In January 2020, the Vademecum portal published an interview with Dmitry Senin, Director of Carl Zeiss LLC, about the process of the company’s reintegration into the global ZEISS Group, plans for the Russian market and the specifics of the ZEISS Russia & CIS division. We invite you to familiarize yourself with the most interesting moments of the interview.
— Now, when the Optec has finished reintegrating in ZEISS Group, I wonder what was the reason for division ten years ago.
...In 2017, the headquarters decided that in current conditions the Russian branch and its divisions in CIS countries needed to reintegrate and become part of ZEISS once again. This is a full merge in terms of communications and standard operation procedures. When you are integrated, you have better inner communications, financial situation, an opportunity to respond to client’s requests faster and provide better service. Distributors always have their risks and often they are less capable to finance deals and investments.
...Today, we have three businesses in Russia managed by Carl Zeiss. They are a medical segment companies working in ophthalmology, dentistry, microsurgery, research and laboratory equipment, including clinical pathologies and products for industrial metrology in high-tech manufacturing.
— What is the state of ZEISS medical business in Russia?
— Medical segment yields a third of the total revenue in Russia — about RUB 2 billion. It develops well, and there are several reasons for this. On the one hand, the company participates in major infrastructure undertakings with state financing, on the other — ZEISS responds to the development of private ophthalmology market. Of course, the competition increases, but the position of ZEISS is strong, because we offer premium equipment and our brand is well known among doctors and patients alike...— In recent years, ZEISS diversifies its portfolio by including radiation treatment systems in addition to new laboratory research and ophthalmology solutions. What is the reason for this?
— ZEISS is known for its thorough multistage product development process. Usually, companies develop a new generation of the product and think about the next generation, while we often invest in technologies that are going to become commercial in 10–15 years. The company’s strategy is to be at the forefront of technological advancement, and it is a hard thing to do: when you implement yesterday’s fundamental science advancements and you are the first company to market the new technology, you risk a lot and bear great expenses. You need to have many ideas on hand and not each of them will succeed.
— Do you plan to introduce the latest products to the Russian market in 2020?
— We have several dozen projects in Russia, some of them are new products and some are technological upgrades of the existing ones. We plan to introduce a few of them this year. We have local developments, for example, we adapt our medical IT solutions for the Russian market.
Next generation equipment is entering the market, in particular, 3D visualization technologies in microsurgery, robotic optical systems reducing the risk during operations. When operating, you look at a big screen in front of you and see a magnified high-quality image of the operating field. This is a different technology, but in a sense, it changes surgical techniques, this is a step beyond.
Aside from ophthalmological and surgical microscopes, we also have something to offer oncology centers: the next generation of ZEISS Intrabeam intraoperative radiotherapy system. We have created a special infrastructure to calibrate radiation emitters in Russia.