Merchandise transportation in 2008. Directions and challenges

Romania’s joining to the EU in 2007 led to new challenges for the road transportation operators. The authorizations problem doesn’t exist any more, but problems related to the management of the transportation companies appeared. These companies must find rapidly solutions for keeping the labor force and for a more efficient activity, especially by developing the provided services.

The fact that, on the Romanian market already appeared important transportation companies from the neighboring countries, who are transferring trucks in Romania in order to use the Romanian labor force paid at national standards, has created numerous dysfunctions on the labor market in this domain.

However, the lack of any minimum conditions for registering in the Operator’s Transportation Registry, determined the increase of the small operators’ number, with one-two trucks.

The idea of coaching has started to appear, even implementing in daily agitated companies’ lives, no matter if big, medium or small. There are different articles, TV shows, books debating even creating a media event on this theme. Indeed, it has a long time since is practiced and has good results “over the borders”. But human reticence makes us wonder: why coaching?

In actual fact this so-called reticence hides its dose of pragmatism: why choosing to invest enormous amounts of money in our employees? They really deserve this financial effort?

Ascent Group started recently a cooperation with the prestigious magazine Tonica (www.tonica.ro). Starting with the next editions of the magazine the HR department consultants of Ascent Group will publish opinions on topics related to career, presentation and communication skills, time management, work relationship management, employee motivation and many others.

The cooperation with Tonica magazine is a confirmation of the quality of Ascent Group consultant’s opinions and we hope that our articles will be appreciated by the magazine’s readers.

According to a recent study of the National Health Insurance Institution, IT experts stop paying the contribution to the health insurance, the contribution being paid by the employer. However, the employees will have free medical services, on the basis of a certificate from the employer.

This stipulation is part of a series of fiscal facilities for developing the IT industry.

According to the same stipulation the certificate that proves the quality of insured person for all the employees, will be released for the future by the National Health Insurance and not by the employer, as it happens now.

The National Agency of Fiscal Administration has decided that, starting with January the 1st 2008, taxes, contributions and other amounts owed by the tax payers to the general budget, are to be paid into a unique account.

The tax payers will use two payment orders for the State’s treasury, one for the obligations due to the state’s budget and the second, for the other obligations.

The amounts owed to the State’s budget will be paid into the unique account 20.47.01.01, and the fiscal debts to the social insurance budgets and to the special funds, into the unique account 55.02.

Every payment, for every tax, contribution and on other amounts owed to the general budget will be made distinctly.

National Bank of Romania (BNR) recently took the decision of increasing the interest with 0.5% , thus reaching up to 8%. According to specialists, this decision will have reduced effects on short term, including on the currency. But a new 0.25% increase is expected in February.

The interest increase will not influence the currency appreciation, but it can influence its depreciation and shows that BNR has decided to take measures to reach its inflation target.

One more year just passed by, our first year as citizens of the European Union, and as in any moment of evaluation we look back and try to understand what brought us the year that just passed, but specially we look into the future and try to understand what changes the next year will bring us.

2007 was our first European year, a year with many changes but also with many confusions. Many reforms were started, but unfortunately many others were slowed down.

The changes that the companies policies related to salaries will undergo in 2008, not only will attract and retain the employees, but they will also increase their loyalty.

This all happens due to continuous expansion of the companies, the increased deficit of personnel, and the increased personnel fluctuation (in 2007, the voluntary personnel fluctuation increased to 21% compared to 15.9% in 2006).

It is estimated that, in case the level of inflation will continue to increase in 2008, the salaries will also rise up to 15%.

In 2008, the average values of salaries increases for top management positions will be between 10% and 15%, for executive positions up to 11%, while the salaries for unqualified positions will rise up to 25%, because of the increase of the minimum salary.

Besides these increases, employers become more and more inventive in granting benefices in order to keep their employees’ loyalty:

After joining the European Union the Romanian State is forced to invest in the development of the railways infrastructure, by creating high speed railways that would unite Greece to the rest of the Europe.

The two European railways corridors that cross Romania are corridor IV, which makes the connection between Germany and Greece, and corridor IX, between Finland and Greece, their total length being almost 10.000 km.

The rehabilitation of the 2.000 km of railway in Romania, which will be part of the European railway system, will require over 10 billion Euro of investment, the goal being to reach a speed of maximum 140km/h in the case of trains for passengers and to respect the UE safety standards.

After the meeting between the Trade Unions, Employers Unions and the representatives of the Government that took place on Monday, to which the Minister of Labor and Family Paul Pacuraru, and the Minister of Economy and Finances, Mr. Varujan Vosganian took part, it was decided that starting with January 2008 Romania will have a unique minimum salary.

Therefore, starting with January the 1st 2008, according to the Government’s decision, the value of the minimum salary will be 500 lei. In case that the main indicators on which the State’s budget is built, respectively the Gross National Product, the inflation, and the level of the labor’s productivity are fulfilled, starting with July 2008 the minimum salary, at a national level, will be 540 lei.

Trade Unions and Employers Unions agreed to continue the negotiations regarding the additional act to the national collective labor agreement, for establishing the salary levels.

2008 promises to be a year full of surprises and innovations in the fiscal domain, at least this is what the Ministries of Economy and Finance that thought of a true economic revolution, promise us. Everything started since 2007, when the Government canceled all the company’s fiscal debts until January the 1st 2007, thus beginning a new stage, which, they hope it will be more productive. This Reform is called “Fiscal Amnesty”, and its main purpose is to help and promote the companies that cannot function normally because of the debts to the State’s budget. The purpose is to develop the local business environment, but also to increase the main economic indicators, thus creating the premises for attracting local and foreign investments.

Ascent Group became partner of Consulting Review magazine, publication dedicated to answer the needs of information, documentation and professional improvement in business felt by all the investors and managers in Romanian.

Starting with December, Ascent Group consultants will answer to the questions addressed by the readers of the magazine; respectively they will offer solutions on accounting, tax, legal and labor issues.

The selection of Ascent Group as partner of the Consulting Review magazine is an additional proves for the quality of the service our group tries to provide for its clients.

The National Institute of Statistics elaborated the revised version of the Classification List of the Activities within the National Economy (CAEN), in order to be compatible with the European classification list. The changes will apply starting with January the 1st 2008.

Thus, the activities within the national economy will be classified according to a new structure, compatible with the EU standards. The new codes system will be applicable within the EU, and Romanian companies will be able to take part in any European auction. Good news for the companies is that they will have much more options to register within different domains of economy.

Continuous personnel formation is a deeper and deeper need felt by any company our days. It represents not only an investment in people, but also a very useful tool to become more efficient, to solve easier the multitude of tasks we have to face every day, and not last, an important motivation factor for our employees.

Ascent Group is your partner in the process of personal and professional development of your employees, because, first of all, the value of a company is given by the value of its people.

Ascent Group brings a modern vision to the learning process, by emphasizing the benefits of “learning by doing” through exercises, role-plays and behavioral modeling. Our training programs have an interactive approach, are personalized and addressed to each client’s unique demands, to their visions and organizational objectives.

Until getting into the deeps of training area from a trainer perspective, I was many years in row a training participant. My luck – and now yours as a user of Ascent Group’s services – is that my first impressions on training were exceptional and the experiences I have been through and which are the basis of my trainer preparation were special, spectacular, and kind of life-changing! I have oriented towards this area because at that time I understood how great is to be a trainer, how you could change people’s lives, their interpersonal relationships but with themselves also, how you could help them become more for themselves and the environment they live their personal and professional life, and being aware of the long and troublesome road I have to travel.

When talking about the possibility of investing in the Republic of Moldova, there’s a first question that appears: How complicated, certain and advantageous is to place money in a country that finds itself in a process of economic transition?

A research made by World Bank and International Finance Corporation tried to answer this question, study that analyzed 178 economies in the world, including the economy of the Republic of Moldova, from the business environment point of view. Doing Business 2008 places Moldova on the 92nd place, a favorable position compared to the majority of the countries from Eastern Europe, being followed by Azerbaijan (96th place), Belarus (106th place) and Ukraine (139th place).

Ascent Group intends to expand it’s the territorial network in 2008 by opening new branches. Within our expansion plans for next year we included the opening of 2 offices in Romania, in Timisoara and Brasov, by March 2008. Regarding the expansion abroad, our main target goes on Serbia, Russia and Ukraine. Our regional development plans are based on the opening of own offices or in association with local partners, already existent consulting companies.

Currently Ascent Group has a network of 5 offices: Bucharest and Arad in Romania, Chisinau in the Republic of Moldova, Sofia in Bulgaria and Limassol in Cyprus.

Recently, I have participated at a start course in NLP (neuro–linguistic programming). For those unfamiliar with this term, I could give one of the „definitions”, sustaining that NLP: “is the applied amount of psychology knowledge, research of mind and language, and makes possible the teaching and learning of success communication and of thinking and action oriented towards objectives for personality development.”

I can also tell you it was quite an experience that I enjoyed a lot and has proved I do not know myself that well as previously considering. It has determined to ask myself about my own person and to realize that knowing me is a laborious process, but worth every penny.

One of Ascent Group’s main concerns was always the improvement of the quality for the services we offer. This is the reason why our group has always carefully chosen top partners in all the fields of its activity.

November marks the launching in Romania of an elite company in the field of human resources services, mainly executive search, through an association between Jordan Sheppard and Ascent Group.

Jordan Sheppard is a multinational company in the field of human resources, who has chosen to launch its activity in Romania through an association with Ascent Group. The result of this partnership is Jordan Sheppard Romania.

Last week, the 2nd edition of Ascent Group Business Forum took place in Chisinau. Important moment for us. Important moment for many of the companies who attended trying to identify business partners.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that the event was also treated very seriously by the officials of the Republic of Moldova.

I saw a very professional Minister of Economy and Commerce, Igor Dodon, who had the patience to explain to investors what are the changes in the legislation and how those will influence the economic environment of the Republic of Moldova starting next year, I saw a Vice-President of the Parliament, Iurie Rosca, who is struggling for many years to attract foreign investors into the country and a very young Mayor of Chisinau, Dorin Chirtoaca, trying to offer guaranties to the foreign investors.

Nowadays, employers together with employees confront themselves with the so-called issue of “personnel fluctuation”. Has become such an ordinary problem that we have begun to ignore it. Actually, this seeming indifference is a way of “defending” ourselves against the phenomena we do not know.

Certainly, the personnel fluctuation is a phenomenon that is extending every day. What could affect more severely, within a company, than one employee’s resignation or even more? Are we fully aware of the costs that are emphasized by this “quitting”? Much more, the negative impact they have on the other employees?

The success of the first Ascent Business Forum edition from last year, in Chisinau, determined us to continue this project that we wish to transform into a tradition. Last year, over 25 companies from Romania, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Germany, and the USA joined an idea of which we, Ascent Group, are very fond of: developing the foreign investments and intensifying the business relations in the Republic of Molova.

This year’s edition of the Ascent Business Forum will take place in the Republic of Moldova, in Chisinau, during 8th–9th of November, at the Jolly Alon Hotel. Ascent Group invites all the companies interested in the business opportunities offered by the Republic of Moldova, to take part in this forum.

Ascent Group consultants have joint together last week (08/30–09/01) in Sibiu for the 3rd “Annual meeting” of the company. The meeting was attended by all the consultants of the company from the Bucharest, Arad and Chisinau offices.

The addressed topics were the strategy of the company for the next years, regional expansion and strategic partnerships.

During the meeting training modules were held, such as: “Communication skills”, “Clients relationship management” and “Team-building”. Not last, during the meeting, working groups on consulting departments were organized.

Due to the late political and economic evolutions, the Republic of Moldova becomes more and more attractive to foreign investors. The foreign investments in the Republic of Moldova recorded an important increase in 2007, compared to 2006. The Vice-president of the Moldavian Legislative, Iurie Rosca assures that the Republic of Moldova is open to the cooperation with the foreign businessmen and has the ambition of becoming a truly functional economy.

The territorial Network of Ascent Group includes, besides the offices from Romania, (Bucharest and Arad) also offices in Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Republic of Moldova and Chisinau.

Daniela Ostafe, former coordinator of the Accounting and Finance department of Ascent Group in Bucharest was recently promoted as member of the Board of Ascent Group Romania (where the other members are Adela Cristea and Marcel Chiscan). In this position Daniela will coordinate the whole financial and accounting activity of the group in Romania.

Daniela joined the team of Ascent Group since 2005 having 5 of years experience in the fiscal and economic field, gathered in companies like Prisma and Archimedes Consulting Group.

Daniela graduated the Economic and Business Administration Faculty, with a degree in Accounting.