The top of the fastest growing branches of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in Russia in 2023 included online commerce (e-commerce), advertising, and tourism. This is stated in the results of a study of the omnichannel marketing platform Calltouch, the Point bank for entrepreneurs and the online recruiting platform hh.ru , which were reviewed by Izvestia on March 28.

Experts analyzed the development of SMEs in the country over the past year and updated the health index of Russian business. At the end of the year, it was 61.5 points out of 100.

Online commerce has shown the fastest pace of recovery. The health index of Russian business in this industry was 55 points (+25 points compared to 2022).

"Many new players entered the e-commerce market in 2023 — according to our data, 30% more sole proprietors and companies trading on the Internet were registered compared to 2022. Their turnover has also increased by 41% year on year. The appearance of new stores leads to an increase in hiring, which showed an increase of 34% over the past year. Marketplaces are still the drivers of development," said Yulia Krigan, data journalist at Tochka Bank.

She drew attention to the fact that in the struggle for the market, large sites are becoming more and more technologically advanced. In addition, according to her, the e-commerce market is growing due to niche sites, independent online stores.

At the same time, according to experts, the health index of Russian business in the advertising industry amounted to 56 points (+22 points compared to 2022). Advertisers have begun to make greater use of analytics, work with data, and implement artificial intelligence both in advertising and in communications with consumers. The turnover of advertising and marketing agencies increased by 12% year-on-year. There was an increase in demand for their services: the total number of requests in 2023 increased by 134%.

"The advertising industry is growing rapidly for several reasons. Firstly, new brands have entered the market, which need to attract consumers in order to confidently occupy the vacant niches. Secondly, business has become more active in using technologies, analytics, Big Data in marketing, and testing new channels of communication with consumers. Another driver of the industry's development has been the boom in the introduction of neural networks into marketing processes. They have improved the speed and quality of analytics, improved the personalization of the offer," explained Arthur Sargsyan, Commercial Director of Calltouch.

In addition, in 2023, the Russian business health index for the tourism industry was 57 points (+14). The turnover of companies operating in the tourism sector increased by 22%. Domestic tourism has become the driver of the industry's development, experts said. Regions compete for tourists, improve infrastructure, offer new routes and projects, and develop different destinations. Travel agencies have stepped up their promotion in order to interest as many travelers as possible in new routes.

"Over the past year, the volume of hiring in the tourism industry has increased by 40%. Several factors contribute to this. Last year, the number of registrations of new travel agencies increased by 5%. The labor market in the tourism industry is also driven by the growing interest of Russians in domestic travel and new destinations. Locations that were not associated with travel and recreation until recently were also involved in the competition for tourists. In them, the tourist infrastructure is being created almost from scratch, which requires the involvement of professional personnel," said the head of the marketing research department, hh.ru Maria Ignatova.

The results of the study state that "an analysis of the development of small and medium-sized businesses over the past year has shown that the Russian economy as a whole has coped with the challenges of 2022." Experts stressed that the turnover of companies is growing in most industries. Thus, the number of requests increased by 12% in the market as a whole. But despite the growth of Russian business as a whole, some industries have worsened their performance. The negative dynamics of development in SMEs in 2023 was shown by the telecommunications industry (-15 points year-on-year), medicine (-13), culture (-10).

Earlier, on December 8, Maxim Chirkov, Associate Professor of the Department of Economic Policy and Economic Measurements at the Institute of Economics and Finance of the GUU, told Izvestia that the Russian economy had recovered and moved to steady growth.

Support for entrepreneurs in the Yaroslavl region takes place within the framework of the national project "Small and medium-sized entrepreneurship and support for individual entrepreneurial initiative", which was initiated by the President and overseen by First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov.