Recently, I had a short conversation with Mr. Erol Kiresepi, Chairman of Santa Farma İlaç Sanayii. Mr. Kiresepi mainly lives abroad. He acted as the President of International Organization of Employers (IOE) for 4 years before he was elected as the Honorary President of IOE this year. We talked about both pharmaceutical industry and digital transformation efforts at IOE. Mr. Erol Kiresepi notes that the pandemic affected pharmaceutical companies negatively. “For the first time in the history of modern states, we learned how effectively the world could fight against a pandemic through concerted efforts. Indeed, pharmaceutical companies are at the forefront in this fight and key to success in that respect. Vaccinations which were developed rapidly and Covid-19 drugs which will be launched soon are the most effective weapons in this fight”.
Pharmaceutical companies were affected negatively
Mr. Erol Kiresepi points out that the facts did not accord with the assumptions in this period: “Despite their critical role in the pandemic, pharmaceutical companies were affected more or less negatively by the pandemic in varying degrees based on their product portfolio, contrary to popular opinion. Both global and Turkish companies were affected negatively in a similar manner as pharmaceutical companies incurred sales losses due to the significant drop in the number of patients visiting clinics for routine complaints and the serious decrease in flu and similar contagious diseases which are quite prevalent normally thanks to a number of measures such as face masks, social distancing and hygiene. Significant problems in supply chain, procurement of raw materials and auxiliary materials and serious increases in shipping costs continue to have a negative impact on all companies”.
Employment - training should be integrated into the transformation
My next question was about the activities conducted by IOE for digital transformation… That is because digital transformation heralds a new era for employee-company equilibrium. “Business word undergoes substantial changes as a result of digitalization, growth in digital economy and technological advances. While affecting our lives deeply, digitalization offers opportunities to societies and industries in addition to a number of challenges. This will result in significant changes in the skills and competencies required by the labor market. In return, it is necessary to adapt employment and training to those changes and the transformation in all respects including the adoption of a number of policies which make it possible for enterprises to make full use of the potential of digitalization and create more abundant and better employment opportunities, increase productivity and more sustainable growth through digitalization of economies.”
We made initiatives in Turkey
Mr. Erol Kiresepi goes on to underline that IOE started to focus on transformation during the presidency of Turkey: “IOE considers discussions about digital transformation a fundamental tool for creation of policies by governments, employees and employers in order to make it possible for all to grow. As a matter of fact, during the G20 Presidency of Turkey in 2015, IOE organized a joint workshop with L20 with a view to discussing the implications of digitalization in business worlds in terms of policy making. Digitalization and Future of Business formed the focal point of activities conducted by IOE and we created a special Working Group to promote learning based on collaboration and have a better grasp of the emerging trends. IOE aspires to maintain its role as the indisputable leader of digital transformation and center of information about its effect on business world.”