Omnibus on Business That Has No Time for Another Three Years of ‘Pimpling’

I love omnibus films. It’s when three or four shorter films are combined into one film that may or may not have a stronger connection.

For this issue of Lider, marking the eighth year of its publication, I will allow myself an omnibus column. Four seemingly unrelated stories that, when put together, provide a vivid picture of the current economic and business moment in Croatia.
Autumn is a time for conferences, annual meetings, symposiums… on the business scene, among other things. As much as social networks and teleconferences are becoming more and more a part of the average entrepreneur’s or manager’s daily life, the need for human beings (yes, yes, businesspeople are included in that group) to meet in person is growing stronger.

Four Events in Ten Days By coincidence, I was involved in four such live events in ten days. Besides the invaluable experience of being face-to-face with someone with whom correspondence has lasted for months, the exchange of business cards from hand to hand, rather than via email, carries much greater weight. The messages and experiences that can be heard at lectures or round tables fall into the category of what is called lifelong learning.
Sometimes it’s just about articulating what one feels, but sometimes entirely new dimensions truly open up at such gatherings, which then result in what guarantees survival – innovation.
The Weekend Media Festival was first held in Rovinj. The organizers seem to want to enter the business content sector, not just media, so they invited Miodrag Kostić, the ‘Serbian sugar king’ (MK Group), and Zvonimir Mršić, the CEO of Podravka, to see if there is anything to the merging of food and other companies in the region. And can the region become the second Benelux, as Ivica Todorić recently wished in an interview with Slavko Goldstein? The conclusion: there is nothing from the voluntary merger of MK Group, Agrokor, Vitaminka, Atlantik, Podravka, Viktorija… Ownership interests are too strong. But consolidation must happen. In translation, it’s when the stronger waits for the weaker to completely weaken before they can be taken over. It turns out that the worst will be for industries where there are no distinctly strong and distinctly weak companies. They will struggle for a long time, and then some multinational will come and pick them all up or sweep them away.

Revealing Input and Output Analysis A few days later, marking 45 years of production in Croatia, Coca-Cola held a business forum where the results of a study were presented, showing that the company contributes 0.7 percent to Croatia’s GDP today. And one job at Coca-Cola secures another 12 jobs. Younger participants at the forum were thrilled with the method that shows the interdependence of sectors in the national economy. For us older ones, it was clear how much was abolished in the transition that smelled of socialism. Even input and output analyses, which were once the basis for social planning. Let’s hope that the understanding of how the parts of the national economy are interdependent finally returns to Croatia! Well, we needed a multinational to nationalize our awareness…
Two days later, the largest and most prestigious Lider conference, the fifth edition of the Days of Great Plans. A big thank you to Deputy Prime Minister Branko Grčić for his optimistic speech. And that is needed! But the main denominator of the gathering, which was unanimously rated as excellent, is the business community’s stance – just give us that shock therapy already! A quantum leap, as Ivica Mudrinić, the current head of HUP, somewhat diplomatically calls it. Business has no time for another three years of ‘pimpling’. It demands that politics stop counting who will vote for the current government in the next elections and who won’t. Cut the cat’s tail to the necessary length all at once, not ten times a little!
Nikica Valentić’s performance was particularly impressive. He didn’t say much about how the largest parties should behave, but what he did say – I endorse (detailed information about the Days of Great Plans and Coca-Cola’s forum can be found in the printed edition…).
And finally, this week’s Macroeconomic Outlook from Hypo Bank. Hrvoje Stojić predicts a decline of 0.7 percent next year. Either he is tired of guessing bleak forecasts or there are indeed signs that the recession is approaching zero.
Conclusion? Can you, loyal readers, conclude for once in eight years and add the last paragraph on www.liderpress.hr?
(By the way, of course, we congratulate you who have been with us for eight years or since someone discovered us. Thank you for proving that we are on the right editorial path!)