies engaged in the field of high-tech production – “BIOCAD”, “Rostelecom”, “Nevosoft”, “TPV CIS”, “Lace”, etc. Many of them have become significant players in the global markets.
The overall assessment of the capacity of St. Petersburg on the background of other regions of Russia was given by the chairman of the Municipal Committee for Industrial Policy and Innovations Maxim Meyksin. In his opinion, the North capital has a huge potential for successful participation in the global technological competition. "We have concentrated almost 10% of all Russian science, we have five universities that prepare IT professionals" - recalled an official. "If earlier in the electronics we lagged behind the developed countries for 20 years, now it is only three years’ lag”, - M.Meyksin gave an example. - In some areas, we do not need else to catch up with anyone, we have a unique opportunity to simply step over the line. "
These observations are partially confirmed by the real business practice, an example of which was provided by CEO of TPV CIS (engaged in contract assemble electronics) Blazej Reiss. "Our St. Petersburg plant already has the know-how, which we share with colleagues in the factories of our company in Poland and in China - B. Rayss said. - Within a short time the St. Petersburg plant implemented more solutions than there were implemented throughout the corporation, which employs about 30 thousand people".
Continuing the talk about what specific industries Petersburg has a higher chance of technological leadership in, Maxim Meyksin noted that the main achievements of the city are concentrated in the field of digital technology, robotics and IT. There are also some successes in pharmaceuticals. "These industries will drastically change our lives, they are shaping the future, - said M. Meyksin – And that future is very close - it will come in five to seven years."
The future becomes faster
The thesis of the high rate of technological progress was supported by BIOCAD company CEO D. Morozov. He noted that to realize the accumulated potential, St. Petersburg must learn to maintain the tempo that is determined by the external environment. "The biggest challenge today is that everything is running very quickly, and if we do not run as fast, it will remain far behind, - said the head of BIOCAD. - If earlier it was possible to parasitize on one technological innovation for ten years, now everything becomes obsolete very quickly".
This situation pushes the companies to find solutions to significantly reduce the time of product development and its delivery to the final consumer. A practical example of such a solution was given by the technical director of macro-regional branch of "Rostelecom North-West" Alexei Nikitin. "As long as you create a product that is interesting to customers, the world is changing in such a way that the product is already unclaimed, so the most important condition for competitiveness is high speed-to-market for goods and services", - A. Nikitin said. The answer of "Rostelecom" to this challenge was the development of so-called software-controlled networks that allow to increase the speed of introduction of new services several times. "If earlier it took us a month to bring a new service to customers across the country, the introduction of software-controlled networks will allow it to take a few days".
The hierarchy of priorities
However, the introduction of information technologies in Russia (and St. Petersburg is not the exception) experiences serious interference. This was stated by Vladimir Bykov, commercial director of "Trinity" (a major developer of network equipment, software and data center engineering infrastructure). In his opinion, the main obstacle is the limited demand for them on the part of domestic b2b sector. "We are working for the Russian market, and the main obstacle for the innovation development is that many businesses managers still do not believe that the introduction of IT can be a way to increase profits, - complained Bykov. - But the world is changing so that information technology should become the cornerstone of any business - only then it will move from the category of costs into the income generation category".
In these circumstances, the only way for the development of high-tech solutions is to focus on foreign markets, which dramatically changes the model of competition and the very notion of world leadership. "I just do not understand what a world level is, - Dmitry Morozov said. - Now the information is open, the technology became available. It is important that you are effective scavengers of new technologies - that is, understand what is happening and introduce it at home. This is the way to create a world-class high-tech products".
Supporting the idea of global cooperation in whole, the companies, as it was demonstrated by the debate, have different understandings of this process. "There are no local technologies or a global technology. You cannot single-handedly develop a wonderful product, which the whole world will use. It is necessary to develop, embedding in the global "ecosystem" that develop common standards - it is important to be built in the technological chains",- such opinion was expressed CEO of Lace (developer of telecom equipment for the Internet of things) Igor Shirokov.
Such an approach was strongly disagreeв with by Dmitry Morozov. "The problem is just that the economy of St. Petersburg is not focused on the production of the final product, - said the head of BIOCAD. - Most of our companies are focused on the provision of services in the global production processes. And service – it has, firstly, very different yields, and secondly, by providing services (no matter how well you are doing it) it is difficult to compete with large global players. "
In search of identity
Aspiration for global cooperation in any form does not relief Petersburg from the necessity to search for its own role in the world technological process, which means its own competitive advantages. Expert assessment of what are the ways of achieving this purpose was given by CSR “North-West” foundation Marina Lipetskaya. She named standard (according to the world practice) conditions under which potential apical points turn into large clusters.
"There are three conditions - the availability of financial resources, engineering and technological infrastructure and quality human capital, - M. Lipetskaya said. - Where these factors are present in excess, there is a point companies’ scale in the major sectors. In addition, each country or region works differently with each of these factors".
The general opinion which of these factors specified by M.Lipetskaya Petersburg should be based on for successful integration into the global ecosystem, was expressed by CFO of VeeRoute (the developer of IT solutions for logistics optimization) Igor Kudinov.
"Our main technological advantage - cheap specialists - with the devaluation of the ruble programmer salary, for example, dropped twice, - I. Kudinov explained his point of view. - If earlier we needed $ 3 million for the development of the product, it is now possible to cope with 1.5 million. At the same time there is no gap between the competence of our own programmers and Silicon Valley programmers ".
Methods of external stimulation
However, the cheapness of the staff is simultaneously a threat for in St. Petersburg companies and the St. Petersburg economy, Paul Ryaykkonen commercial director and co-founder Nevosoft, a major developer of computer games, warned. “When a Russian programmer can go to Silicon Valley and get 80, 100 and 120 thousand dollars a year, when his salary in Russia is not comparable to these figures, and the skill level is comparable, it can be assumed that there will be significant personnel potential leak", - P. Ryaykkonen outlined his concerns. However, in his opinion, there is a relatively simple way to compensate for the brain drain out of the city. The main one is to provide infrastructure for a comfortable creation of new IT companies in Petersburg. And this is the main task of the state as the industry regulator, the businessman believes.
The second line of the state action is to encourage export-oriented high-tech companies. "Participation in the global competition encourages businesses to be more efficient," - said the Nevosoft co-founder.
Single option choice
To integrate into the global ecosystem is relatively easy for those companies who are already working in the new economy. However, for the time being there are quite a lot of businesses in St. Petersburg that have not yet become part of a global process and continue to focus on local issues.
As Maxim Meyksin emphasized, summing up the discussion, the choice of development strategy of St. Petersburg towards the knowledge economy is obvious. "We simply have no other way, - summed M.Meyksin. - The average salary in St. Petersburg is such we can return the cost of the staff only through the creation of products with high added value, and this involves the development of high-tech industries in the city".
However, as panelists noted, despite a number of notable successes, it is too early celebrate the final victory of St. Petersburg. "Some points of growth are present, but own Googles and Apples in St. Petersburg have not yet appeared", - said the head of the project "Future St. Petersburg" Elena Krom. For the appearance of specific examples of how local achievements of individual companies grow into sustainable world-class competence centers, businesses and city authorities have to do a great job.