You can't win any major business in Russia w/o a kickback to right people. IL or China can probably win business over there because of the similar business "culture", but I doubt any major western OEM can sell anything over there.
re: ECI Wins in RussiaI would be careful with blanket statements like that. A simple google search will yield wins in Russia by ALU, Ericsson, Nokia-Siemens etc. So I am not sure if any country in the world meets your criteria of civilized, but winning in Russia boils down to the same as elsewhere: suitable platforms at a reasonable price point.
(but ah yes, Lucent.. that bastian of honesty. It took us 4 years to figure out that the Money attracted executheives like a pile of rot attracting roaches. And then NT, that other bastian of executive morality. It's a shame the Fed. only has muscle to pick on the world class visual/audio club nerds though. The idiots that truly threw the world economy out of wack are untouchable.)
Just a story to prove my statement. My classmate owns a medium size FTTP outfit installing/surving about 1.8 M people in Russia. When I had offered some of our FTTH products to him, he told me that I could not sell anything w/o kickbacks. I asked him how I could get kickbacks to him if they'd come from his money anyway. He told me I should've found a way.
He also told me that there was no deal in Russian Telecom happening w/o a kickback to either business ownwer or government. The bigger the deal the bigger the kick and the higher an official.
Jesus! Your naivety borders with idiotism. Without considering local 'pecularities' sales process is nearly impossible anywhere in the world. 'Pecularities' can take form of kickback in Russia, tax evasion in Brasil or committment to aiding in human right violation in China.
All 'civilized' western companies staff local sales offices with local people, have them sign some pretty paper on highly ethical business conduct practice. After that they twist arms in requiring sales numbers, more and more. And local people find ways to do sales accordingly to local business traditions.
If they get in trouble 'civilized' company issues statement blaming local staff in violating signed agreement on ethical behavior. Obviously promising full cooperation with law enforcement and all.
6 months later new sales person is hard pressed on numbers and cycle starts again. So much for mith of 'civilized' companies.
If you believe in anything else then you are living under a rock.
You can't win any major business in Russia w/o a kickback to right people. IL or China can probably win business over there because of the similar business "culture", but I doubt any major western OEM can sell anything over there.
Have they?