Despite the importance, Hitachi did not have a local representative office until this August. The company should have had sufficient production facilities for a more aggressive market approach, said Nicolas Frapard, Hitachi's channel manager for EMEA. Those have become available only recently after a major investment in China.

Hitachi settled in Russia three months ago and, according to Frapard, and the company's vision of strategy execution has been adjusted.

The changes involved logistics planning as Russia's delivery infrastructure is not at the same level with the rest of Europe. The products come to market with a bigger time lag, so Hitachi has to plan its Russia shipments well in advance compared to other countries. Another change involves regional expansion. Hitachi's products are well presented in Moscow and Saint Petersburg but much worse in other regions.

In order to increase its brand awareness across Russia and establish relations with regional partners and local media, Hitachi GST recently went on a road show to Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Krasnodar, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Ekaterinburg and Novosibirsk.

The trip helped the company generate an increasing wave of demand, said Andrey Sostin, Hitachi's channel manager for Russia. After interviews with local companies Hitachi also increased shipments of its popular 80-gigabyte hard drives to Russia which has a low price advantage.