A lecture by the financial officer of the restaurant holding Yum! Brands Natalia Bersegiyan

Natalia Barsegiyan works as the general financial officer for the Russian branch of one of the world's largest restaurant holdings Yum! Brands, which is present in Russia with such franchise projects as "Rostic's-KFC" amd "Pizza Hut". The lecture she gave to the students of "Restaurant Business Management and Club Industry" program was dedicated to various aspects of the development of fast food industry.

"Since the year 2000, this market has displayed a stable growth," - said Natalia Basegiyan, - "In the first year of the new millennium it was worth 2.8 billion dollars, and 8 years later it has exceeded 29 billion dollars. Then, of course, the global recession followed, as well as the economic downturn. The last year's industry capitalization was estimated at 22.3 billion dollars."

As a result of the crisis, the personal consumption level in Russia has dropped 13%, which is much more dramatic compare to only 3% drop experienced by the Western countries. Of course there is a rational explanation to this phenomena: Western economies are more stable, and unlike our consumers, the citizens of the developed countries are generally wealthier, not in the least due to their ability to rely on their existing sizeable savings. However, the pace at which we are regaining the ground back to pre-recession levels of consumption is higher than that of Europe. Clearly, there are several factors in play here, like the inherent Russian optimism, as well as other idiosyncrasies, such as the tendency to live beyond one's means." - concluded Natalia Barsegiyan.