We are grateful to our teams for their commitment and willingness to do more together to achieve good results
According to all parameters, the year 2020 was very challenging for the entire society, and especially for the economy. We asked Gordana Brašić, President of Henkel Serbia and Head of HR Sub-cluster South, how Henkel coped with these conditions, whether the company had achieved satisfactory results and what the plans for the next period.
How did the coronavirus pandemic affect your business in 2020? What were the biggest challenges and how did you overcome them?
Henkel Serbia is a large system consisting of various types of business, separate locations and numerous brands, some of which were categorized as strategically important during the pandemic. The biggest challenge was to quickly and safely reorganize our operations, to protect our factory workers and organize remote work for those employees whose nature of the job allows remote work, and then to ensure business continuity and supply both on the Serbian market and 40 markets worldwide. We succeeded in all this thanks to the good cooperation of our crisis team and the understanding and support of the employees.
What results did Henkel achieve in the very challenging year that was 2020 in Serbia?
All parameters show that we can be satisfied with the achieved results. We are grateful to our teams for their commitment and willingness to do more together to achieve good results. We have managed to overcome all challenges, and export over 90 percent of our production output. Thanks to increased production and accomplished results, we ranked 7th among the largest exporters in Serbia in 2020.
You managed to give your support to the health care system in Serbia. Could you tell us a bit more about your donations and CSR projects?
Helping the community in emergencies is part of our commitment to social responsibility. During the pandemic, thanks to our solidarity programme, we were able to help the frontline medical staff in solving a global problem. In cooperation with the Novak Djoković Foundation, we gave five ventilators and five clinical monitors to the General Hospital in Kruševac. We also donated hygiene products and protective equipment. In addition to this hospital, we donated products to the Gerontology Centre in Belgrade, the Pulmonology Clinic in Belgrade and the Health Centre in Indjija. We also helped our senior citizens with the lowest incomes by donating goods to the Red Cross in Belgrade and Kruševac. The total value of these donations exceeds 480,000 euro. We are especially proud that, in 2020, we continued to implement our corporate volunteering programme – the Make an Impact on Tomorrow Initiative, in which employees independently apply for a project to help the local community and volunteer to take part in it, while the company gives them necessary resources to do so. In 2020, a total of 16 projects, worth more than 57,000 euro, were submitted. “
“Thanks to increased production and accomplished results, we ranked 7th among the largest exporters in Serbia in 2020”
Although we had to change our plans due to the pandemic and give up on realizing some of our ideas, all our business sectors found a way to continue to help the community. Thus, the business unit Laundry & Home Care Chemicals implemented the project called “I love the river, do you?”, Thanks to which 650kg of waste was removed from Lake Ćelije, Gradsko Jezero (Town Lake) in Bela Crkva, Zavojsko Jezero (Zavojsko Lake) and Ada Ciganlija. The Adhesive Technologies business unit continued to assist the Novak Djokovic Foundation in building and adapting kindergartens throughout Serbia, and the Beauty Care business unit also got involved in resolving the problem of waste in our rivers and lakes and in cooperation with Delhaize Serbia, cleaned Zaovinsko Lake on the Tara Mountain.
What are Henkel’s plans for the Serbian market in 2021?
Last year, despite all the challenges, we managed to build and put into operation a new factory in Kruševac, which is a valuable investment thanks to which we expect that our company’s contribution to the GDP of Serbia in 2021 will amount to 0.35 percent. Given our expert team, efficiency in implementing plans and the ability to implement state-of-the-art technologies under the auspices of Industry 4.0, our Kruševac production plant has been recognized as one of the best in the entire system and we expect Henkel Group to invest further in developing production locations in Serbia.