PR and GR in Uzbekistan for International Companies: 8 Unwritten Rules

An international company in Uzbekistan answers to two audiences: the local market, and a headquarters that treats the country as one of a dozen markets in the group. Keeping communications out of approval limbo, and out of legal and reputational trouble, takes techniques that rarely make it into textbooks. The eight rules below come from a written interview with Madina Ruzmatova. She spent years working between the local office and global management at Beeline/VEON in Uzbekistan and is now the founder of SELF communication house, which runs social-sector projects and government programmes.

How to get headquarters to approve news faster

Approval speeds up when headquarters hears about the idea a month before publication. At that point the sign-off takes about an hour.

“Approval starts not when the text is ready, but the moment you have the idea,” says Madina. “If someone at headquarters first learns about the news from a finished press release, you have already lost a week. If they heard about it a month earlier on a call, they sign off in an hour.”

At Beeline, the timeline depended on how much weight the news carried:

• A product release or tariff. Approved locally in one or two days.
• Financial results, the regulator, investments or group reputation. The material went through local lawyers, GR, compliance and the technical department, then through the heads of the relevant functions at headquarters. That route took anywhere from a week to a month.

“On the org chart it all looks standard: local office, regional level, global team in Amsterdam. In real life it is a chain of five to seven people, each with their own calendar, time zone and priorities. For headquarters, Uzbekistan is one of a dozen markets in the group, and you have to accept that from day one, without taking offence.”

What a leader should do: put a call with headquarters about any significant news in the calendar a month before publication, before the text is even written.

Which words in a press release carry legal risk

In a technology launch announcement, the key words carry legal weight: “first”, “launched”, “5G network”. On 11 October 2018, at the MobiCon conference in Tashkent, Beeline ran the first public 5G test in Uzbekistan on Huawei equipment. At the time, 5G standardisation was not complete either in the country or globally, the test ran on a 4.5G network, and a commercial launch depended on spectrum allocated by the state.

“It sounds like a neat technology story, but in reality it was a project where PR, GR, lawyers and engineers worked as one team for almost a month,” Madina recalls. “Every phrase was checked separately. The words ‘first’, ‘launched’ and ‘5G network’ had legal weight, because there was no network as such yet.”

In an interview with Trend, Madina said it was too early to talk about moving to the standard, the whole world was still testing, and the main task for the market and the regulator was standardisation. “That was a deliberate position. We got the ‘first in the country’ story, but we did not promise subscribers something we could not deliver, and we did not put the regulator in an awkward position.” The main competitor ran its own test only a year later, in September 2019.

What a leader should do: before every launch, list the words that promise more than you currently have, and clear them with the lawyers before the text reaches journalists.

In what order to clear a technology launch with the state, lawyers and the vendor

The approval sequence for the 5G test was strict, and the media came last:

• The regulator and the relevant ministry. Permission for the test and a clear view of how the state sees the future of 5G.
• Lawyers. A check of every single phrase.
• The vendor. Agreeing with Huawei what to say about their technology and how.
• VEON’s global team. Positioning within the group strategy.
• Media and the public. Only after all the previous steps.

What a leader should do: map out a chain like this for your own project before it starts, and give every step an owner and a deadline.

When to bring the government into a project

Invite the state into the process earlier than seems necessary. Madina advises against arriving with a ready-made solution: people support what they helped create.

The 5G experience gave her two more rules for working with government bodies. First: in GR and PR there are no small details.

“The wording in a release, the order of speakers, who was invited on stage and who was forgotten: all of it is read as a signal. With 5G we weighed every word, and that saved us from some very awkward questions.” Second: never promise more than you can deliver. “A loud headline lives for a day. The trust of the regulator and the audience is built over years and lost with a single careless post.”

Today Madina passes these principles on to the SELF team, which runs social-sector projects and government programmes. The logic is the same: first understand the interests of every party, then open the discussion.

What a leader should do: bring in government representatives at the idea stage, and treat speaker and guest lists as part of the communication itself.

What headquarters cannot see about the Uzbek market

Three things never show up in the numbers and so stay invisible from headquarters: the market structure, the weight of personal meetings and the speed of Telegram. “The hardest thing to explain is what is not in the figures,” says Madina.

• Market structure. “Of the four major operators, three were state-owned and Beeline was private, with a market share of up to a third. For a European manager that is simply competition. For us it means your competitor and your regulator sometimes sit in the same building. Every word in a press release is read with that in mind.”
• Personal relationships. “Here, one meeting with the right person weighs more than ten official letters.”
• The speed of Telegram. “One ill-judged phrase in a channel spreads faster than any news item on the company website.”

To get this across to head office, Madina recommends building stories and pitching them to HQ.

“From the global office, Uzbekistan looks like a line in a report. The manager’s job is to turn that line into a living country. Stories helped: a specific case, a specific audience reaction, a specific cost of a mistake in money. Stories get remembered, slides get skipped.”

What a leader should do: add one concrete case to every market report, with the audience reaction and what the mistake cost.

How to convince the global office to adapt a campaign

Come with two or three ready adaptation options and an explanation of how the material will be read in the local market.

“The global office thinks in campaigns that have to sound the same in Amsterdam, Almaty and Tashkent,” Madina explains. “But we have two languages, our own holidays, our own humour and, let’s be honest, our own taboos.”

She points to international brands. Coca-Cola’s New Year creatives are adapted thoroughly into Uzbek, and brands generally go beyond language: they run plenty of collaborations with Uzbek cuisine and embed themselves in the local context through hashars as social projects, support for women, protecting the Aral Sea environment and other themes. Ramadan campaigns, which many brands have run for the past five years, cannot be lifted by the global office from a common template. Several international brands Madina has worked with since Beeline actively use Ramadan, Independence Day and other local events as news hooks. At VEON, CSR projects kept the group strategy of supporting the digital community and tech-driven social projects, but took on a local accent: equipment for training students in relevant fields and women’s leadership projects.

Madina has one method of persuasion:

“I never said ‘this won’t work’. That sounds like a local office being difficult. I said ‘here is how this will be read here’ and immediately brought two or three adaptation options. The essence of the global idea was preserved, but it spoke to people in their own language. Headquarters agrees far more readily when it sees you are defending not your ego but their own business result.”

If a decision goes against the guidelines, she has a formula:

“No emotions, only arguments you can touch: data, risks, an alternative and a readiness to take responsibility yourself. When you say ‘if it doesn’t work, it’s on me’, the conversation changes.” Arguing with head office, she says, is part of the job: “A local PR manager or director who has never once argued with headquarters is simply doing a poor job.”

What a leader should do: for contested decisions, prepare four things: data, risks, an alternative and personal accountability.

How to handle a crisis when HQ approval takes longer than the crisis

In a crisis, the local CEO takes the first decision: the company responds promptly, and the internal review comes later. “This is always in the hands of the local CEO. A crisis has to be dealt with quickly, everyone understands that,” says Madina. She cannot disclose specific cases because of NDAs, but she confirms the sequence: in serious scandals, outages and breakdowns of business processes, the company protected the customer’s interests first.

Her principle has not changed since: “Silence in a crisis is also a statement, and usually the worst one possible. A short ‘we are aware of the situation and are looking into it’ is always better than a perfect text three days later.”

One example from her practice is the smog in Tashkent: “When smog covered Tashkent and PM2.5 was 22 times above the WHO limit, I said publicly exactly that: you cannot talk about children’s fun runs when the only normal response is crisis communication.”

What a leader should do: decide in advance who in the local office is authorised to make the first statement, and prepare a template for a short message.

How to earn the trust of international management

Trust is built on predictability, honest reporting and personal contact.

“Once you said ‘it will be like this’ and it happened. A second time. A third. After that, people start listening to you,” says Madina.

She never embellished her reports. In her view, the most important part of a PR department’s work is transparent reporting without the digressions typical of the corporate world: clear figures, honest messages about problems and an immediate response to crises and the news agenda. She and her team work by that formula today, and it took shape thanks to mentoring from leaders at Beeline and other brands.

“International management spots a convenient version of events in a second. It is far more valuable to say: here is the risk, here is what I propose, here is what I need from you. My monthly report never ended with ‘all is well’ but with ‘here are three things that could go wrong’.”

She considers personal contact underrated: visits, calls with no particular agenda, conversations on the sidelines. A global manager who knows you personally trusts your expertise far more easily.

Her advice to a new PR director at an international company: in the first three months, find out who really makes the decisions, who influences them and what matters to those people, and build the relationships early. A crisis is too late to introduce yourself.

What a leader should do: add a “Three risks” section to your monthly report and schedule personal contact with the key people at headquarters before you need them.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to clear communications with the global office?

At Beeline, product releases and tariffs were approved locally within one or two days. News about financial results, the regulator, investments or group reputation went through lawyers, GR, compliance and function heads at headquarters, and that route took from a week to a month.

What steps are needed to launch a new technology in Uzbekistan?

Based on the first public 5G test in 2018, the sequence was: the regulator and the relevant ministry, lawyers, the vendor, the company’s global team, and only then the media and the public.

How should an international company act in a crisis in Uzbekistan?

The local CEO takes the first decision, the company responds first and the review comes later. A short “we are aware of the situation and are looking into it” beats a perfect text three days later.

Why does Telegram matter for an international company’s communications in Uzbekistan?

According to Madina Ruzmatova, one ill-judged phrase in a Telegram channel spreads faster than any news item on the company website. That is why wording is checked before publication and the response to mistakes is planned in advance.

Where should the PR director of a new local office start?

In the first three months, find out who really makes the decisions at headquarters, who influences them and what matters to those people, and build the relationships before you need them.

Conclusion

One logic runs through all of Madina’s answers: speed and trust appear when headquarters, lawyers and the state are involved at the idea stage. For the head of an international company, that gives a practical test: if a communications project is being approved at the last moment, rebuild it around the order of steps.

ITCOMMS helps international companies build communications in Uzbekistan and across the region. Read more about the agency’s work in this market on the PR agency in Uzbekistan page.

Translated with an AI translator