Slowbalization shaping the future
On 22 May 2019, Â over 170 leaders from the biggest companies in Romania attended the CEO Conference on slowbalization, an event was organized by Doingbusiness.ro in Bucharest.
During the event, authentic leaders, representatives of powerful Romanian brands, and Executives from companies acting in the main industries – from finance, banking, insurance, automotive, energy, IT, pharma, construction and dental medicine – shared their visions and searched for solutions for an economy which at global level, in the next 50 years, will experiment more changes that is already known in the last 5000 years.
“This year, all leaders participating at the CEO Conference agreed that there is a change dynamics without precedent at the global level”, stated Dumitru Ion, CEO Doingbusiness.ro & Kompass Romania. “Following the term discovered by futurologist Adjiedj Bakas, the author of ÂŤThe New RenaissanceÂť book, we organized, for the first time in Romania, a conference dedicated to “Slowbalisation” – the economic context in which globalization is slowing down, the new nationalism is rising, and the regionalism and patriotism are increasingly mentioned. In addition, we have discussed, validated and start with the idea in mind that due to digital transformation, artificial intelligence and robotisation, is decreasingly cheap to manufacture at local level” Dumitru Ion added.
,,I think everybody already realized that we are living in a volatile world, and this is a global trend. My message to Romanian Executives is to promote flexibility. They are invited to manage very strictly the shareholder’s expectations and the businesses in terms of costs and human capital” Dominic Bruyneseels, CEO FIRST BANK, declared.
“In an exclusive interview for Doingbusiness.ro, in the message conveyed to CEO Conference participants, the futurologist Adjiedj Bakas explained that the opening of the borders, following the globalization effect, have transformed the EE and South countries in real pipelines for âyoungstersâ. âItaly, Portugal, Romania exports their performing young generations in Germany and Scandinavian countries. On the other hand, the aging of the population is already a problem in these countries and is increasingly becoming more severe. It is important for countries like Romania to plan for future back migration. Migration from other countries is not a solution”  Bakas reinforced. With “Slowbalisation” becoming more “touchable”, Bakas stated, these countries “cannot build a future on other countries children”.
,,In the insurance market, without a strong connection at global level we cannot survive”, Virgil Čoncutean, CEO Allianz-Čiriac AsigurÄri declared. ,, 4-5 years ago, in our interactions with our shareholder we used to manage two business scenarios. In the last two years, our discussion involved 4-5 business scenarios out of which all of them needs adjustments in the next 3-4 month. The unpredictability and uncertainty is part of the new normality and we have to survive as a strong business in this new normality” added Virgil Čoncutean. ,,The main business keyword is Rezilience â the capacity to face external shocks and to stand for next period to comeââ, CEO of the Allianz-Ţiriac concluded.
âWe are just in the middle of the process to start a new country strategy for Romania for 2020-2024 and almost everybody identified three elements as the most important challenges for Romania, Mihnea CrÄciun, Deputy Director al BÄncii Europene pentru ReconstrucČie Či Dezvoltare, declared. ,,First is the infrastructure – without infrastructure, Romania will remain in the middle income trap in which it is struggling now;  the second element is workforce – migrations and struggling searches for qualified work force for matching our vision; the third element is digitalization, Mihnea CrÄciun, declared.
Alexandru Reff, Country Managing Partner Deloitte România and Moldova shared the result of a recent study Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends 2019, regarding the trends and transformation taking place in the workforce market that we are perceiving even more difficult to deal with taking into consideration the multiple faces of the change forces. One of these forces is the technology that bring in our lives new resources as artificial intelligence and make them visible in our day to day lives. ” At the same time there are important demographic transformations – the life hope is longer, the career are re-thought, younger generations has totally different expectation and different approaches and is, from numerical point of view, less present on the workforce market as we really need in the reality.
Also, we see our customers and employees becoming even more powerful. Consequently, businesses and their leaders must adapt to a fundamental change of paradigm in which they have to interact with these two stakeholders. Workforce and work redefine their-selvesââ, Alexandru Reff explained.
â In Romania, I do not feel yet the Slowbalization, at least in the pharma industryâ, Iulian Trandafir â CEO Farmexpert, declared. âBut, in the last years, we are facing an increased competition between the great companies entering in the Romanian market. Those companies are in full development process and they are on the right direction – I may congratulate them. Top companies have a better financial power and this came with experience, knowledge and processes they implement – they are really efficient. They could become also very slow in decision making under “global slobalisation”. If we take a look on the other side, at local companies, it becomes very clear that they are fast, smart, flexible and their decision making process is fast also, Iulian Trandafir underlined this important point.
âThe automotive industry, is experiencing one of the most dynamic changes. From customer point of view – the demand is directed in a totally different direction, based on the customer needs also, from a future of combustion engines toward the “electrification” – with hybrid and electric models. In the corporation area, we experiment an impressive move toward mobility. Even if our industry is a traditional one, is lead by IT. This trend brings in more changes and one of the most important is the speed of change”, Wolfgang Schulz â CEO BMW Group România, stated.
,,From “Slowbalisation” point of view, in the energy market, I see two important drivers: the first one is political, the second is technical. At global level, from political point of view we see that all the world countries are increasingly interested in becoming energy free (independent). The second driver, the technical one, the recoverable energy is becoming less expensive and efficient. Now the recoverable energy is ready to be developed without subventionââ, Ondrej Safar, CEO CEZ Group România declared.
âWe are trying now to define the future of the energy and we identified many disruptive factors in our ecosystem. Lately, all our strategies were build for development of the intelligent solutions for residential, business or municipalities. It is very important to start to educate the market about what means efficient energy and the smart use of energy. Slowbalisation, is from our point of view, a transformational innovation – this includes also the idea of redesigning our processes, the way of doing things, the human capital and the partnerships” Andreea IoniČÄ, Deputy General Manager and Strategy, Markets and Digitalization Director – E.ON România declared.
âAt CEO Conference, the ideea of including, for the first time in Romania, the Slowbalisation on the public agenda of the most important leaders in Romania was a great success. We all benefited from the insights of the leaders of the most powerful companies in Romania, no matter where they brought their contribution – on the scene or from audience. All of them contributed to a high quality interaction during the event that motivates us to run this series of events that brings in a unique selection of authentic leaders, capable and ready to talk about how Romanian economy will be transformed in the years to come. We discussed all these unde the globalisation and slowbalisation context”, Dumitru Ion, CEO Doingbusiness.ro & Kompass România concluded at the end of the event.
We have to send our many thanks to all our Partners: FIRST BANK, EBRD, Allianz-Čiriac AsigurÄri, CEZ Group România, Farmexpert, Microsoft România, Deloitte România, DRUID, Crystal System, WDP, Strauss România, Sixsense, ASBIS, Prestigio, Psychometric Systems, DENT ESTET, Kompass România.
Also to our media partners that made this event so unique: AGERPRES, RMKT â Asociatia Economistilor Maghiari din România, Financial Market, Transilvania Business, SpaČiul Construit, Agora, SoftLead, CfNET, Manager Express, Business24, Cariere, Jurnalul de Afaceri, Ziare.com.
