Career
To support international manufacturers doing business in Russia, AsstrA specialists assess each customs, commercial, and currency risk of every Client, coordinate deliveries from the manufacturer, and provide regular reporting. They also provide consulting services on various issues as well as headhunt and hire logistics employees. AsstrA acts as an importer of record and handles all foreign trade activities on behalf of the Client. AsstrA can represent the Client on the Russian market. The service is available to customers from all sectors and is especially popular among those who sell high added-value goods.
This service accounted for 5.63% of the company’s total turnover in 2018. Imports accounted for 93.8% of this turnover and exports accounted for 4.4% of it. The rest was generated providing foreign trade consulting.
The most popular type of shipment here was consumer electronics, which accounted for 62.8% of traffic for this sector. Equipment and spare parts followed with 26.6%. Raw materials, cosmetic products, building materials, and furniture brought made up 10.1%. In 2018, among AsstrA’s major manufacturing Customers were Margy, a Swiss cosmetics producer, and Wahl Clipper International, a world leader in professional hair care equipment.
"2018 was a good year for the AsstrA Trade Division The team ran new projects with existing Customers and successfully carried out import and export deliveries for new customers. The company's specialists predict similar trends in 2019 with 15% more turnover. The main reasons companies outsource foreign trade activities are complicated procurement and transportation process as well as particular countries’ customs clearance nuances. Foreign trade transactions require strict compliance with the laws of all interested States. Constantly monitoring legal regulations requires a larger team – which is not always a viable or cost-effective solution. Foreign trade outsourcing allows international companies to focus their main resources on sales, marketing, and market development with minimized risks and costs," says Tatiana Gayevskaya, head of the Trade Division at AsstrA.
AsstrA’s first logistics outsourcing project was in 2007 for a large energy drink producer. In it, the AsstrA team handled a wide range of services including monitoring imports, warehouse operations, and the distribution of products to consumers. Today, AsstrA executes about dozen such projects every year. Some of them involve ongoing imports and exports.