August 22, 2018. Received a certificate from the Moscow Business School for completing an 8-hour intensive course on “Structuring Procurement Activities in Compliance with Federal Laws 223-FZ, 44-FZ, and the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.”
The course was led not by a theorist, but by a practitioner of the highest caliber — Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sheloumov, Candidate of Legal Sciences, former Head of Procurement for structures under the Presidential Executive Office, and a repeated top manager in national procurement rankings.
The essence of the course was not just to read the law, but to build a logical, efficient, and secure procurement process within a company. This is exactly what a marketer working with the public sector and large B2B needs: to understand the “rules of the game” from the inside, in order to speak the same language as the client and legal departments.
We covered:
How to formulate requirements for procured goods or services (including marketing and PR services!).
How to prepare documentation to minimize risks and avoid sanctions from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS).
The fundamental differences between “procurement under 223-FZ” and the “contract system under 44-FZ.”
For me, this was a strategic immersion. Not as a lawyer, but as an executive who needs to see the full picture: from marketing strategy to the correct formalization of procuring our services for major state or corporate clients.
Takeaway: Knowledge of 223-FZ and 44-FZ is not bureaucracy. It’s part of strategic literacy for businesses working with public funds or large corporations. And it’s best to learn this from those who have personally walked the path from preparing documentation to defending a company’s interests in disputes.
Now there’s another tool in the kit for working with complex clients. A marketer’s arsenal should include not only creativity and analytics but also an understanding of the regulatory framework.
