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REV: SEPTEMBER 1, 2005

MICHAEL RUKSTAD SASHA MATTU ASYA PETINOVA

Ice-Fili (АЙС-ФИЛИ)
You cannot defeat a nation that enjoys ice cream at minus 40 Celsius. — Winston Churchill To survive in Russia’s ice cream industry during the 11 years since the collapse of the former Soviet Union was no small feat (see Exhibits 1 and 2). To be successful in these turbulent times was nothing short of amazing to industry observers. In 2002, Ice-Fili, a midsized Russian company with more than $25 million in sales, was Russia’s top ice cream producer. Surprisingly, it had outlasted several well-known international companies such as Ben & Jerry’s, which exited the Russian market in 1997, and Unilever, which left in 2001. Ice-Fili had not only successfully transitioned from the tight controls of the Soviet regime to the infant Russian open-market economy in 1992, but it had also successfully navigated its way through the difficult times of Russia’s 1998 financial crisis. Ice-Fili was fighting to maintain its market share leadership in the increasingly competitive Russian ice cream market, which had decreased over the past few years to about a half-billion dollars in sales. Nestlé, which advertised heavily, was Ice-Fili’s fiercest competitor. While most ice cream producers were left to fight in an already saturated ice cream kiosk system, Baskin & Robbins and Haagen-Dazs1 had positioned themselves as premium ice cream producers, distributing through franchised restaurant and café networks. At the other end of the competitive spectrum, the small regional ice cream producers, which were believed to have lower production costs than Ice-Fili and other Moscow-based producers, were now making strong inroads in the major metropolitan markets. Anatoliy Shamanov, Ice-Fili’s CEO, wrestled with some fundamental strategic questions: Could Ice-Fili maintain its market lead over