Cucumber grower Kees Kranenburg left for Russia last January. Friskom, a union for producers of cucumbers, asked him to go and set up a modern cucumber company. Nine months later, Kranenburg is glad he took the offer.
“What really struck me was the amount of open space,” he says. “Russia is the biggest country in the world, and you can feel it.” Kranenburg serves mostly as an advisor. He is in contact with Holland almost every day, through email or Skype. Once every six weeks he heads back to visit family.
The main difference, he thinks, in doing business in Russia, is the firm demarcation of responsibility. “In Holland, responsibilities tend to overlap,” he says, “but in Russia there is a strict distinction. Everybody has his or her task. And there is the difference in profit margins. In Holland, these have become tiny, but in Russia, there is still a decent profit to be made.” Other differences include a stronger sense of accountability. “Russians don’t do things overnight. They’re very precise. I think that in Holland, we tend to take a little too much risk sometimes.”
About the weather, Kranenburg is brief: “It’s basically the same as in the Netherlands, only the winters are colder. Much colder.”