In order to cut costs by three million euros, without resorting to marketing or personnel cutbacks, Tuborg beer producer United Romanian Breweries Bereprod (URBB) will no longer organise parties for employees, has capped petrol consumption by managers, dropped expensive suppliers and replaced long hours with bonuses. "We will not drop advertising. It is a must have because we live off brands. People are also part of this category, because it took us a long time to build the team and we don't want to give it up," states Shachar Shaine, 41, who runs the over 93 million-euro business a year from his position as president.
United Romanian Breweries Bereprod, which makes Tuborg, Skol and Carlsberg beer brands has created a plan to cut costs by 2.5-3 million euros especially on the production segment, without affecting the marketing budget that the beer producer continues to consider a priority.
Shachar Shaine, URBB president explains that, during a crisis, there are two types of expenses: 'must have' and 'nice to have'. Whereas URBB's president puts advertising investments and keeping the team together in the 'must have' category, the 'nice to have' list has been expanding gradually since the beginning of the year.
One of the things that the company stopped this year is the corporate party. "We used to have a corporate party every year on June 1. Now we only gave a small gift to the employees' kids and a card," he says.
This is but one of the steps taken to cut costs.
"We have focused on efficiency. The sales, supply and factory departments are now working better together. We are planning production much more carefully, using only what's really necessary," URBB president said.
Whereas the workers at the beer factory worked even Saturdays and Sundays during the summer months of last year, they worked only 10% of the weekends in 2009.
"We created a bonus system to replace long hours. If they manage to produce more than they usually do during a shift, the employees get 20-25% of their base salary, which is 1,800 RON," says Shachar Shaine.
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