2021 was a year of challenges and opportunities for BASF Romania, with ‘good growth’ despite the supply chain issues.
“The global pandemic was and still is affecting our businesses, our families, and our personal way of life. Also, there were many challenges in the supply chains. We had also to continue our path into more digitalization and developing our sustainability roadmap further. This is a challenge, but of course a great opportunity and we took over leadership in many of these areas – most important our team. They managed the situations with a growth mindset,” Andreas Lier, CEO of BASF Romania told The Diplomat-Bucharest.
“For 2022 we see growth, the demand on a good level and an ongoing trend towards sustainable solutions.”
COMMITMENT TO PERFORMANCE | BUSINESS EVOLUTION, PROJECTS, PERFORMANCE, FIGURES
“The year 2021 was a year of challenges and opportunities. First, it was driven by the recovery of the economy in Europe and for our company particular in Romania. As BASF – with our broad portfolio and interaction with almost all value chains – we feel the pulse of the country and the industry. And the heartbeat became stronger and faster this year. But we also felt the challenges at our customers, mainly supply chains issues for example created due to general raw material supply issues and for example in the automotive sector not always sufficient availability of semiconductors, created this year problems at OEM’s and on Tier level. There was a good growth this year, but it could have been much better without all these supply issues. In Q3 and Q4 the Corona Pandemic return challenged again our company and customers with more home office and less physical customer visits. To summarize, all in all it was a good year for the company.”
STRATEGY & VISION | RETHINK STRATEGY & PRIORITIES
“The global pandemic was and still is affecting our businesses, our families, and our personal way of life. Also, there were many challenges in the supply chains. We had also to continue our path into more digitalization and developing our sustainability roadmap further. This is a challenge, but of course a great opportunity and we took over leadership in many of these areas – most important our team. They managed the situations with a growth mindset. We are very grateful to our team, how they coped along the challenges and opportunities – with a caring heart and solidarity – with flexibility – with resilience – with courage, passion, and dedication!
The safety of our employees and the safety of customers and partners is of utmost importance; business continuity is key as well as long-term sustainable growth. In focus, is to support our customers, customer centricity and partners, prioritizing open collaboration, based on empathy, respect and feedback. The development of the business and customer centricity with “enablers” like digitalization, sustainability actions and activities, a good and pragmatic advocacy and development of our team is in focus.”
PEOPLE & COMMUNITY | FOCUS ON SAFETY, SOCIAL APPROACH, LEVERAGE THE POWER OF COMMUNITY
“We are engaged in many various social responsibility projects traditionally for many years now. In 2021 we kicked off a very close heart project which consists in also identifying and supporting young entrepreneurs and young business leaders. The project is called “BASF Innovation Hub 2021” and consists in identifying, rewarding, and establishing a bilateral discussion with the most innovative start-ups in Romania. This year’s Romanian winner was the start-up EcoTree – the cloud platform solution that makes recycling easy as everything is transparent and clear. The contest aimed to reward the most innovative start-up that either directly or indirectly contribute to the pillars of EU Green Deal agenda – clean energy, sustainable agriculture, and circular economy. The winner was elected in a live event organized on zoom.”
KEEN ON GREEN | SUSTAINABLE, GREENER, COMMUNITY & ENVIRONMENTALLY-FOCUS
“An important topic is the EU Green Deal which took over more and more the agenda setting in all areas. Sustainability, circular economy, new forms of energy became much more in focus for now and will completely redesign our future. The right political measures are important to ensure competitiveness during and after this transition. In particular, there is urgent need to ensure that cheap and sufficient renewable energy will be available to make the EU Green Deal a success. It needs to be ensured, that the electrification of industry and other sectors will happen in such way that global competitiveness is guaranteed, and consumers are able to pay the renewables. To support our customers on their way into a sustainable future is BASF main commitment. We conducted already many meetings and workshops with partners and customers this year to guide them and were very much appreciated. All this requires innovations! And as BASF we started for example this year encouraging innovating start-ups to participate in our BASF Innovation Hub 2021 contest, to present their innovation and discover new opportunities to scale up their businesses. Winning company had also financial rewards and chance to compete against best start-ups in the Central East Europe Grand Finale.”
DIGITAL DNA | Grasping tech, digital innovation, customer -driven, building new bridges
“We developed various tailormade tools and apps for specific tasks in our company and became more digital in everything we do. We started to implement digital leadership and trainings in online tools and build up the digital mindset.
For 2022 we see growth, the demand on a good level and an ongoing trend towards sustainable solutions.”
2021 IN 3 KEY WORDS OR MORE
“Coming back to business and more normal life, supported by a strong recovery of the economy and vaccination strategy.
The excellent collaboration with our customers and partners.
Our team and their competencies – driving the business, developing new sustainable opportunities and the great collaboration with partners and customers!
For me personally also my new role as AHK President was a highlight – I am looking forward in 2022 with the Chairman of AHK, Sebastian Metz, the Board and the AHK team to further develop the bilateral business relations and support our members of the Chamber and partners.”
2022 IN 3 KEY WORDS OR MORE
“Will be most likely a good growth year – with challenges and opportunities – we embrace challenges and work along opportunities.
Vaccinate – vaccinate – vaccinate and encourage others to do so – otherwise we will never come out of the COVID19 Pandemic.
Looking optimistic into the new year because this will be a new year of personal, team and company growth while looking forward to maintain the right balance in life, stay healthy, optimistic and be grateful!”
