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Nenad Jovanovic, manager of Gorenje Ltd., Skopje
In Macedonia there is a need and conditions for companies’ investments
Last year your company replaced the traditional practice of participation and presentation at a fair with investing funds for building a bridge in Skopje. For promotion of a product, you have engaged the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje. How much is the act of investing in the society your strategic choice or it is initiated by certain actual conditions in the country?
Gorenje, whose headquarters is in Slovenia, has a global strategic choice, to invest in environmental improvement that we, here in Macedonia apply. We apply useful marketing for the company and the environment we all live in. So far we have donated 150 thousand denars in the municipality of Karpos for putting up traffic lights at one crossing on the boulevard “Partizanski odredi” and there is a completed project for it, that unfortunately, cannot be finished yet as the municipality cannot collect all projected funds yet. We have proposed the money to be used for putting up “speed humps” and it is certainly going to be used for something useful. Our condition is the investment to be marked by putting up a board on which the investment shall be signed. Last year we invested in building a pavement on a bridge in the municipality of Gjorce Petrov. We decided not to go to the Tehnoma fair, for which we usually spend about 30 thousand Euros, but we invested about 10 thousand Euros in building a pavement on the bridge and the necessary video materials and videos. I would also like to mention that we have donated two air conditioners for the newly built church in Aerodrom. In Macedonia there is really a need and many conditions for investing.
Where do you get the motivation from to invest in socially responsible projects?
The motivation is from the environment itself. We know where we live, how much an average salary is, what problems the population has, on the other hand, we want the help we give to be used in marketing objectives. At the bridge there is a sign with the name of the company. The business-aspect is involved here, but it is necessary to make a link between the general, something that shall remain for the citizens and us to have marketing-communication with them. I believe that it will further have a positive effect, people will say: Gorenje invests, why not buying their products?
One aspect in helping the citizens is the social one and the other is the cultural one. We want to invest in the field of culture and last year, at a Bitola fair, we made an open concert where Synthesis performed.
For this year we still do not have a plan what to do, but I’m thinking about investing again in some cultural event. Gorenje supports various activities in the field of culture, sport, environment in all countries where the company is located.
How do you make the calculations for financial investments of this kind, how are they justified and how much have you, so far, calculated in money, invested in the community?
Such investments are difficult to measure as in the marketing half of the money is always thrown, but you do not know which half. For example, when we were making the presentation with the Faculty of Fine Arts, we overlooked that on the same day VMRO-DPMNE was celebrating 15 years of its existence and many people did not come. Such activities are related to public relations.
As far as the invested money is concerned, I think that we have invested too little; we would like to invest more, if we had the opportunities. In this community there are places we can invest in and it can be used for marketing purposes. We hold to our budget and we can not say in advance how much we shall invest. It all depends on the market, on the needs, on the competition’s pressure. We do not practice any classical sponsorship, as the company does not have any benefit from it. Sponsorship yes, but only if it will be published somewhere with certain ethics, not to turn into a big boast that would cause a negative effect in the public.
How is this experience transferred in the business circles, is it considered to be positive?
Honestly, I think there is no big attention. I have recently watched a TV show where it was discussed that the companies should do something more about the society. I think that some things should be demarcated. We are a company and we realize a profit and we have neither legal, nor moral obligation to build bridges or anything else. Companies have to pay a tax that is further used for everything necessary in the community. We, for example, could not rebate the value added tax from the investment in the pavement, but we would have rebated it if we had been building our own office. We invested but the state did not exempt us from taxes, however, it did not discourage us as we pay VAT to the classical marketing, too, and the effect from the investment was big.
What is your expected feedback result, do you achieve it and how do you measure the achieved results?
We have invested in the environment, we have decorated the space in front of our shop with a nice lawn and we have repaired the entrances’ doors of the building. It was our investment in front of and in a building, as we consider such kind of investment to make citizens themselves look after their environment. Continuity in this field is necessary; to convey experiences from more developed countries and the few who can exit the country should this way give some direction in the country’s development. But I disagree that companies should assume responsibility over the development of the social and the cultural issues. We have a state, a budget and we will help where we can.
Is the image of Gorenje in Skopje in front of the headquarters in Slovenia built through socially justified projects?
The Gorenje Company is above all interested whether the plan is completed, whether the quantity is sold and a profit is made. It is normally interested in the company’s image made in Macedonia, but not from an aspect of collecting points. Managerial teams meet at marketing conferences; ideas are exchanged, above all between the countries with a similar standard and mentality. We can exchange experiences, for example, with Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, but the same marketing cannot be made in Scandinavia and Macedonia. In Scandinavia you cannot make pavements, as they are all built, nor can you invest in putting up traffic lights. In Slovenia, for example, there is a need for investing in sport and very little in solving problems as there are in Macedonia. There are no non-built roads, houses without electricity, schools without a school gym and that is why it is invested on a higher level, in filters, arranging lawns.
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