Israeli inspirations for internationally operating business

"Amazing how the Israeli management experience indeed inspires us here in Ukraine", a comment that was repeated frequently among the executives that attended the second IBR Executive Forum in Kyiv. Mr Shahar Arieli, First Deputy Chief of the Israeli Embassy in Ukraine, managed to catch the interest of the audience when he outlined Israeli experience in setting up an export oriented and technology based industry.

When the Israeli inflation reached 400% in 1985, a decision has to be made in turning around the economy from a state dominated one to a liberalised one. Interestingly, this happened to be at the same time, when Gorbachev announced Perestroika and Glasnost. While his reforms were support by him as the leader, in Israel reforms were supported the people and a united government.

Israel as an economy could not rely on materialistic resources - whether this was finance or natural resources. The country was at the brink of falling apart. The most valuable resource that they had available was people. Many of these people had a military and engineering background. The government developed special programmes to facilitate business start up projects that were specifically tailored to this group of people. Still today, people with a military and engineering background initiate many business start-ups in high tech. Again, the audience was surprised to see the similarities with Ukraine: A highly educated work force, particularly in the field of engineering and with military background as well.

The political situation in Israel taught people to find unconventional solutions from the foundation of the State of Israel. The audience smiled when Mr Arieli mentioned "every plan was just the start for improvisation". In other words, out of the box thinking was required as well as creative approaches to solving unexpected and difficult problems. This was the background of people that started their own business as well. And looking at Ukraine - the unpredictable business environment for Ukrainian entrepreneurs requires exactly the same qualities: planning and improvisation, creativity and out of the box solutions.

Due to the unfavourable political situation in the Middle East, Israel could not count on big international business to set up their branches in the country. The local people themselves had to set up their own businesses and look for markets. The backbone of the Israeli economy today are therefore small and medium sized businesses that export high tech. Being geographically isolated, these small companies had to develop export markets far away. It is stunning to see the parallels to Ukraine one more time: the unfavourable political and economical environment does not attract as much big business as it was expected. The Ukrainian economy is as much dependant on the development of its own exporting business as the Israeli.

The main message of this evening: Ukraine has a lot of reasons to look ahead with optimism. The main and most important reason is highly talented and qualified people that have adapted to finding unconventional solutions. The history of Israeli entrepreneurship is indeed a very good case study for Ukrainians.