Procurement & Supply Chain | Atlantic Grupa

I would have liked if, despite all the difficulties, we had been able to maintain the financial performance from that earlier period, but unfortunately this was not possible due to our intention not to pass on all cost increases to our customers and consumers.

We certainly wish to return to the results that we regularly achieved over the year to come, hoping that the market circumstances and supply market conditions will allow us to do so.

Speaking of those ‘years to come’, what are your overriding ambitions looking forward?

When we formed Central Procurement a little more than 15 years ago, we set ourselves the goal of becoming one of the best procurement organisations in Central-Eastern Europe over the next 10 years.

In 2015, in the middle of that timeframe, according to the criteria set by the European Institute of Purchasing Management (EIPM) based in France, we were pronounced the purchasing organisation of the year in all of Europe. External awards and recognitions are always important, but it is equally important how our own company perceives us as a purchasing organisation - how much trust it has in it and how satisfied it is with the business support and the realisation of business requirements.

What motivates us most is the fact that this trust in our purchasing organisation has not been lost even during the period of the past three years where the entire company has been operating in extremely challenging circumstances, and when the bottom-line results of the company could not be secured at previously familiar levels. This trust of the company and its management motivates us hugely, and obliges us to continue working and developing even faster and more dynamically in the future.

We enjoy the responsibility, as a purchasing organisation, of building and developing a procurement function based on positive, equal and inclusive values. Moreover, we enjoy the responsibility of being an important differentiator within the wider company – a differentiator that creates visible added value for the Group and its customers.