Kaspersky Lab: from Russia with anti-virus

Abstract

Subject area International Business, International Entrepreneurship, International Marketing. Study level/applicability Advanced undergraduate and graduate students are the primary audience. The case can also be used in executive classes with emerging economies as a focus. Case overview Kaspersky Lab is a provider of information technology (IT) security products such as anti-virus, anti-spam and network security software. It is Russia's largest software company and the only Russian firm that ranked among the world's top 100 software companies. This case presents several interesting features of the company and its environment. The foci of the case are on potential barriers facing firms based in emerging economies in their internationalization initiatives and negative country of origin effects associated with emerging economies. Expected learning outcomes The learning objectives of this case include: To identify internal and external sources of competitive advantage for a developing world originated successful entrepreneurial firm. To assess the potential barriers facing an emerging economy-based firm in the internationalization process and analyse whether such barriers differ across economies of various characteristics. To evaluate whether the natures of obstacles and challenges faced by an emerging economy-based firm is different in a newly evolving industry. To analyze how an emerging economy-based firm can overcome some of the barriers to internationalization.