September 26-27, 2008

RIMA trainers’ seminar (Golicyno / Moscow oblast)

Developments in Russian and international marketing are going very quickly, so ‘lifelong learning’ also applies to RIMA trainers. This time, after Samara last year, the RIMA trainers’ yearly seminar was organized in the wonderful surroundings of Golicyno. New marketing developments were approached from different angles. A more quantative approach, aiming at a contribution to better decision making in marketing, was presented by Dr. Alex Dereviagin, who himself runs a young and very successful business in this field, serving well known Russian as well as international corporate clients. Mr. Nico Jansen MBA, senior lecturer at INHolland University and corporate marketing consultant, underlined the impact of experience marketing and made some interesting, sometimes astonishing comparisons between the Russian and Western European market and marketing. Ms. Larisa Balykhina (head of marketing department) and Ms. Anastasia Mihalchenko (marketing director), both RIMA graduates from St. Petersburg, introduced the trainers in the responsibilities and challenges as marketing managers in their companies, dealing with complex decision making such as effectively structuring a marketing department and positioning the company and its products. “It was like a live broadcasting from day to day life as a marketer”, one of the participating teachers remarked.

Coached by Dr. Jan Dekker, during the second training day, the trainers were introduced to a development framework for case studies and then applied this tool by jointly producing a marketing case, fully oriented on the Russian market. On beforehand working groups composed from all different training centers already had collected a lot of relevant information. “It was amazing to see, once we had this really practical framework, how all the information the groups had collected fitted together and we were really developing our own case”, one of the teachers noted. To be able to continue their exchange of experiences RIMA will soon open a trainers’ portal via its website.