At the beginning of February, Kazakhstan hosted the international digital forum “Digital Almaty 2023: Digital partnership in the new
Russia is open to such cooperationwith partners, primarily in the EAEU, and with other friendly states. And we have something to offer. For the majority of foreign software—already about 85%—there are Russian analogues.
Mikhail Mishustin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation at the Digital Almaty 2023: Digital Partnership in the New Reality forum
To understand how this statement corresponds to reality, Hi-Tech talked with industry representatives.
"It's all about the brand"
So, Evgeniy Nepeyvoda, managing partnerSoftware development company Novo BI believes that in Russia there has long been a large selection of high-quality and effective IT solutions for business, despite the fact that the issue of using domestic software became acute only last year. At the same time, they developed over five to ten years, but “our business preferred to work with large international vendors, since they had a strong brand and marketing behind them,” the expert believes. Until the spring of 2022 and the mass departure of vendors, foreign IT solutions for optimizing business processes occupied up to 60% of the market in Russia, he noted.
Maxim Kutuzov, commercial director of the platformSphere, Group T1, believes that by the time foreign IT companies left the Russian market, many domestic players already had systems of a high degree of maturity. It is important that they were effective not only for small and medium-sized businesses, but also for the enterprise level. “Now we have the opportunity to implement and improve them when receiving feedback from clients,” explains the expert.
Are there ready-made solutions?
As an example, Evgeniy Nepeyvodaleads the logistics sector. Thus, public and private companies mostly relied on foreign software, although Russian developments in the field of software for demand planning and supply chain optimization appeared quite a long time ago. “They are already superior to their Western counterparts in terms of forecast accuracy, implementation time and financial accessibility,” explains the expert. Another advantage of Russian software, in his opinion, is the possibility of customization and taking into account the wishes of the customer. This is much easier to do with your own product. With foreign countries everything is much longer, more complicated and there are no guarantees.
Marat Zalotdinov, technical director of IMBAIT told Hi-Tech that there are indeed analogues on the Russian market, but “the set of functions that users, businesses and clients use needs to be improved.” As for the IT infrastructure, there are already operating systems on the market such as Astra, RedOS, BaseAlt and office packages “My Office”, “P7” Office” and “AlterOffice”. At the same time, client systems cover 80% of the functional needs, the expert shared with Hi-Tech.
Maxim Kutuzov also agrees with him:“For almost every product of a Western vendor in Russia, there are analogues or are already being developed,” he explains. Increased demand stimulated supply. Moreover, the creation of domestic software products in a number of cases began before 2022, and the driver for this was the need for localization for the Russian market, taking into account the specifics of processes and legislation. Many legacy systems are mostly clumsy.
Already during the pandemic it became obvious thatWe need lighter, more flexible and highly scalable solutions that can adapt to the situation in a matter of days, not months.
Maxim Kutuzov, Commercial Director of the Sphere platform, T1 Group
For example, 1C perfectly replaces world systemsERP class. The market for HRM systems is developing rapidly. If we talk about the CRM systems market, it has been formed mainly by Russian vendors for more than 10 years. In addition, innovative platforms are emerging in the IT4IT class, facilitating the development of new software, says Maxim Kutuzov. In particular, he refers to the Sphere platform created by T1 Group, which replaces the products of most vendors that have left Russia, such as Atlassian, Microfocus, IBM and others.
What's the difficulty?
Despite this, move quicklyThe use of domestic software is not so easy for Russian business. For example, due to the fragmentation of highly specialized IT tools. “Russian solutions for supply chain planning, for example, cover all business needs, there is no open functionality, but some of the products in each block fall on separate specialized solutions, and not on a single digital ecosystem,” - explains Evgeniy Nepeyvoda. This can be difficult for businesses and users.
Already this year we will see growthnumber of mergers and acquisitions of small IT companies. Russia has all the necessary competencies that make it possible to create unified platforms.
Evgeniy Nepeyvoda, managing partner of the software development company Novo BI
In addition, the transition to Russian software complicateslack of structured relevant information about solutions that can replace familiar products. For example, currently there is only one resource for finding up-to-date information about Russian IT solutions - the Russoft marketplace, launched with the support of the Ministry of Digital Development, the expert concludes.
Marat Zalotdinov noted thatIt is still quite difficult to find an alternative in specialized software products for business. Such systems include: a set of SAP solutions, Autodesk design systems, and so on. “However, our developers do not stand still and are developing in different directions. For example, you can replace some SAP products with 1C and Foresight products,” the expert emphasizes.
Another serious problem in the Russian market,which the expert noted was the mutual integration of Russian Federation products among themselves. That is, if previously all developers by default made products compatible with Windows, Microsoft Office and Vmware virtualization, now the situation is different. To bring your product to market, you need to work out integration with many vendors.
Maxim Kutuzov, in turn, notescertain difficulties with the rapid import substitution of niche systems, in particular, solutions for the design or management of ships and aircraft. However, such solutions are currently being actively developed by a number of vendors and will appear on the Russian market in the medium term, the expert emphasizes.
What's the bottom line?
Experts agree on one thing, yes in the Russian Federationa market has already formed, which can replace about 80-85% of IT systems, but there are growth points: development of functionality, compatibility of products from different vendors, development of specialized software and business applications for customer needs.
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