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W- We will make a conversation with the senior manager of Santa Farma İlaç which is one of the leading domestic pharmaceutical companies with its 75 years of history. Mr Erol Kiresepi, you represent the second generation of Santa Farma as the Chief Executive Officer of the company. Besides, you are the first Turkish national to be elected to the presidency of the International Organisation of Employers. Could you please share the history and significance of this achievement?

E.K.- I’ve spent 43 years of my professional career as an employer. Kiplas marks the beginning of my involvement in organisations of employers. Then, I assumed managerial positions at the Turkish Confederation of Employer Associations for long years. Naturally, I began to attend ILO meetings along with TİSK mission and exchange viewpoints with representatives from international employer and labour organisations as well as governments.

While representing TİSK, I had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with the representatives of the three social constituents of the international industrial relations mechanism. As the years went by, we discovered more about each other which enabled us, the employers, to create a common ground in this international platform.

The fundamental aim of international employer organisations is to support creation of a sustainable socio-economic environment by eliminating unfair competition, abuse of labour, social dumping, discrimination, environmental pollution and, of course, corruption. Indeed, they focus on creating a framework in line with the global principles.

I believe those who are sincerely devoted to those principles are easily distinguished and entrusted with further responsibility.

I accepted the positions offered by B20 Platform. I’m engaged in this platform since 2011. I have represented the global employers in B20 Employment Taskforce meetings. Beginning from 2013, I have represented B20 Employment Taskforce at G20 Employment Working Group and G20 Labour Ministers’ meetings.

Well, let me give some more details about G20:

G20 is an international forum created by the Finance Ministers of G8 countries in 1999 with a view to making financial and economic decisions. It was constituted by 19 countries and the EU representatives. IMF, World Bank and International Labour Organisation (ILO) also enjoy high level representation at each meeting.

Every year, G20 brings developed and developing countries together on an equal-footed platform in order to reinforce international cooperation. The country assuming the presidency hosts the meeting. Turkey hosted G20 meeting in Antalya when it was assigned the presidency in 2015.

Turkish Government assigned me as one of the 7 members of Executive Committee of B20 Turkey which was organized under G20 Turkish Presidency in 2015.

Now, to turn back to my role in international organisations;

Since 2017, I have been acting as the co-president of the Employment and Education Taskforce of the B20 platform which represents the employers at G20 countries.

Currently, I am also acting as the Co-President of B20 “Future of Work and Education Taskforce” that was formed under the G20 Presidency of Saudi Arabia in 2020. And in 2016, I was nominated to the Presidency of International Organisation of Employers (IOE) by the member organisations of European and Middle Asian countries.

I was elected as the President of IOE at the General Meeting held in Geneva in June 2017. I took over the presidency from Daniel Funes de Rioja from Argentina. Founded by global employers in 1920, IOE is the largest global network of the private sector, representing over 50 million enterprises in 157 countries for 100 years. IOE focuses on all socio-economic matters including specifically climate and environmental issues affecting communities. IOE prioritizes resolving all matters through social dialogue.

IOE represents global employers at similar platforms at the United Nations, International Labour Organisation (ILO), G20, G7, relevant EU organisations, World Bank and World Trade Organisation. ILO celebrated its centenary last year. It’s been 100 years since global employers came together to establish ILO and IOE out of their dedication to social dialogue. We have maintained this dedication for 100 years.

Both IOE and ILO are committed to social dialogue for developing effective solutions to domestic and global industrial challenges. In that respect, it is also my personal opinion and priority to resolve problems proactively through social dialogue.

I remain the IOE President. As a Turkish citizen, I’m proud to work for the good of global business world by assuming a managerial role in such an important organisation.

W- Could you please summarize the history of Santa Farma which continues to offer “healthy services to health” as a deep-rooted company which celebrated its 75^th year in 2019?

 

E.K.- The history of Santa Farma goes back to 1944 when my late father, Sami Kiresepi, founded ‘Farma Laboratory’.

The Lab started by manufacturing pesticides, cough drops and syrup and other simple but widely used medicines.

The company took the name Santa Farma following its merger with ‘Santa Laboratory’ in 1946.

The decision of the company to establish a manufacturing plant in 1953 marks its first step towards industrial manufacturing.

The Company changed its name to Santa Farma İlaç Fabrikası Kolektif Şirketi in 1954,

and Santa Farma İlaç Sanayi A.Ş. in 1973.

As years went by, we had to increase our capacity in order to respond to the market conditions and become a powerful actor in export markets.

So, in 2015, we established Santa Farma Drug Manufacturing and R&D Centre which boasts of manufacturing 150 million boxes on a closed space of 44,000 m2 on a total land of 80,000 m2 at GEBKIM Organized Industrial Zone.

Currently, we supply a total of 73 products to 50 different markets.

As it might be inferred from this chronological order, Santa Farma has always made new achievements notwithstanding several domestic and global economic crises which have erupted throughout its history.

We owe this success mainly to the dedication of the first, second and third generations to the founding principles of the company. If you analyse the history of successful domestic and global companies, you will see that this dedication plays a vital role in the sustainability of businesses.

The majority of the well-established companies are known to have been founded as small scale enterprises and continued to grow in time. The founders almost always created the genetic code of their company by constituting corporate values and fundamental principles which somehow reflect the character of those companies. Those values may not necessarily be documented but they are maintained in the form of conventional practices. Yet, Santa Farma is more fortunate because the articles of association which was drafted in its first year underlines its fundamental value, which is “respect for the individual”.

This document is displayed on our walls. And we have not sacrificed this value for 75 years. In parallel with technological developments and digitalization, businesses have to undergo constant change in terms of business methods, management systems, strategies, objectives, and indicators.

This is quite normal because as we all know, the only thing that does not change is change itself.

And yet all corporations have a fundamental identity or a genetic code which always remains the same. This genetic code needs to be discovered and adapted to change and development.

Some new trends may occur in relation to change and development in time. New management models, working styles and methods may come to the fore. Corporations will consider and adopt the ones which are suitable to their values and.

We did the same in our company and adapted our mission, vision and values accordingly.

Let me note that we did not design anything from scratch other than the vision. On the contrary, we made an expedition with our employees in order to discover our values which had always been there to guide our actions and we documented them in order to create our corporate values. Those values turn out to be respect for the individual, openness to development, rational power, and respect for the work, workplace and community.

When it comes to offering “healthy services to health”:

As we focused on discovering our values, we noticed that the existential principle of Santa Farma could be summarized as making the community healthy. And it became apparent that this mission could be accomplished only by forming healthy relations with all stakeholders and engaging in healthy behaviours. And that was what we had done from the beginning.

Hence, we decided to explain our values to our community with a single sentence which is:

Santa Farma Offers ‘Healthy Services to Health’.

Throughout its 75 years’ history, Santa Farma has always acted with due respect towards its employees and stakeholders, taken care to make sound decisions based on knowledge and experience, set its goals according to the available resources and performed its operations as an eco-friendly company making advantage of technological developments.

And it will embrace the future with the same principles but with full dedication to change and development.

In short, adaptation to change by keeping the core values is the key to real success and sustainability.

W- Recently, you have disclosed the 9^th Communication on Progress Report under the United Nations Global Compact. What sort of functions does your company perform in that respect? And will you keep assuming a leading role in the future?

E.K.- Santa Farma undersigned the UN Global Compact on May 26, 2010. Since then, it reports its performance under the 4 pillars of the Global Compact every year.

Hence, we disclose a Communication on Progress Report in order to explain all the activities conducted in relation to Human Rights, Labour, Environment and Anti-Corruption which form the 4 pillars of the United Nations Global Compact.

Those pillars are based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, UN Declarations concerning environment and anti-corruption.  

UN declarations are meant to protect world peace and security and promote economic, social and cultural cooperation at international level. In that respect, other international organisations act in line with those UN declarations in order to promote the same ideals. Since I have been engaged in those organisations for a long period of time, I appreciate the importance of those principles for the good of our communities.  

Therefore, I encourage all corporations, including my business, to comply with the principles and requirements of those declarations.

The Global Compact encourages the business world to protect environment, uphold human rights, prevent corruption and improve labour standards. Indeed, this is what we all must strive to achieve.

Santa Farma performs its operations without damaging environment in its eco-friendly production plant which has been endorsed as a result of several national and international audits. Also, our company is widely known for its respect for its employees and stakeholders.

Our company has been awarded the Respect for Human prize successively for 9 years since 2011. We have never been involved in any anti-corruption case for 75 years and I can assert that this will never happen in the future. We have never tolerated and will never tolerate any discrimination against our employees.

In that respect, we undertake a number of social responsibility projects.

To name a few:

• ‘Don’t Forget Yourself’ project in collaboration with Alzheimer Association


• Funding for day care home with the efforts of our marathon race team.


• ‘Leave a Yellow Note to Life’ project with Viral Hepatitis Control Association. The project was awarded Golden Spider Jury Special Prize.


• Support to forestation projects.

We will continue to carry out similar social responsibility projects in the future. We especially aim to focus on environment and human health.

W- As the doyen of the industry, you once referred to “skills gap as a serious problem for corporations”. What sort of advice would you like to give to the industry?

E.K.- This is not limited to our industry alone. This is the gravest challenge for global economies in our modern world. So, we have to consider the problem and its solution with this in mind. Throughout the history, technological developments resulted in disappearance of certain professions while giving rise to some new professions.

Those periods have always been problematic for communities because such changes almost always led to unemployment. In our modern world, technological progress and inventions are accelerating at an incredible speed.

For instance, the businesses are facing challenges arising from Industry 4.0, digitalization, artificial intelligence and similar changes and progresses.

Employers investing or intending to invest in the new technologies have problems with attracting talents who are competent in those technologies. This is among the fundamental challenges of global economies today.

The joint report issued by ILO and IOE refers to important facts in that respect. The survey conducted for the report reveals that skills gap is a vital problem for corporations. 78% of the business executives believe that the existing educational curricula will be insufficient to meet the requirements of employers. 84% of SMEs expect the curricula to be updated in order to meet their qualified workforce requirements.

As I have already mentioned, the most important problem arising from acceleration of technological progress is, unfortunately, unemployment. This is one of the most important agenda items for international organisations of employers and labour unions.

This was also debated at G20 meetings. The suggestion made by B20 and L20 was to promote “on-the-job training”. Thereupon, Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) under IOE and OECD took action to create the Global Apprenticeship Network (GAN) with the support of ILO in 2013.

GAN Turkey was established by TİSK. The Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services, TİSK, Ministry of National Education and İşkur are its stakeholders.

GAN Turkey has 21 member companies which offer on-the-job training and employment opportunities to the youth and share the best practices at the network. Currently, two on-the-job training methods are applied in Turkey.

The first one is the apprenticeship and occupational training programs organized under the Vocational Training Law (e.g. apprenticeship, internship, skill training and complementary training programs). The wages and other particulars are determined in line with the Vocational Training Law. The second method consists of the on-the-job training programs organized by İşkur. This is a really good program created under employment incentive package. Employers are entitled to benefit from material support provided by İşkur.

Another model is the lifelong learning model.

Lifelong learning is meant to enable everyone to continue learning in all spaces and at all walks of life without any limitation as to schooling, age, status or education level. Although it is not widespread for the time being, the 11^th development plan includes some important projects in that respect. Lifelong learning will form an indispensable part of our life as technological progress gains speed.

On-the-job training and lifelong learning must be upheld by the three actors of the industrial relations mechanism.

The commitment of a single social party will not be sufficient for the success of the project.

W- What sort of lessons should the industry take from the “pandemic”?

E.K.-This is an unprecedented pandemic in terms of its extent and effects. It has affected the socio-economic dynamics in all communities. It is differentiated from the pandemics in the history because it is incredibly infectious.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has become more dramatic because of the high mobility and communication speed at global economies as well as the lack of a conclusive treatment and vaccination.

We should focus on the entire healthcare industry rather than limiting this matter to pharmaceutical industry.

In that respect, pharmaceutical industry is considered to be a strategic industry in the world. Its subject is human and human health while its object is medicine.

It offers services to human beings from the prenatal period till death. It focuses on not only human beings but also all living beings including plants. This industry existed before history and it will be indispensably exist in the future, as well.

By the way, it should be noted that pharmaceutical companies are eventually economic enterprises and they remain subject to the same market conditions along with the other industrial companies. Therefore, they are not immune to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.

The pharmaceutical companies are also susceptible to market conditions and they have no privilege in that respect.

And yet, we are exceptional in that unlike other companies, we have to remain operational even if we do not make profits because of our obligation to serve the health of the society.

We need to include the pharmaceutical companies in the list of those which postpone their profitability expectations and endeavour to survive in the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic.

Of course, the pandemic carries important messages for not only the pharmaceutical industry but also the entire community including all other industries. I sincerely hope that everyone learned the lesson by heart.

The most important point is that the pandemic has led us to question the 30-year-old globalization trend which started in 1990. China, a major player in the global economy, sustained a serious loss of trust among manufacturers. All manufacturers including pharmaceutical industry began to search for alternative solutions to the global supply chain of which China used to be the main player. In that respect, manufacturers started to analyse potential locations which are close to or even inside the national boundaries. Also, companies are now questioning the just-in-time (JIT) policy which used to be indispensable before the pandemic.

This trend is truly significant for the pharmaceutical industry.

With this pandemic, it has become apparent that the pharmaceutical industry must always be prepared for potential pandemics. Covid-19 has obliged pharmaceutical companies to review their product ranges against a potential new pandemic. Pharmaceutical companies will inevitably increase their R&D investments from now on.

All countries throughout the world have dramatically appreciated the importance of medical materials and equipment in maximizing protection of health condition and facilitating medical treatments. This has also become a strategic investment field for the world.

As the pandemic made us question the globalization, almost all countries including EU states tend to focus on nationalization as part of their socio-political agenda. Indeed, there are debates about repositioning industrial manufacturing centres within the borders of individual countries.

Nationalization may, on the other hand, give rise to increasing governmental control and intervention. This tendency has a grave importance in these days. That is because the fair distribution methods have already become a hot debate point in parallel with the progress on vaccination and treatment studies.

Ethics has emerged as an important agenda item in healthcare.

Developed countries have already contracted with pharmaceutical companies for potential vaccinations and medications. Yet, it is still ambiguous what shall be done to enable the developing countries to have access to vaccination and medication programs.

There are some medical authorities which argue that this requires public planning. This is why we need to focus on governmental intervention which may arise from nationalization trend.

Another suggestion is to form an impartial scientific organisation such as WHO’s GISRS (global influenza surveillance and response system) in order to create distribution plans for Covid19 vaccines and medications. The basic message of pandemic is that we have to stop ruining ecological balance.

On May 2, 2020, the World Health Organization confirmed that this is a virus of natural origin. This implies that there might be other viruses of natural origin.

These are the last warnings to make us take responsibility for nature. All communities must take notice of this warning and take action accordingly.

W- Erol Bey, we are grateful to you for sharing your viewpoint with us as our doyen.