Create an Environment for Young Talent with New Business Ideas

The HSE International Institute of Administration and Business held a master-class with Peter Knauer, management advisor for the food manufacturer Mars Inc in Russia. Peter Knauer has more than 20 years experience of working in Central and Eastern Europe and specialises in the chocolate business. He was head of  Cadbury’s in the region and a director for Mars in the CIS. Peter’s presentation was called ‘Innovations in Business: nice to have or must be?’He gave an interview to HSE’s News Service.

— What would you say are the keys to a successful start up? What advice would you give to young graduates fresh out of university?

It’s a difficult question. There are three elements. First, it's intuition —  a deep inner conviction that your idea will be useful, that it’s in demand and will be successful.  Then, it's the capacity to be realistic, even pessimistic, to analyze results, develop and devise worst case scenarios and back-up plans. And finally, it's commitment to implementation and the ability to ‘digest’ set-backs and adapt your idea.

And one piece of advice would be, don’t forget to spread your idea as widely as you can. Tell everyone, particularly potential backers…

— You’ve been working in Russia for a long time now. Are there aspects of the Russian way of doing business that hinder innovation and success?

— There are certain ways of doing business here but I wouldn’t call them typically Russian. It’s more that they are Soviet but you come across them in a lot of countries. Corruption for example. It kills the honest competition that is a main driving force for innovation.

And then there’s the hierarchy, the lack of democracy and elitism in companies. When the principle of closed offices, of ‘I’m the boss and you’re an idiot’ means no one wants to offer their ideas. If people don’t understand the importance of the new, open culture in business there won’t be any successes.

A barrier distinctive to Russian business is the continuing high dependence on a resource-based economy. So long as there are ‘useful’ minerals there’ll be less focus on ‘useful’ innovation. 

— Who do you consider a business leader? Who could inspire Russian businessmen to take some decisive steps towards innovation?

— A good business leader looks ahead, and not three years, but ten or twenty. He understands that the pace of innovational processes, of technological change, is increasing all the time and that what we’re doing today will be out of date the day after tomorrow. He devises new products and new ways to do business.

Who can inspire business in Russia? Well, I’m not sure it needs inspiration. I’ve met a lot of businessmen who support innovation and are very interested in new technology. Look at Kaspersky Lab - they’re leaders in one of the fastest changing markets.

The question I would ask is how can we find, develop, keep or attract the talented, creative young people in Russia to create an environment where their ideas are not wasted but transformed into real products - we need more brains!

— What do you think about working with HSE and how do you see the future of your cooperation?

— Working with young people, especially with universities like HSE is interesting in itself as a direct dialogue with bright youngsters and as a chance to talk about myself and our company, its principles and the development opportunities we can offer them. It’s one of the ways we can attract that young talent I’ve been talking about. We want to help them to make informed choices.

 Innov8 Presentation (PDF, 6.09 Мб)