Success factors of companies that survive the deep economic crisis in Armenia : final report

Abstract

Since the end of the 80’s, Armenia has been falling into a deeper and deeper economic crisis. The reasons are many and include: the disrupted traditional economic ties with the republics of former USSR, the blockade imposed by Azerbaijan, the war in Karabakh and the energy crisis. This situation aggravated by the absence (or delay) of appropriate laws for regulating business activities. More and more companies are reducing their operations or temporarily closing down, being unable to cope with all the problems. However, despite this overwhelming decline, some companies not only survive, but even succeed. Obviously, these companies have managed to find some solutions to overcome the economic crisis. It could either be the change in their strategies (financial, organizational, marketing, etc.), sources of raw material supply, markets, or all of these. The goal of this project was to spot such successful companies among manufacturing business (both from the state and private sectors), to identify and explore the sources of their success, and develop the set of recommendations to be used by interested organizations, both for scientific and business purposes. In order to achieve the project’s objectives, the following steps have been undertaken: • Identify the most successful Armenian manufacturing companies. • Investigate these companies’ activities and explore the ways and means by which they managed to solve the problems resulting from the blockade and the energy crisis. • Analyze and summarize the variety of ways by which these companies solved the similar problems. • Elaborate the set of recommendations to be used by interested organizations (potential investors, government agencies, manufacturing companies, entrepreneurs, etc.). In the process of performing the project different methods were used such as: tours interviews (personal and/or written questionnaire), development of new ratios that reflect the critical aspects of business for Armenia, correlation analysis, graphical representation of relations between different variables.