Business in Azerbaijan

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A page for women targets men.

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I have to start with indicating that the following post is solely my own opinion, and is not based on any research, but has factual evidences at its root.

Actually, despite broader topic, I will be more specific about the business environment in Azerbaijan with my insight on agency-client relationship. 

On the client side, a common problem is otkat (Rus:откат), a mechanism, where an account manager/director from ad agency makes an agreement with authorized person from the client side - whether it is marketing director or managing director or a different person - to get the job, and pays certain amount to that person in return for his/her favor - choosing that particular agency.

On the ad agency side, in Azerbaijan, not considering the exceptions, generally agencies tend to pay fixed  salary without any mechanism to encourage the accounts to win more clients. So guess what the result is... They found a new company, make an agreement with the client side (the terms and benefits of such agreement might vary) to handle certain jobs for them. The most obvious benefits are that the client enjoys lower prices, and the account manager enjoys extra profit of a job that he/she, still having a fixed salary, could do for the current company, but channels to his/her own company and enjoys extra profit.

The infrastructural problems of financial and taxing system is one of the main reasons of such unethical business practice, as the payment is not done via banks but in cash. So it is easy to stipulate conditions that are not part of the practice of the current company.

Another reason is, of course, moral. An expat from Turkey, working at the Azerbaijan office of a global company, once told me that the main problem with the people in general, and with the youth per se in my country is that they want to be rich in a very short time, without showing necessary effort. I could not agree more. Unfortunately, the unmerited wealth of corrupt government officers seems charming for most people and they carry the same practice to private sector, as well.

I can say that the lack of incentive system, encouraging account managers to chase more clients for the current agency to get additional income, results in such malpractice at advertising agencies.

It is obvious that many firms work in cash for most of its payments and it is difficult to track down all the transactions and agreements between account managers and client representatives - both being employees, not business owners - but it could be easier to thwart such practices with:

- bonus system, rewarding employees based on their efforts