In the first days of International Youth Round Table organised by JSC Russian Grids, the participants had an opportunity to acquaint themselves with major trends in today's energy sector and started elaboration of a development strategy for an electric grid company.

The young specialists were briefed on key events in the energy sector by leading industry experts including M. Akim, Vice-President for Strategic Development, ABB Russia, V.N. Varivodov, First Deputy Director General for Science and Innovations, Federal State Unitary Enterprise All-Russian Electrotechnical Institute, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, and V.A. Shkatov, Deputy Chairman, "Market Council" Non-Profit Partnership.

Having analysed the experts' information and using their own professional experience, the forum participants started with the contest assignment, elaboration of a development strategy for an electric grid company.

The high professional level of young specialists manifested itself already at the initial stage of their work when the business environment had to be modelled. In a foresight session, participants analysed the current situation in the industry, studied geopolitical and macroeconomic factors influencing the sector, and considered specific features of electric companies in their respective countries. The results of the first day were the forecasts of possible changes in the business environment of electric grid companies based on major trends, threats and opportunities, developed by the participants.

On the second day, a business game was held, in which the participants tested the strategies of an efficient electric grid company they had developed. The results were evaluated against the criteria the participants had developed for measuring efficiency of an electric grid company, including: reliability, economic efficiency, innovativeness in combination with safety, and customer orientation.

The team of Inter-regional Grid Company of the North-West was pronounced the winner; the group focused its strategy on technology transfer, while one of its members was elected CEO. The second place was taken by the Lenenergo team that had developed a concept of a company managing wireless networks. The third place was awarded to German participants who managed to determine in their strategy the volume of resources required for the company development.

Other participants also demonstrated outstanding results. Thus participants from Italy focused their strategy on development of business processes allowing flexible reactions to the customers' needs and implementation of innovative technologies. The Moldova team manifested far-sightedness and caution by preliminary testing of elements incorporated in their strategy thus securing its integrity and eliminating identified discrepancies.

The Russian Grids team paid special attention to management of business processes, development of human capital of the new companies, and their responsibility to customers for reliability and quality of energy supply.

The Kazakhstan team designed a global electric energy company putting emphasis on provision of stability and safety, and development of new technological solutions. Participants from France took some time to single out the basic values for the designed company, but on the second day the team also demonstrated interesting results.

It should be noted that these are only preliminary results, and much work is expecting the teams in the future. Results of the game helped the participants to identify drawbacks in the strategies they had developed, which will be eliminated in the round table session.