High-growth firms (HGFs) or gazelles, according to many studies, make a major contribution to economic growth and job creation. In some countries, they create up to half of all new jobs. Researchers also note their significant contribution to exports and their role in promoting innovation and increasing productivity. HGF support programs have been launched today in dozens of countries, including Russia.
One of the main challenges for HGF researchers: HGFs’ samples are unstable and can change significantly in a short time. Also, researchers do not have a single and comprehensive definition of a HGF. This study is based on the OECD definition of HGF: a company must demonstrate 20 % annual revenue growth over the previous three years. The research focuses on Russian technological HGFs.
The first part of the study shows the main features of Russian HGFs that can be extracted from statistics:
1. HGFs’ share in the total number of Russian companies from the surveyed sectors reaches only 1.42 %. Of more than million Russian companies, only 14.6 thousand have shown high growth (as defined by the OECD). Compared to other developing and developed countries, this is a low share of companies of this type.
2. The overwhelming majority of companies considered in this study belong to low-tech sectors of the economy. At the same time, the medium- and high-tech sectors (especially IT) create much more jobs per unit of revenue growth.
3. Relationship to the high-tech sector, as well as export activity in the Russian situation does not affect the sustainability and duration of the rapid growth of the considered HGFs. The most stable growth is shown by companies from the agricultural and mining sectors. Then, due to the so-called "spillover effect", the growth momentum of these sectors spread to the medium-tech segment and only in recent years to the high-tech segment. HGFs from the sector of high-tech knowledge-intensive services stand out separately, demonstrating both a rather large share among HGFs and rather high and stable growth rates.
4. High-tech production is distinguished by the fact that it has the highest share of companies (almost 50 %), for which there was no rapid growth before the period of 2016–2019. That is, half of the fast-growing high-tech companies started growing rapidly in the last 3 years.
The second part of the study is devoted to the qualities of the Russian tech HGFs. For this, a survey of more than 30 such companies were carried out. The average age of the surveyed companies is 16 years. The median of revenue is 450 million rubles (over USD 6 million) per company.
1. Only slightly more than half of these companies have organically grown out of microbusiness. At the same time, only 36 % can be attributed to classical startups (created for the implementation of some promising project). Another 19 % worked in different business sectors before arriving at what they are doing today. The rest arose either immediately as relatively large investment projects, or as a result of M&As.
2. Over the past few years, these companies have experienced a period of rapid revenue growth. At the same time, the number of employees and their equipment with production facilities increased. Almost a quarter of the companies indicate a decline in their development indicators in 2020. However, overall, companies are rather satisfied with the dynamics of their development in recent years.
3. More than 2/3 of the surveyed technological HGFs already have export experience. The average share of export products in the total revenue of exporting companies is almost a quarter of revenue. In the next 3 years, the surveyed exporting companies expect to increase the export of their products – 86 % of companies will strive for this.
4. Technological HGFs today does not experience an acute shortage of qualified employees, although they understand that they may face some challenges if their business grows.
5. The leaders of these companies in most cases are simultaneously the CEO, owner and CTO of the company. Today the leaders are about 50 years old. Even before joining the company, they had long-term experience in a key area of their company’s business. Company leaders typically have an engineering or science background and are actively involved in product development and production management.
6. These companies call the factors of their success the price, quality of products, the ability to quickly respond to changes in consumer demands, and the ability to customize products. Sometimes market leadership is ensured by the non-economic factors, such as ties with authorities or access to government contracts.
7. A significant part of the surveyed companies regularly used various types of government support in the period 2017–2020. Companies highly appreciate the value of the support received from the government and believe that it helped their development. In the next 3 years, the share of technological HGFs receiving state support may increase: up to 85 % will strive for this.
8. There is often a request for government support for the full or partial coverage of R&D costs or obtaining a grant for these purposes. This query highlights the specificity of the surveyed companies as "technological” or "innovative". Also, companies are interested in supporting their participation in exhibitions and business missions.