Sure enough RosBusinessConsulting ranges with them. Yuri Rovensky, the General Director of RBC Information Systems, told a Deloviye Lyudi (DL) reporter about the history and present of a company that has become the main Russian business information resource.

"DL": Yuri Alexandrovich, 10 years have passed since the agency was established. How did it begin?

- The company was established in 1993. Everything began in a pretty meager way: 4 people, a room with a total area of 18 square meters and an old offset copier.

As it often happens the idea appeared out of nowhere. Alexander Morgulchik - a good friend of mine and with whom I studied at Plekhanov Institute - was in training in the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. There he saw huge amounts of information bank services consumed, first of all from Bloomberg and Reuters agencies. At the same time bankers themselves had serious information data stores that just nobody could deliver to customers.

Alexander turned on the heat: let's create Russian Bloomberg. The proposal did not stir up enthusiasm among anyone but they did not prevent him from starting. The attitude was the following: if he wants to try, let him try. There were no information businesses in Russia at that time and the idea of making money on information seemed to be fantastic. However, already in 1994 the number of RBC subscribers amounted to several thousands. Among them there were banks, financial organizations and consulting companies. Information containing primarily currency exchange, securities, state treasury bills (GKO), federal loan bonds (OFZ) data was disseminated in the form of fat printed bulletins.

"DL": For many years RBC's image has been inseparably associated with the Internet. When did the agency's integration with the World Wide Web occur?

- It did not happen all at once. It is necessary to remember that in 1993 the Russian Internet was non-existent. Still, a good combination of RBC's main founders played a positive role. There were not only economic but also technical graduates among them. Probably that is why in 1995 RBC was the first Russian information agency to appear on the Internet. It was very timely in terms of starting the "Internetalization" boom. But the main thing was that a new volume of information and exacting requirements for its operational efficiency did not fall into the old pattern. Couriers who were distributing printed bulletins among numerous offices ceased to fit the requirements of time. With its appearance on the Internet, RBC started providing its clients not with yesterday's news, not even with morning news, but the agency started working in real time.

Another pivotal stage of our Internet history was August 1998. The country was shocked not only at the occurring events but at the information vacuum as well. Particularly at that time we decided to make all our information available to everyone. At that time there had been no such concept as public and free-of-charge information on the Russian Internet. All first-time RBC.ru visitors were suggested to subscribe, receive a password and only after that go further as well.

In 1998, in the thick of the crisis, we opened all our information to the public. It became free for everyone. That was a serious step. We were broadcasting not only official persons' opinions but also those of representatives of various financial structures. The market appreciated it, and value and brand recognition increased sufficiently. We noticeably grew in terms of citation and reporters database development.

"DL": While speaking about RBC history you use pronoun "We" pretty often. Does it mean that you have been cooperating with the agency since its establishment? Or do you already identify yourself with the company to that extent?

- Well, certainly I was in some way or other connected with the company at that time. I studied together with one of the founders and I was on visiting terms with him. But formally I have worked in RBC since 2000. That was the moment when company's shareholders decided to parlay into a new development strategy. Before that RBC had been growing in an absolutely organic manner, reinvesting the earnings into its own development.

In the year 2000 there appeared a sharp sense of occasion that the company should develop in a qualitatively different basis. The shareholders gave thought to the necessity for serious investments. To prepare the further growth, to approach a new level - that was the task assigned to me and several other managers who joined RBC.

Properly speaking, in the year 2000 RBC's new history began: company's structure, apparent manpower strengthening, overcoming many established stereotypes. For instance, there used to be a firm association: RBC is the Internet. Whereas for us the Internet is a mere transport, a delivery means. Actually, RBC is a sort of factory for producing, gathering and processing information. This is its primary mission.

Additionally, by that time another line of our activity had grown and shaped - software development. Later on it became a separate corporate body: RBC Soft. In a word, we were facing the task of brand repositioning.

"DL": Why were IT technologies in particular chosen as one more strategic line of the company's activities?

- Having come to the Internet in the mid-nineties, we came across a large variety of technical tasks. It was necessary to develop the portal and to improve its navigation. At that time there were no companies whom we could have hired to do this job. Therefore we had to create such a department within RBC.

At the end of nineties we understood the following: what we are doing for ourselves has market demand. Moreover, the company's executives understood out that they had the only highly professional team that could not just work with the Internet, but perfectly orientated itself in the peculiarities and needs of business clients.

We started from Internet sites development, gradually became able to carry out more complicated projects: complex integrated systems development. Suffice it to say that today RBC Soft turnovers are equal those of the holding's media group.

Our IT activity has managed to build up a pretty imposing portfolio. We created information systems for Moscow GUM (state department store), The Bolshoi Theater, Lenin's library. The Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, the Railroad Ministry and the Atomic Energy Ministry are among our clients. Also, in these latter days we have been realizing very serious expansion to the markets of the USA and Europe. Nowadays the share of foreign projects in RBC Soft's turnover is approximately 20 percent.

"DL": How did you manage to solve the investment problem?

- We came to the conclusion that the company's coming to the stock market (not strategic partnership) is more promising. There were a lot of arguments in favor of this decision, and the main was information policy independence.

It is well-know that in Russia a mass media source is often regarded as an information club in the hand of another business and is not really an independent business. We positively did not want such a fate to be ours and decided to turn our regard on the open money market.

We spent more than a year in preparation. We totally restructured the company, opened capital and shareholding structures. Finally in April 2002 we effected a deal for placing 16 percent of RBC shares simultaneously on two exchanges: the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange and the Russian Trading System. That allowed us to get more than $13m channeled to further business development.

"DL" RosBusinessConsulting started as an information agency. What does the company do now?

- It is an information holding, fairly big for Russia. Its structure is the following: there is the main, parent company called RBC Information Systems. It owns all the rest of the companies the holding consists of: RIA RBC, RBC Soft, RBC TV, the publishing house and RosBusinessConsulting.

If we are talking about the main activities of our company, there are still two of them: media and IT.

"DL": What management principles do you follow? What is RBC management based on?

- Our root principle is wide authority delegation. Despite a vertical holding structure, each division can make decisions on its own initiative, of course within the limits of certain strategic lines of the company. One more RBC peculiarity is that we are very serious about labor motivation. This is very important. The company is not developing at the cost of raw material resources or fixed assets. Our main potential is people's creativity. All our businesses depend on how productively an employee works. That is why we have various bonus pools in addition to fixed salaries. Also, we have a system of options not common for Russian businesses when employees receive a share of the profit from the company they work for.

When I joined the company in the year 2000 approximately 300 people worked here. Now - 1400 people. This is another distinctive feature that leaves a mark on company's management. When a company is flooded with such a number of new people, there appears the problem of corporate culture washout. Each business-structure experiencing the period of vigorous growth faces such problems. That is why we have recently started to pay special attention to such issues as personnel development, creating an atmosphere of a united team.

"DL": Last year you started a new project: RBC TV. Why did you chose television as the next step in the company's development?

- We knew that RBC was a fully formed reputable brand on the market of business information. Sure we could have developed the previous formats; we could have been trying to achieve 100 percent audience recognition (instead of present 96 percent). But this is donkey work: the effort is tremendous and any brand recognition increase would be very modest. We considered the possibility of creating our own radio station and printed media. What made us stop and think was that all this had already been done on the market. The point here was out of fear of competition; it was in the awareness of the market's need. I am sure that tasks should be ambitious. The more ambitions, the more drive, the better results it is possible to achieve. That is how the idea of business television emerged.

I am not going to conceal the fact that there were a lot of skeptics. Even people who wished us well were saying: "Guys you are playing the Russian roulette, the market is not ready, it's not worth running the risk. You will break you neck. Already now they admit: "RBC is again a success".

"DL": How much time did it take you to implement this idea?

- All in all it took us nine months. It is a very symbolic figure. This period encompassed everything: renovation of the premises, purchase and installation of the equipment, creation of the distribution channels, obtaining licenses, personnel hiring and training.

We managed to invite highly professional specialists from the TV community. Their experience has proven to be very useful to us. But we have not copied already existing channels automatically. We have created a brand new channel. For the many cameramen and anchors who have joined us that was a real stereotype destruction. For instance, for any channel, the "picture" and lots of stories are of great importance. We are not that interested in them. Our main focus is on information. People (including RBC TV) are not waiting for entertainment. They need compressed-as-much-as-possible information, without any lyrical insertions, without any empty talk. These are some kind of blocks from which our audience builds up its point of view.

"DL": How do you evaluate channel's initial results?

Today we can be sure that the RBC-TV television project is a success. This is not just our opinion but also professional and market evaluation.

Our channel is a brand new one. It is all in all directed to a certain audience whose interests we know very well. In Moscow our channel is broadcast via satellite and cable TV: Cosmos TV, NTV Plus, Divo TV, Comcor. In addition to Moscow, RBC TV's broadcasting zone covers St. Petersburg and a range of big cities with a population of over one million people. Along with it we broadcast via the Internet, by which we are watched in the USA, Israel and Europe.

RBC TV is on the air 18 hours a day. Daytime programs are repeated at night. We work completely in digital format. This allows us to present a TV "picture" of high quality and to create the network of remote television cameras intended for live broadcasts. We installed them in the offices of those organizations and companies that are highly reliable newsmakers. Their specialists and analytics are given a chance to go on the air directly from their workplaces. There are approximately 30 cameras of this kind. This is a conceptual part of our policies. We are not trying to monopolize the air. It is just vice versa; our aim is to create an open site where a whole palette of opinions will be presented.

"DL": How do you see the future development trends of the holding?

- As far as our strategic mission is concerned it looks as follows: it took RBC ten years to go from a small company into medium sized one. Over the next five years we are planning to become a large company with millions of dollars in turnover.

Our plans are in many ways connected with approaching CIS markets. We think it is necessary to develop within a business information broadcast format in the territory of former Soviet republics, primarily in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan. In the long term we do not rule out the possibility of creating the global Russian-language business broadcasting service. But so far this is just dreams and plans.

The very concept of RBC will remain the same. It will be business news broadcasting service for and about Russian businesses. We are not trying to do more than we can and consider it to be our competitive advantage.

Alexey Bukin