Conference Consumer Electronics in Russia, organized by Association RATEK, held on 2nd February, 2005, under the 2nd International Trade Fair for Consumer Electronics SEM St. Petersburg 2005.

СЕМ St.Petersburg is the only one in Northwest Russia professional international forum for manufacturers and distributors of household appliances and consumer electronics.

Among participants of the conference were such “key players” in this sphere, as "SONY Overseas S.A.", "Sitronics", "Golder Electronics", "Arima Holding Corporation", "Olympus", "Arsenal", "HYUNDAI". One of conference speakers was founder of “SmirnovDesign” Mr. Sergei Smirnov. The theme of his presentation “Product Development Strategy: Marketing, Design, Production” attracted attention of many delegates due to its novelty and information content. The issues covered concerned not only industrial design matter, but included a complex approach to the problems raised in the process of product developing. Three main functions of product development: marketing, design, and production must be involved in the development project from the very first planning stages.

The presentation made by Mr. Smirnov was interesting to Russian manufacturers, since there were described mechanisms of elaborating new product strategy, as well as threats caused by imbalance in product development project management.