Being Sales and Marketing Director for the market of Slovenia, what do you consider your biggest success?
The biggest success I find the fact that in spite of unfavourable economic situation on the market we have managed to maintain a positive climate in our sales and marketing team, which has shown great results. I find that to be a success also because for the second year in a row we have achieved positive results - and that is growth comparing to 2008, although the years 2009 and 2010 were in recession. This great team of young people in sales and marketing managed to maintain and strengthen our brands and to increase sales.
What are the challenges and particularities of the Slovenian market?
The particularity of the Slovenian market is the great concentration of trade - only three of our buyers make more than 80% of the market. At Podravka we have great key account managers and sales operatives who manage to find opportunities for successful sales with their engagement, knowledge, will and motivation. The challenges for us are the hard discounters who currently make more than 15% of the market, and we have not worked with them up until recently. We have started to sell in Lidl that in Slovenia has 34 stores, another challenge is Hofer that has more than 60 stores.
How do you choose your associates?
A manager often chooses associates that function similar as he does. I chose my associates the same way. It does not mean that they always have to agree with me. It is desirable that I have a few colleagues in the team who with their different opinions contribute to constructive conversations and ideas.
How did POMAK affect your daily work?
POMAK is definitely a positive way to motivate and educate employees. Personally, it provided me with additional width of knowledge that I have already acquired in practice, so it all made a lot more sense to me then when I was listening to the same or similar lectures at the faculty.
