How an international company to open an office in Russia
At the end of 2014, we opened a UC Browser representative office in Russia. At the moment, some of our colleagues are already working in the Moscow office. We share in detail the whole process, as we went to this. The Russian office became the fourth division of the company outside of China - before that offices were opened in India, Vietnam and Indonesia, and the company develops markets in Arab and Spanish-speaking countries, as well as in Brazil.
How did it all start? In 2011, we began to support the main browser menu in Java and Symbian for Russian-speaking users, at this point there were 250 million Russian-speaking people around the world. After some time, we realized that the response to the Russian version was good enough, and the user base was growing rapidly. This period coincided with the growth of mobile Internet in Russia. We concluded that we need to focus on the Russian market and have begun preparations.
The first thing that was needed to continue the development was human resources. There were no problems in the Chinese colleagues; we needed Russian-speaking specialists with an understanding of the local market. The recruitment team began work, and in mid-2012 we had the first guys at the main office in Guangzhou, who came from Russia and Ukraine. Then one person was engaged in product development, one - by attracting partners and one colleague - marketing.
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In September 2012, by common efforts, they released the first version of UC Browser on Android with Russian support and an adapted browser menu with links to Russian sites. That is, we localized the content in the browser menu and carefully monitored the correctness of the translation of all sections, categories and functions of the browser. When translating it was necessary to take into account many important points. For example, in the Chinese system of hieroglyphs there are no hyphenation from line to line, but in our language it is. To solve the problem of translation from Chinese and take into account all the features of the mighty Russian language, we hired a translator from Russia with a linguistic education for permanent work. Translation of all materials was carried out in this way: from Chinese to English it was done by a Chinese translator colleague for all countries, and then our colleague from English into Russian. In order to maximally adapt content to the Russian audience, we started monitoring popular online resources, putting top sites instead of Chinese, of course. And the search string was replaced with Russian Yandex. In addition to adapting the browser's main page, we gradually localized the browser's chips — for example, smart downloading of files or video content became the most popular among Russian users.
By the end of 2012, we began to exchange traffic with partners on wap sites. The first banner advertising began also at the end of 2012. According to our Chinese colleagues who stood at the origins, there was not much difference in marketing on the Chinese and Russian markets, so they used the accumulated Chinese experience and technology already on the Russian market. All the same ads on wap sites at the beginning, ads on mobile sites, Google Play and the App Store. The only difference was that Google Play dominated Russia over all other online stores with apps, and in China a huge number of different small online stores dominated.
The cooperation of Russian-speaking and Chinese colleagues was carried out fairly quickly, since everyone was located in the head office of the company in Guangzhou. In many ways, it accelerated the work on the tasks, it was possible to solve incoming questions on the fact and quickly, as well as to develop plans together and translate the conceived into reality. While we were not thinking about moving the team to Russia, it was important to learn how to work together and get the business to the right indicators.
UCWeb began to develop several international markets at once, so there were foreign colleagues from Spain, Colombia, Brazil, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Morocco in the head office. It was great to share the practices used, to see what works in marketing and in the direction of product development, how users in different countries behave, what they like.
Periodically, starting in 2013, Chinese and Russian-speaking colleagues began to travel to Russia to industry conferences, for example, the RIF. From this point on, the first meetings with important partners in Russia, with which we exchanged traffic, went.
At the same time, we began to organize meetings with users in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in order to hear feedback on our product, this gave us a lot to understand our audience. It was important for us to focus more on the product than on the promo, in order to make it quality for the Russian user. Building a brand for us was secondary.
Since the second half of 2013, we have again expanded the team, adding to its staff Russian-speaking guys in technical support and product development team. And we had a great team of freelance testers, among whom were just our loyal users. We are very grateful to them, because for several years they have just been helping us with their releases and product improvements on the Russian market. The team also grew at the expense of the Chinese guys, who gradually joined us to speed up the process of communication with other departments of the company. So, a Russian-speaking colleague and a Chinese colleague worked together in business development, this allowed us to build a good understanding and interaction between people with different mentalities. When you encounter the same challenges every day, you learn to combine your different approaches to solving a problem, sharing experience and deriving from this the overall benefit for the result.
In 2013, we took a number of actions in marketing and communications to bring more information about our brand. We began to actively develop accounts on social networks, this also served as a good source to receive feedback from users and to be in touch with them every day. With each new version of the browser, we published releases with new chips on the news technical sites.
By the spring of 2014, the active user base consisted of 1 million people. Therefore, in April 2014, it was decided to expand the staff, hire more Russian specialists with an understanding of the market and send the business part of the team to Moscow for faster communication with partners. In October, Pavel Simonov was chosen as the head of the Russian division, after which part of the business development team moved from Guangzhou to Moscow. The product team and marketing are still at the head office for faster cooperation with the global team.
At a place in Moscow, some of the colleagues were engaged in arranging the working space, looking for a place to work. This was also an interesting process. We chose the most convenient option for us - an all-inclusive office. We rented a room in a business center with an existing secretary, system administrator, Internet, conversations and convenient location. This is a great option for an international company that has just entered the country. It took only 3 weeks to view the premises and coordinate the details. The only thing that we have not foreseen is an Internet connection with other countries. Moscow colleagues need constant communication with the office in Guangzhou, ideally - this is to test the Internet for several days before signing a lease agreement. Sometimes the internet connection between China and Moscow is junk.
One of the main challenges was the time difference. Between Guangzhou and Moscow 5 hours, in the Chinese office, we start the day earlier and end earlier, so for all general calls and online meetings we have chosen a convenient time for all of us. And, for example, a day in China is built like this: in the morning, all internal affairs, and after dinner, when Moscow wakes up, all issues that require common interaction are resolved. Well, several times a year, colleagues travel from Guangzhou to Moscow, and from Moscow - back to their Chinese colleagues to resolve important issues on the spot.
Now part of the team is working on the issue of protecting the storage of personal data. Since there is some uncertainty on the part of the law, we are trying to work closely with government agencies as an international IT company.
A little more than 2 years passed from the beginning of the launch of the first version of UC Browser in Russian until the opening of the office. Now the team consists of 13 people, among us there are colleagues involved in product development, marketing and communications, working with partners. And, of course, we have a great resource and support in the head office in the form of Chinese colleagues who work in several international markets at once. And we also have several freelancers - these are designers, testers and other technical specialists. Previously, we always used a corporate resource in terms of design, for example, but now I mix, because the volume of materials has grown and more often it is more logical to do tasks with Russian specialists. At the moment we still have open vacancies, we continue to expand the team. While we abandoned the recruitment agencies to find new employees, LinkedIn was the most effective and simplest tool. It is through her that we now receive a large number of responses from high-quality candidates for our open vacancies. There were many good specialists on the market during the crisis.
Our plans in Russia for the near future are to penetrate deeper into the market and make the product even more convenient and useful for our users. Mobile Internet in Russia and Russian-speaking countries continues to evolve, and this is a good opportunity for international business in the online industry to announce their product. The Russian market is a huge and interesting mechanism, which means that there is still a lot of exciting things ahead of us.
How did it all start? In 2011, we began to support the main browser menu in Java and Symbian for Russian-speaking users, at this point there were 250 million Russian-speaking people around the world. After some time, we realized that the response to the Russian version was good enough, and the user base was growing rapidly. This period coincided with the growth of mobile Internet in Russia. We concluded that we need to focus on the Russian market and have begun preparations.
The first thing that was needed to continue the development was human resources. There were no problems in the Chinese colleagues; we needed Russian-speaking specialists with an understanding of the local market. The recruitment team began work, and in mid-2012 we had the first guys at the main office in Guangzhou, who came from Russia and Ukraine. Then one person was engaged in product development, one - by attracting partners and one colleague - marketing.
')
In September 2012, by common efforts, they released the first version of UC Browser on Android with Russian support and an adapted browser menu with links to Russian sites. That is, we localized the content in the browser menu and carefully monitored the correctness of the translation of all sections, categories and functions of the browser. When translating it was necessary to take into account many important points. For example, in the Chinese system of hieroglyphs there are no hyphenation from line to line, but in our language it is. To solve the problem of translation from Chinese and take into account all the features of the mighty Russian language, we hired a translator from Russia with a linguistic education for permanent work. Translation of all materials was carried out in this way: from Chinese to English it was done by a Chinese translator colleague for all countries, and then our colleague from English into Russian. In order to maximally adapt content to the Russian audience, we started monitoring popular online resources, putting top sites instead of Chinese, of course. And the search string was replaced with Russian Yandex. In addition to adapting the browser's main page, we gradually localized the browser's chips — for example, smart downloading of files or video content became the most popular among Russian users.
By the end of 2012, we began to exchange traffic with partners on wap sites. The first banner advertising began also at the end of 2012. According to our Chinese colleagues who stood at the origins, there was not much difference in marketing on the Chinese and Russian markets, so they used the accumulated Chinese experience and technology already on the Russian market. All the same ads on wap sites at the beginning, ads on mobile sites, Google Play and the App Store. The only difference was that Google Play dominated Russia over all other online stores with apps, and in China a huge number of different small online stores dominated.
The cooperation of Russian-speaking and Chinese colleagues was carried out fairly quickly, since everyone was located in the head office of the company in Guangzhou. In many ways, it accelerated the work on the tasks, it was possible to solve incoming questions on the fact and quickly, as well as to develop plans together and translate the conceived into reality. While we were not thinking about moving the team to Russia, it was important to learn how to work together and get the business to the right indicators.
UCWeb began to develop several international markets at once, so there were foreign colleagues from Spain, Colombia, Brazil, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Morocco in the head office. It was great to share the practices used, to see what works in marketing and in the direction of product development, how users in different countries behave, what they like.
Periodically, starting in 2013, Chinese and Russian-speaking colleagues began to travel to Russia to industry conferences, for example, the RIF. From this point on, the first meetings with important partners in Russia, with which we exchanged traffic, went.
At the same time, we began to organize meetings with users in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in order to hear feedback on our product, this gave us a lot to understand our audience. It was important for us to focus more on the product than on the promo, in order to make it quality for the Russian user. Building a brand for us was secondary.
Since the second half of 2013, we have again expanded the team, adding to its staff Russian-speaking guys in technical support and product development team. And we had a great team of freelance testers, among whom were just our loyal users. We are very grateful to them, because for several years they have just been helping us with their releases and product improvements on the Russian market. The team also grew at the expense of the Chinese guys, who gradually joined us to speed up the process of communication with other departments of the company. So, a Russian-speaking colleague and a Chinese colleague worked together in business development, this allowed us to build a good understanding and interaction between people with different mentalities. When you encounter the same challenges every day, you learn to combine your different approaches to solving a problem, sharing experience and deriving from this the overall benefit for the result.
In 2013, we took a number of actions in marketing and communications to bring more information about our brand. We began to actively develop accounts on social networks, this also served as a good source to receive feedback from users and to be in touch with them every day. With each new version of the browser, we published releases with new chips on the news technical sites.
By the spring of 2014, the active user base consisted of 1 million people. Therefore, in April 2014, it was decided to expand the staff, hire more Russian specialists with an understanding of the market and send the business part of the team to Moscow for faster communication with partners. In October, Pavel Simonov was chosen as the head of the Russian division, after which part of the business development team moved from Guangzhou to Moscow. The product team and marketing are still at the head office for faster cooperation with the global team.
At a place in Moscow, some of the colleagues were engaged in arranging the working space, looking for a place to work. This was also an interesting process. We chose the most convenient option for us - an all-inclusive office. We rented a room in a business center with an existing secretary, system administrator, Internet, conversations and convenient location. This is a great option for an international company that has just entered the country. It took only 3 weeks to view the premises and coordinate the details. The only thing that we have not foreseen is an Internet connection with other countries. Moscow colleagues need constant communication with the office in Guangzhou, ideally - this is to test the Internet for several days before signing a lease agreement. Sometimes the internet connection between China and Moscow is junk.
One of the main challenges was the time difference. Between Guangzhou and Moscow 5 hours, in the Chinese office, we start the day earlier and end earlier, so for all general calls and online meetings we have chosen a convenient time for all of us. And, for example, a day in China is built like this: in the morning, all internal affairs, and after dinner, when Moscow wakes up, all issues that require common interaction are resolved. Well, several times a year, colleagues travel from Guangzhou to Moscow, and from Moscow - back to their Chinese colleagues to resolve important issues on the spot.
Now part of the team is working on the issue of protecting the storage of personal data. Since there is some uncertainty on the part of the law, we are trying to work closely with government agencies as an international IT company.
A little more than 2 years passed from the beginning of the launch of the first version of UC Browser in Russian until the opening of the office. Now the team consists of 13 people, among us there are colleagues involved in product development, marketing and communications, working with partners. And, of course, we have a great resource and support in the head office in the form of Chinese colleagues who work in several international markets at once. And we also have several freelancers - these are designers, testers and other technical specialists. Previously, we always used a corporate resource in terms of design, for example, but now I mix, because the volume of materials has grown and more often it is more logical to do tasks with Russian specialists. At the moment we still have open vacancies, we continue to expand the team. While we abandoned the recruitment agencies to find new employees, LinkedIn was the most effective and simplest tool. It is through her that we now receive a large number of responses from high-quality candidates for our open vacancies. There were many good specialists on the market during the crisis.
Our plans in Russia for the near future are to penetrate deeper into the market and make the product even more convenient and useful for our users. Mobile Internet in Russia and Russian-speaking countries continues to evolve, and this is a good opportunity for international business in the online industry to announce their product. The Russian market is a huge and interesting mechanism, which means that there is still a lot of exciting things ahead of us.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/377391/
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