Dewaele has spent 25 years with US giant P&G’s international offices, but Romania is the only country where he has returned for a second term in office.
He came back to Bucharest in December 2012 after 15 years and says almost nothing is as it used to be in 1998: wastelands have turned into districts of villas or blocks of apartments, while small convenience stores have been replaced by supermarkets and malls mushroomed.
“I am in full process of rediscovering Romania. I first came here in ’94 and stayed for four years.”
Dewaele is vice-president of P&G for markets in the Balkan region, and runs the operations from Bucharest, with Romania being the leading market out of a total of eight, which also include Bulgaria, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo.
“As I left the airport I was in for a big surprise. The city had changed radically. The northern part of the city developed strongly – when I left there was only wasteland. In the Baneasa airport area there was nothing. Now there emerged Baneasa Shopping City.”
In addition, modern stores developed by international retailers replaced traditional convenience stores.
He notes the economy has developed during the time he was gone, investors came, buildings were either renovated or rebuilt from scratch.
“Now it is much more apparent that Bucharest is a beautiful city.”
P&G officially entered the Romanian market in 1993 and one year later opened its first office in the Balkan area.
Dewaele is one of the first employees that P&G brought to Romania to set up the local business. His role was to decide the marketing strategies, i.e. to choose the product categories that P&G would launch on the market. Today P&G has several tens of brands for several product categories, the leading ones being personal care products, products for children, and laundry products, which contribute 80% to the overall business.
The company currently has around 1,000 employees in Romania, who work both at the company’s HQ, at the shared services center and at the two plants in Urlati and Timisoara.
Objectives of his new mandate
For his new mandate running operations in the Balkans – a region that includes Romania – the manager plans faster growth than in previous years.
‘There is still room for growth because people don’t use enough detergent and not all use [disposable] diapers. This is where the potential comes from.” He doesn’t provide growth rates for 2013 or for 2012, but says the turnover of P&G grew in Romania last year.
In 2011 P&G Distribution, the company that accounts for the bulk of the turnover of the US giant, had a turnover of EUR296 million from EUR301 million in the previous year.
The US giant owns several companies in Romania, as well as two plants in Timisoara and Urlati.
“I don’t want to change the direction of the business, just to look for new opportunities and build on the existing foundation,” he says.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)