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Tensar International‘s Commercial Director, John Kiely, is accompanying Prime Minister David Cameron as part of the high-level UKTI visit to Russia on the 12-13 September 2011.
With more than a decade of successful trading with the civil engineering sector in Russia, the opportunities and challenges Tensar has encountered have reinforced our commitment to our presence there, and the invitation to join the initiative is a very welcome recognition of our success.
There are enormous opportunities in Russia’s developing infrastructure over the next few years. The attraction to Tensar is that much of this infrastructure will be over poor ground which needs extensive stabilisation to carry the loads imposed by the traffic and construction. Leading-edge expertise, product systems and design solutions for these requirements have been developed by Tensar and used round the world for over 30 years.
The results over the last four years have repaid the commitment and acceptance of cautious progress Tensar has made since its first entry to the Russian market. Steady sales growth has been achieved since 2007 as a result of involvement with prestige projects such as the Sochi Winter Olympics for 2014, with high-level clients and with influential engineering design institutes.
Tensar faces continuing challenges in doing business in Russia, such as acceptance of EU design methods for civil engineering structures, intellectual property issues and passing off, certification demands by large clients, local producer bias and negotiation tactics. Key to overcoming these has been developing an excellent working relationship with local partners Grand Massar; without the right partners, business is much more difficult.
Also essential has been a long term local presence. From an office of one person in the 1990s, Tensar has expanded to nine people, with bases in Moscow and St Petersburg. Additional to this, Tensar’s dedicated UK-based team makes several visits a year, both to the offices and in the field.
Without the support of UKTI and its trade initiatives, including the support offered through the British Embassy in Moscow, our progress would have been very much more difficult.
For more information on Tensar ground stabilisation solutions, please visit www.tensar.co.uk.
