As organised by Color Media Communications & Color Press Group #AutoForum2016, the first business forum of that type was held on Monday, at the Radison Blu Old Mill Belgrade. This is the first forum on the topic of motorsports and automotive industries in which the topics about marketing, communication and sales strategies in the automotive industry were discussed.
The conference was opened by prof. Dr. Zorana Mihajlović, Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia, who remarked that when we talk about the automotive industry it was of great importance that cars were safe and technologically acceptable.“It is very important that we have a safe trip and a safe driver. We can influence road safety and it is important that roads are of European quality and European standards. We do not have a good infrastructure, but we are trying to work it out on that and to follow the European standards. Serbia returns to the map of regional networking. We can expect an upward trend. We still have not reduced the number of traffic accidents or as a state really working to change that. “
After the Minister addressed the attendees, H E Axel Dittmann, the German Ambassador to Belgrade spoke to the gathered guests. He spoke about of the German experience in the automotive industry, and said that the key elements in automotive industry were the investment and development, the development of new models and the new challenges of energy efficiency, as well as the implementation of IT technology.
Then on the first panel, “Challenges in the automotive industry of the 21st century” the panelists discussed the importance of IT industry in the automotive industry, how important investment in advertising were, as well as that Serbia should have taken advantage of its opportunities for even greater export to foreign markets . That’s what was the major topic for the panelists: Dimitrije Čudić, Development Manager of the Opel dealer network; Mladen Alvirović, Sat Media Group; Danijel Kadarjan, Citroen; Petar Stakić, PR manager, Polovniautomobili.com, and the moderator was: Jovana Gligorijević, journalist of “Vreme”.
The panel was then followed by three case studies. In the fist, made by Stevan Labović, director of the company Euro Petrol Trans, he presented a case study “DUAL FUEL systems and their application”. The next case study was named “Marketing and communication strategies in the auto industry,” and it was presented by Aleksandra Nedeljković, Opel Marketing Manager, which was followed by “The Sales techniques in the automotive industry in the digital age,” by Vladimir Jovanović and Minja Bolesnikov, from Ford.
During the second panel, “How to react in global mega-crises?” the panelists were: Dragana Đermanović, PRpepper; Maja Babić, Marketing Manager, Ford, Miroslav Vrcelj, manager of fleet sales, Opel,and the moderator was: Olivera Stefanović Stanković.
At the end of the forum Đorđe Sugaris and Miloš Nikodijević from Autoslavia spoke of vintage cars during their case study “Old-timers as an instrument of promotion”.