Egoist Generation, December 1, 2003, №.12 (December 2003/January 2004)

On October 29, the Moscow Business Center hosted a meeting of the Russian business elite, well-known politicians and top officials at the core national business award ceremony. For the fifth time, the best Russian companies operating in the manufacturing, financial and service sectors received prizes at the Company of the Year award. The award's organizer is the news agency RBC.

The award ceremony resembled simultaneously a high-society event and a friendly party. Black ties, evening dresses, a white grand piano, dim sounds of jazz music and Champagne on tables... Nominees and impartial members of the expert council were sitting at the same tables and talking. Among the guests of the award ceremony we noticed Anatoly Chubais (the head of the national energy grid RAO UES of Russia), politician Alexander Shokhin, financiers Viktor Gerashchenko and Tatyana Paramonova, presidential aide Sergey Yastrzhembsky, politician Irina Khakamada and other officials. The guests were excited by the courage of Khakamada: she rejects evening dresses and came to the ceremony in a red sweater that would be more appropriate for a party at a country house. Well, this is informal politics, after all. However, this behavior was not the main intrigue of the party. The number of participants in the Company of the Year award is increasing every year reaching about three hundred nominees this time.

The main nominees for 19 nominations were announced on the day of the ceremony and 18 more companies were marked in special nominations according to a decision of the award's organizer. In order to receive this award, a company must adhere to certain rules in its business practices and follow western standards, i.e. its business should be open and its corporate governance standards should be civilized. The expert council takes into account management achievements, estimates the quality of offered products or rendered services and pays attention to financial transparency, market activities and innovative approaches along with potential investment attractiveness. The mission of the award and the expert council, as it is seen by the organizer and the council members, is to single out companies that build a new image of Russian businesses. It is irrelevant if these companies are fuel and energy giants or small firms rendering services to the public. The Company of the Year award is sort of an annual exam that can be passed only by the most successful business teams. According to Tatyana Paramonova, a member of the expert council, "this award does not promote definite companies but methods of running business. Sergey Yastrzhembsky noted that this award had become extremely topical and useful under the present market situation. He believes it may help companies get their breath and recover. Experts faced a lot of work before choosing the best companies. First, the organization committee conducted questioning among members of the expert council and they named the most outstanding companies for the previous year. At the next stage, a short list of nominees was determined by voting (there were three nominees left within each nomination). Finally, at the third stage, experts chose the winners. The companies that received the largest number of votes at this stage received Company of the Year prizes. Winners were named in about thirty nominations, and the list of nominations is reviewed every year. It would not do to have the same nominations year after year: for instance, if an industry is in recession, why choose the best among the worst? This year, companies working in the service sector accounted for about a half of 37 nominations. "I will not be surprised if there is more money circulating in the services sector than in the oil and gas industry, " Andrey Nechayev, the president of the Russian Financial Corporation, made a bold forecast. The Company of the Year is a unique tool revealing achievements of companies over the past year and not over their whole history. The most outstanding and dynamic market players are marked by this award that testifies to successful strategies of companies that benefited from the advantages of the existing economic situation and have foreseen major market trends.

MANUFACTURING

RAO UES of Russia (Fuel and energy complex)

United Heavy Machinery (Machine building)

Mechel (Chelyabinsk Metal Works) (Metal industry)

Wimm-Bill-Dann Foods (Food industry)

Arkhangelsk pulp-and-paper plant (Timber industry), and

Razgulyay-UKRROS (Agroindustrial complex)

FINANCE

Bank of Moscow (Bank of the year)

Rossiya insurance company (Insurance company of the year)

PIOGLOBAL Asset Management (Investment company of the year)

SERVICES

Ernst & Young (Business services)

Perekriostok trading house (Public consumer services)

Techmarket (Retail trade)

ZAO TransTeleKom (Telecommunications)

Dixis (Distribution and trade)

Sbarro (Franchising)

Ramstore (Trade network)

Novorossiysk Seaport (Transport and logistics)

Natalie Tours (Tourism)

1C (Information technologies)

SPECIAL CATEGORIES

First Real Estate Investment Fund (Discovery of the year)

Yarpivo (Business reputation)

Prodimeks (For contribution to revival of industry)

FosterGroup (Most dynamically developing company)

Zenit bank (Customer-oriented company)

Perekriostok trading house (For corporate management)

Stolichnaya insurance company (For potential and outlooks)

Norilsk Nickel (For efficient merger and acquisition policy)

MAIR industrial group (For investment attractiveness of companies within a group)

Brunswick UBS (For attracting foreign investments in Russia)

Equant (For high quality of services)

RosBank (For efficient social policy)

Komus (For best marketing)

CSKA (For best management)

RightON group (For promoting the mission of corporate rights advocates)

S.P.I. Group (For successful business strategy)

Sistema Hals (For contribution to city building)

East Line (For the creation and upgrading of a transportation junction that meets international standards).