Adopting a data-centric

Adopting a data-centric, digital-first approach

Alina Gamauf, HR, CSR & Corporate Affairs Board Member at Carrefour Romania, sat down with Business Review to discuss the digitalization of the company’s HR department and explain how Carrefour contributes to the development of a new generations of leaders.

By Anda Sebesi

How important is digitalization for HR departments in general and how has Carrefour Romania implemented it so far? What is the added value of digitalization in your HR department?

At Carrefour, we have an innovative mindset and we apply technical solutions to all business areas. Innovation is part of our strategic vision. An important part, of course, is applying such solutions to our relationship with customers, providing them with streamlined and improved experiences across all points of contact with us, whether in store or online. And alongside its customer centricity, Carrefour is also defined by its wonderful team.

As such, it is important for us to support our colleagues in every way we can, and digitalization plays a key role here. We are part of an industry where things are happening very quickly, and the HR team helps us find the best tools to support our colleagues in their daily activity and their development. That’s why digital transformation in HR has become a priority for us, and it is also in line with our group-level strategy, announced in November 2021, which is built on a “data-centric, digitalfirst” approach.

My team and I analysed all of the company’s HR processes and we launched several projects in order to ensure a simplified employee experience, from recruitment and onboarding to learning opportunities and annual performance reviews.

For example, in November 2020 we launched Ema, a simple and user-friendly chatbot interface that automates recruitment processes. We were among the first companies in Romania to invest and implement this type of digital solution, anticipating an important trend. We are constantly updating the tool in order to bring it in line with the needs of both hiring managers and candidates. The latest update, which was implemented at the beginning of this year, brought an improved user experience¬—from intuitive conversations on our career page to a better control of the process so that all our candidates receive feedback, whether positive or negative, and even other job recommendations based on their profiles.

Last year we implemented the Carrefour Explorer virtual onboarding programme, designed to ensure a simple and complete experience for our employees from their very first day of working at the company. It is an intuitive, user-friendly platform that our employees can use to find out everything about our culture, organisational chart, useful con-

ABOUT

Alina Gamauf HR, CSR & Corporate Affairs Board Member at Carrefour Romania

Alina has extensive experience in HR, both locally and internationally, having worked in countries such as Austria, Germany, and Italy, where she coordinated teams and initiated projects that consolidated the department's role in the business growth strategy. Alina joined Carrefour at the beginning of 2021, supporting the improvement of internal processes and the transformation of working modes, aligning them with business requirements and colleagues’ needs.

tacts, ongoing projects, and general employee benefits. In addition, all our new colleagues receive an email with a welcome video from the company's top management. The first day at Carrefour, the first impression, the first feeling of being part of the team are all important to us. We are constantly updating the content of the platform, so that our colleagues find all the information they need throughout their entire journey at Carrefour.

With the pandemic in a visible regression, what do you think the new ways of working will look like in the future?

Carrefour Romania is represented by 17,000 colleagues, of which only 5 percent are located in our headquarters, as everyone has the option of working from home. I believe that working remotely for a long period of time might affect one’s sense of belonging to an organisational culture and, more importantly, that colleagues start to feel disconnected from each other and miss the interpersonal connection, which can affect their creativity. On the other hand, remote means more flexibility: less time commuting translates to more time with family, friends, and hobbies, and choosing where you work from means having more control over your environment.

An important priority of our HR team in 2022 will be to support organisational and cultural change in business by continuously investing in digital HR, but also by finding the right way to involve colleagues in defining the new ways of working.

There is no single right approach; this is why last year we launched an internal survey to understand our colleagues’ views, and the majority said hybrid should be the new way of working. We are continuously adapting our tools to the current needs of our employees and we focus on keeping an open communication to make sure that everyone is aligned with the company strategy.

A signature Carrefour platform is SWOW, the personal efficiency compass, designed to respond to the new ways of working. SWOW is an interactive guide to hybrid working, where you can access information about things like team rituals (for better collaboration), good practices for physical and mental well-being or available tools for remote working. It has come in handy particularly in recent times, when remote or hybrid working have become mainstream. The platform was implemented in 2020, very well received by our colleagues, and extended to the group level as well. We are always updating the content, especially that related to rituals, so that our colleagues enjoy each day at Carrefour. We are currently working in a hybrid manner and this will likely remain the new “normal”.

What are some current expectations and challenges for an HR specialist in this almost fully digitalized work environment?

We are on the right path from a digital perspective. All our initiatives in this regard have a clear purpose: to help our colleagues enjoy the experience of each HR process, increase their engagement, and make them proud of the fact that they are working in a company where innovation is a priority.

We want to give them the tools they need to achieve their own goals by increasing efficiency and freeing up time for value-adding activities rather than administrative tasks. One challenge is identifying the right way to communicate the benefits of each new HR tool or process so that our colleagues may understand what’s in it for them and how it will support their daily activity or professional development.

What should companies do to prepare the leaders of tomorrow for more sustainable and healthy businesses growth?

opment opportunities and to provide people with concrete tools. By focusing on empowering people, companies will reap numerous benefits over the long term.

What does Carrefour do to develop the new generations of leaders?

Carrefour invests in developing mentoring and coaching programmes, as our current and future colleagues' growth is very important to us. One of the biggest initiatives we’ve already launched in this area is the School of Leaders, in partnership with the Bucharest University of Economic Studies. It is a tailor-made programme for future leaders, offering relevant learning and development opportunities. We have an e-approach to HR processes, meaning that we also apply digital solutions to learning and development. Earlier this year, we launched a new Learning Management System that offers a complete learning experience to all our colleagues, from general mandatory training to individual programmes that are specific to each role and seniority level. Managers can follow up on each team member’s development plan, for the actions that are tightly connected to learning initiatives, from completed to future training sessions.

We are promoting a culture of learning across our teams, making career development a personal responsibility for each and every one of us. In terms of mandatory training, the platform supports the HR practice and ensures that all our colleagues are aware of¬— and compliant with—the internal rules.

Another relevant project for us has been the implementation of a new performance management module in Success Factor, a digital tool. We build tailor-made forms that provide quick access to annual individual goals, self-assessments, and feedback from superiors and peers, in a 360-degree approach. Following this yearly process, we will have a clear image over Carrefour’s talent pool, as we are also assessing the potential of our workforce.

When it comes to annual performance, this year we’ve started to implement a compensation module that will be used to calculate annual bonuses, which provides more transparency and a clear understanding of eligibility criteria.

Romanian labour market highly dynamic and adaptable to change

From L to R: Anda Sebesi, Madalina Racovitan, Roxana Abrasu, Marius Budai, Loredana Alexe, Andrei Frunza

From L to R: Anda Sebesi, Doina Filip, Nevenca Doca, Oana Pascu, Monica Daliu, Ionut Gherle

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Local market welcomes Ukrainian jobseekers

Attending Business Review’s recent Working Romania HR Conference, Labour and Social Protection minister Marius Budai received a number of interesting questions from both the BR editorial team and the live audience. Unsurprisingly, most of these questions were related to the pressing issues of the day—the war in Ukraine and the resulting refugee crisis— which represent major challenges for Romanian authorities and companies but, if managed properly, could become one of the best examples of successful collaboration between the public and private sectors of the past few years.

By Mihai Cristea

““The labour market is a very important sector, but it’s also very complicated. Romania has transitioned from having a very large and well-prepared workforce and a high unemployment rate to having low unemployment but a significant workforce shortage, so while development is happening, there’s a negative side to it as well,” Budai said.

Romania is also experiencing difficulties due to a three-pronged crisis made up of security, economic, and health challenges all happening at once. But even though countries around the world¬—and Eastern European ones in particular—are dealing with a security threat the likes of which they haven’t faced since the end of World War II, the situation might also bring economic opportunities that our country could capitalise on. One such opportunity could come from the potential relocation of manufacturing capacity from the conflict zone. “In March, German wire producer Leoni AG—which operates in several counties in Romania—came to the Labour and Social Protection Ministry to ask for our support in their endeavour to hire Ukrainians who were fleeing the war. In addition, company representatives and a parliamentary group will visit the Republic of Moldova to begin discussions around the potential relocation of several production plants,” Budai noted. He added that he had personally talked to a water pump manufacturer in Botosani who had already initiated relocation discussions with a company in Ukraine that had a similar specialisation. “This shows that opportunities are being generated by the current conflict, but local authorities need to provide incentives to companies that are interested in establishing operations here,” Budai said. The minister also noted that several governmental working groups had been established to work in close collaboration with local authorities from the northern counties of Romania to set up a framework that could encourage such initiatives. Budai also pointed to the fact that after the start of the Ukraine war, the Ministry had issued an emergency ordinance which would allow Ukrainian citizens coming from conflict areas to work in our country under the same conditions as Romanian citizens. “Since they are coming from a warzone, we can’t ask for papers and official certifications of their skills. However, they can demonstrate their skills through work trials, and they can also certify their skills by attending specialised courses and passing exams at the end of those courses,” the minister said.

So far, around 600 Ukrainians have been employed by companies in Romania, most of them as blue collar workers. But Budai argued that Romania had the capacity to absorb Ukrainian workforce over the long term, adding that authorities would adapt to any new developments in terms of the number of Ukrainians who may decide to remain in the country for an indefinite period. “Since the beginning of the conflict, we’ve identified schools and foster homes in the northern part of the country—that’s where the biggest impact is—and now we have several families of Ukrainian teachers to whom we’ve provided homes and jobs,” he noted. Although the number of Ukrainian refugees entering our country has seen a significant drop over the past few weeks, Romania should continue to monitor and respond to developments and provide refugees with social and professional inclusion opportunities in Romania.

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HR in 2022: trends, opportunities, and challenges

The Romanian labour market will be influenced this year by several unprecedented factors, according to industry experts, the most obvious and pressing one being the massive influx of Ukrainian citizens caused by the armed conflict in their home country. This topic, and many others, were discussed in detail by business leaders and HR specialists during the first panel of Business Review’s recent Working Romania HR conference, which tried to shed some light on this year’s most important developments on the local labour market.

By Mihai Cristea

Many private companies and numerous volunteers have stepped up in support of war-stricken Ukrainians through an unprecedented mobilisation, offering their homes, their resources or their services. But apart from the obvious need for accommodation and food, the refugees will also require various support measures and humanitarian assistance, education, medical services, and of course, employment.

The panel debate was kicked off by Roxana Abrasu, Partner and Head of the Employment Practice at NNDKP, who tackled today’s most pressing issue: the legislation around foreign workforce, which has become highly relevant amid the Ukrainian refugee crisis. “The main problem here had to do with the immigration process, with how we can help these people stay in our country and facilitate their employment. Once this was sorted out, things went quite smoothly.”

But how have Romanian companies and employers reacted to this unexpected influx of workforce? Andrei Frunza, the CEO of BestJobs, one of the biggest online recruitment platforms in Romania, offered some insight into this matter. “After resolving their most urgent needs—a home, food, immediate support—refugees will eventually need ways to provide for themselves. What our platform did was to develop a section dedicated to Ukrainian-friendly jobs. The section was populated quickly, with up to 1,000 jobs listed already. This means that companies’ support and their willingness to help are very real and visible. The challenge now is reaching these refugee communities with our solutions and promoting the opportunities that are available in our country,” Frunza explained, in the context in which only 600 cases of employment of Ukrianian refugees had been reported by the Labour Ministry, despite the thousand job openings posted on the BestJobs platform alone. “We hope that, together with companies and authorities, we can find a

Roxana Abrasu, Partner and Head of Employment Practice at NNDKP “The work-life balance concept tries to bring balance between what happens in our family lives and what happens at work. We’ve somehow lost this balance with remote work as people tended to forget about the boundaries between the office and the home. Balance should also be pursued between men and women from a working relations perspective. Paternity leave is a good example of what the EU’s Work-life Balance Directive has introduced, and it’s now been included in our national legal framework as well.” Loredana Alexe, Service Delivery Manager at Majorel Romania “Employers need to be more connected to the values of Generation Z, to understand them and take them seriously. Gen-Zers are surprisingly thoughtful about what they want, and they have other priorities than previous generations. Those priorities might sound childish to older people, but they’re not! It’s astonishing how welldefined their desires are. A sure-fire investment for any company would be to place people who understand the values of Gen-Zers in key recruitment roles.”

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way to better highlight employment opportunities by promoting vacancies at a local level,” the BestJobs CEO concluded.

Another important topic discussed during the first panel of this spring’s edition of Working Romania were the recent changes in people’s perception of a “good employer,” as well as the things people are looking for in a job today versus what they would have sought before the pandemic. “The essence of what people are looking for when searching for a long-term professional commitment remains the same as before the pandemic, but this essence is often just the core of a person’s much larger set of needs and desires. Today, we’re seeing more people who are searching for companies that are closer to their own values. We’ve also observed a change in the way employees relate to their companies’ involvement in the social and environmental issues that are close to their hearts,” says Loredana Alexe, Service Delivery Manager at Majorel Romania. “People have moved past the mindset of just wanting a stable workplace; they now want an employer with an established brand, one who can offer an attractive salary and benefit package, and, more recently, they’ve been paying much more attention to a good healthcare package and have been closely following companies’ environmental campaigns, which for some can make a difference in the recruitment and onboarding processes.”

But in the context of a workforce shortage, what can companies do in terms of organisational culture, work flexibility, and benefit packages in order to retain and even attract new talents? “There are many things companies can do after two years of working from home. Our priorities, our lifestyles, our ways of working have changed, and companies have faced significant challenges due to all these changes. I believe that this health has introduced new perspectives in our society and in our organizations,” said Madalina Racovitan, Tax Partner and Head of People Services at KPMG in Romania. “Obviously, HR departments and professionals have had a very important job throughout this period. First and foremost, they had to make sure that their people were healthy and safe. This transformation of our working habits has had a direct impact on what organisations must do to attract and retain talents. Indeed, as Alexe showed, employees now have different expectations, and companies should do their best to meet them. Flexibility is an important aspect of this trend, but we need to fully understand what flexibility means. We need to know what best fits each organisation and each employee.”

Adding to the discussion around work flexibility, Roxana Abrasu of NNDKP noted that the pandemic had forced employers to implement remote work and make work schedules more flexible. “Teleworking became a reality of our lives once the pandemic struck and, in my view, it is here to stay. But as the pandemic restrictions are lifted, we will start balancing things out. The hybrid concept will become our new reality as companies are currently analysing the right split between working from home and working from the office for their employees. From what I’ve seen, a mix between telework and office work will be required, creating a hybrid work model.”

The panel ended on a lighter note, with a Q&A session during which an audience member asked what companies should do to retain their employees after investing in their development.

Andrei Frunza of BestJobs said that like any other investment, investing in employees comes with some risk, and if the company is not competitive in certain regards, that level of risk increases.

Madalina Racovitan of KPMG responded with an anecdote: “The CFO of a company asked the CEO: ‘what are we going to do if we invest in our employees and they end up leaving us?` The CEO answered: ‘but what if we don’t invest in them and they end up staying?`”

Madalina Racovitan, Tax Partner and Head of People Services at KPMG Romania “The ESG agenda will take hold in the near future; we are only seeing its first steps. HR is closely linked with the S in ESG, the social component of the concept, where it has the most impact. Organisations and HR departments must be responsible for the health and security of their employees, on all levels. But ESG also contains an Inclusion, Diversity & Equality component, and we will be seeing organisations taking more and more action on this front.” Andrei Frunza, CEO at BestJobsa “Recruitment is a much more lopsided market nowadays, and its supply chain has been hit not just by war, not just by the pandemic— it’s a trend that started a few years ago and has only been deepened by the recent crises. Competition is very tough, it’s becoming harder and more expensive to recruit people, but our mission is to identify talents on the market and to succeed in making them available to companies in a smart and efficient way, so that the time and effort associated with recruitment is minimal.”

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New ways of working: get inspired by the best

Recent crisis have taught HR departments that people’s needs may change unexpectedly and that everybody must be able to adapt. The second panel of Business Review’s Working Romania HR Conference was titled New Ways of Working: Get Inspired by the Best. The debate focused on the ways companies can adapt to situations like the pandemic and on the trends that have emerged together with the need to feel safe while still keeping in touch with co-workers. Plenty of resources and solutions were found to keep employees safe as well as to help them enjoy working with others and strengthen team bonds.

By Aurel Constantin

The pandemic has made us all a lot more sensitive to some things, and the way we react to different situations now is different. For Orange Romania, a company celebrating 25 years of operating in our country this year (under the Mobilrom name for the first 5 years), the concept of wellbeing used to mean free fruit, massage chairs, and other fun stuff being provided at the office. “After the pandemic started, the idea of wellbeing got a completely new meaning. So, we tried to take it further and took an inventory of the ‘good’ things. That's how I discovered that recognition was also part of wellbeing, then we created a platform called Wellbeing Recognition to respond to our colleagues’ needs. Employees needed safety, including with the people they interacted with, people who could help them psycho-emotionally when they needed it. We brought all the elements of wellbeing into the platform,” said Doina Filip, Head of Reward and HR Budget at Orange Romania.

Communication was paramount for all employees during the pandemic. There were businesses that weren’t able to send all their people to work from home, so they had to find ways to keep things

Oana Pascu, Owner at Complice.ro “The demand for object-based rewards has dropped significantly as they were replaced by these experiences, which existed before as well, but they were reserved for management or those with high potential. Back then, it was easier because we could simply find out what a person or a team liked, and now it’s harder because it is difficult to find something that everyone likes. That’s why I had a Flexi Box that people could access and find the experiences they were looking for.”

Monica Daliu, Regional Head of People, Development, and Recruitment for Central Europe at Endava “In my view, happiness has more to do with your personal life, not with your work. But I agree that we must experience satisfaction at the end of the working day; it is very important. There are two significant aspects here: the first is feeling like you’re doing something tangible that has an impact on society or on the environment, and the second is professional development.”

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secure, but also fair for all their workers. “In the Banca Transilvania network, we have around 5,000 team members who can't work from home because they work at front offices, while around 3,000 colleagues can work remotely as they have back-office roles. But how fair is that? It wasn’t really fair to people who had to be at the office, so we all worked at home for two out of four weeks. The only ones who worked exclusively from home were those who had various health problems and were vulnerable,” said Nevenca Doca, Senior Executive Human Resources Director at Banca Transilvania. She added that communication was a challenge, but that the team was helped by the experience of the two pre-pandemic acquisitions made by the bank¬¬—Volksbank and Bancpost—when they had to find ways to effectively communicate with new colleagues.

Healthcare projects and professional development are trends that will remain important even after all restrictions are lifted. “Healthcare-related projects were very successful during the pandemic period. At the same time, professional development is also very important, as everyone wants to grow. And it is up to each of us to find our way and become the best at what we do. But of course, a job is also defined by the benefits everyone receives,” said Monica Daliu, Regional Head of People, Development, and Recruitment for Central Europe at Endava. She noted that the company has different benefit programmes such as like Employee Benefit Trust and Shares Save Plan. “For the company itself, the pandemic did not bring significant new challenges, but employees had to learn to manage their time well and create a separation between their professional and private lives.”

Apart from financial benefits and healthcare, the need for additional rewards has resurfaced in the pandemic. “Working from home was no longer a desire; it was a necessity. And sitting at home, we discovered how much we needed experiences rather than and things or products. The demand for object-based rewards has dropped significantly as they were replaced by these experiences, which existed before as well, but they were reserved for management or those with high potential. Back then, it was easier because we could simply find out what a person or a team liked, and now it’s harder because it is difficult to find something that everyone likes. That’s why I had an app that people could access and find the experiences they were looking for,” said Oana Pascu, Owner at Complice.ro.

A different challenge of the pandemic was described by Ionut Gherle, CEO at UCMS Group Romania by AROBS, who explained that, apart from integrating new colleagues, the most difficult thing was to keep the solutions that his company provided to over 1,300 clients up to date with legislative changes. “It was also difficult to adapt functionalities to meet new needs, such as working from anywhere, including from abroad—luckily, in our field, we can do this relatively easily, but other economic sectors had a harder time. But we also developed functionalities for those who wanted to continue working from the office,” Gherle explained.

Nevenca Doca, Senior Executive Human Resources Director at Banca Transilvania “Employees’ needs changed, so we had to go back to the basics of making them feel safe and secure, especially if they were coming to the office. Only at the end of 2020 did we realise that the impact of the measures we had taken was huge, and many of those measures had been suggested by our employees. For example, we bought six oxygen concentrators. We didn't need them ourselves, but we had colleagues that did need them for their family members. It was great to have them on hand for such cases.” Doina Filip, Head of Reward and HR Budget at Orange Romania “We created a platform called Wellbeing Recognition to respond to our colleagues’ needs. Employees needed safety, including with the people they interacted with, people who could help them psycho-emotionally when they needed it. We brought all the elements of wellbeing into the platform, and we’ll continue to do so, as it is very important to have all these elements together. It is important to have all these elements together.” Ionut Gherle, CEO at UCMS Group Romania by AROBS “One of our challenges was adapting functionalities to meet new needs, such as working from anywhere, including from abroad—luckily, in our field, we can do this relatively easily, but other economic sectors had a harder time. But we also developed functionalities for those who wanted to continue working from the office. In terms of collaboration, we use all types of contracts (employment contracts, self-employed workers, contractors) and we do not make any difference between them.”

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Technology starts playing major role in HR processes

Business Review’s recent Working Romania conference featured a segment titled Stage Time Spotlight Interview: HR Talks with a spark, where we spoke to Aurelian Chitez, Sales Director at Romanian Software, about HR technologies, their impact on the new ways of working, as well as the challenges companies face in deploying effective employer branding strategies.

By Mihai Cristea

What types of obstacles do companies face when trying to create an employer brand?

The biggest challenge for companies in 2022 is attracting and retaining talent. For the potential future employee, a company’s image is made up of what they see online and the opinions they hear from friends and acquaintances— because there are few offline campaigns and events taking place at the moment. Employers have a reasonable amount of control over their online presence, but the real test comes when candidates meet the first employees of those companies: the HR specialists.

At that point, the HR department is responsible for upholding the company’s image as being a place where any candidate would like to work in the future. And this is not always possible, because their internal recruitment processes are long, complicated, and need to be followed carefully. If we add a large number of vacancies to this scenario, we’ll understand why recruitment experiences are not always the most pleasant.

What can companies do to balance expectations between their employer brand and reality?

They should redefine their processes and standardise them wherever appropriate, giving HR specialists more time to work on proving that their companies are as impressive in real life as they are online from the very first meeting. Current HR technologies are helping specialists from the early stages of the recruitment process and then continue to streamline everything related to preparing the employee’s file and the onboarding process. By automating repetitive tasks, HR professionals can shorten the recruitment process and leave the administrative work to the software to focus on candidates and new employees.

What is the most significant change happening today in the field of HR technologies?

As working becomes more flexible than ever, next-generation HR technology is shifting from employee management to employee control. Given the intense competition over great talent, it is essential for companies to put people at the centre of everything they do to keep their best professionals. Managers need to meet their employees where they are and allow them to get where they want to go. And they can only achieve that through technology.

How critical is the role of technology in hybrid working scenarios?

The right technologies can improve HR professionals and managers’ ability to manage teams, track their progress, and facilitate close collaboration, among other benefits. From the employee’s point of view, collaboration, performance improvement, and connectivity will happen more naturally with tools that allow the perfect integration of internal staff into dynamic teams regardless of whether the work is being done from the office or from home.

What types of technologies does a hybrid workforce need?

First of all, they need technologies that facilitate flexible workforce management. For example, electronic employee files and documents are easy to generate, access, and find because businesses can carry out paperless administrative processes. A recruitment software (applicant tracking system) is equally necessary, especially if employers intend to extend their recruitment strategy to the national level or have rather ambitious goals to increase the number of employees in a relatively short period of time.

Once recruited, candidates should go through an induction period. Digital onboarding is a feature we developed at the beginning of the pandemic to help companies more easily support a workfrom-home model, but it is just as useful today for hybrid work. Through digital onboarding, employees get through the period of integrating into the new work environment much more easily. The software helps monitor and manage employee induction as it has options for tests and questionnaires, tasks, trainings, and 1-to-1 sessions. In addition, companies need to develop the way they carry out their Learning & Development and Assessment processes. And, of course, let’s not forget about payroll. The new way of working and the increase in flexibility have turned part-time employees or selfemployed individuals into more viable options for many companies.

Public and private organisations finding ways to help out Ukraine's population

As more and more Ukrainian citizens flee their country to escape the war, Romanians are mobilising to help out people seeking refuge in our country—mostly through local businesses, NGOs, and individual initiatives.

By Oana Vasiliu

The entire CODE FOR ROMANIA team and over 500 volunteers working in shifts have managed to deliver an ecosystem of six digital solutions for Ukraine.

DOPOMOHA (IN UKRAINIAN: HELP) – a

unique portal of resources and information for Ukrainian refugees. Through the DOPOMOHA.ro platform, which is available in four languages, Ukrainians can find out what documents they need to enter Romania, learn about the asylum procedure, find contacts of relevant authorities, etc. It also includes a conversational guide in Ukrainian, Romanian, and English to help those who need help.

UN ACOPERIS – a national platform for the management of safe accommodation that has been verified by the authorities. The platform can be accessed through the DOPOMOHA central portal by those who want to register an offer or a request for accommodation. Various needs are taken into account in the process of allocating accommodation, including proximity to a hospital for the chronically ill as well as appropriate for children, pets, etc.

SPRIJIN DE URGENTA – a national platform for the management of all resources for Ukrainian refugees. It can also be accessed through DOPOMOHA and contains sections where users can request or offer multiple types of help, as well as a map of all collection centres where individuals can make donations or register as volunteers.

UKRAINE CHILD CANCER HELP – pro-

viding quick access to specialised support and treatment for Ukrainian children and cancer patients who arrive in Romania. Cases registered by users on the platform are taken over by the Donate Wings Association and the Romanian Society of Pediatric Onco-Hematology. The platform also offers logistical and social support for family members who accompany these children.

CRIZA DIN UCRAINA. STIRI OFICIALE – a

platform that centralises governmental communication and action related to the Ukraine crisis. Access to accurate, non-panic-fuelled information helps readers remain vigilant in the way they access, assimilate, and distribute the news being presented in the media about the war in Ukraine.

RVM – a platform for the management of specialised volunteers made available to the Department for Emergency Situations for internal use.

UNICEF is working together with the Romanian Government, local authorities, the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), other UN agencies, and non-governmental organisations to monitor the inflow of Ukrainian refugees and their needs or vulnerabilities and offer immediate support for the most vulnerable children, women, and their families.

The Global Shapers Community has launched the HOW TO HELP UKRAINE NOW

website, where they list various ways in which people can help—from donations to humanitarian help, housing, and the locations of peaceful protests.

People have also been using Facebook to coordinate initiatives, with over 200,000 Romanians having gathered on the UNITI PENTRU UCRAINA (UNITED FOR UKRAINE)

public group to offer accommodation, food, funds, transport, medical assistance, and other types of help to Ukrainian refugees.

Immersive 3D audio and the power of Super Apps

Thanks to their versatility, super apps have quickly become ingrained into users’ daily lives, as they are adopted by more and more users. Having everything just one click away, especially during times when the pace of living is at its highest speed yet, represents a great advantage on the market.

By Romanita Oprea

Immersive audio is the new multi-dimensional approach to audio storytelling

Immersive listening ushers in the next generation of audio experiences, according to Wunderman Thompson’s Top 100 Trends list. Across its product line, Apple is rolling out new spatial audio features that create immersive, multidimensional sound that mimics surround sound. At its October 2021 Unleashed event, Apple announced that its new AirPods 3 and MacBook Pro laptops will be equipped for spatial audio, after first unveiling the Dolby Atmos-powered functionality for Apple Music in June 2021. “Apple Music is making its biggest advancement ever in sound quality,” says Oliver Schusser, vice president of Apple Music and Beats.

Moreover, in 2021, Sony introduced two new home speaker systems with 360-degree spatial sound mapping technology for an immersive listening experience, while audio company Spatial unveiled its first suite of products. The new startup creates immersive, interactive soundscapes for public spaces, including lobbies, retail stores, offices, and even hospitals. The bespoke soundscapes are designed to have a specific emotional impact on listeners—from encouraging relaxation and focus to destressing.

In November 2021, Cartier brought its immersive audio experience, The Great Animal Orchestra, to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, for its North American debut. The exhibition, which was first launched in Paris in 2016, featured soundscapes of biodiversity across North America, Latin America, Kenya, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe, recorded by soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause.

A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology or soundscape ecology. The idea of soundscape refers to both the natural acoustic environment, consisting of natural sounds, including animal vocalisations, the collective habitat expression of which is now referred to as the biophony, and, for instance, the sounds of weather and other natural elements, now referred to as the geophony; and environmental sounds created by humans, the anthropophony through a sub-set called controlled sound, such as musical composition, sound design, and language, work, and sounds of mechanical origin resulting from use of industrial technology. Crucially, the term soundscape also includes the listener's perception of sounds heard as an environment—how that environment is understood by those living within it and therefore mediates their relations.

Immersive audio is the new multi-dimensional approach to audio storytelling that brings listeners into an expanded sonic field that goes beyond traditional surround sound. While surround sound exists in a horizontal plane around the listener, immersive audio is designed to produce a fully immersive experience where audio is perceived as coming from all around you. The sound can now come from above or below, at any time, opening up a new, dynamic audio field. In 2019, the Recording Academy changed the name of the “Surround Sound” category in the annual Grammy Awards to “Immersive Audio.” Still, according to Immersive Audio Album, the concept of immersive audio is far from being new, as Disney actually experimented with surround sound at some select screenings of Fantasia as early as the 1940s. Their idea was to try to make it seem like a bee was flying around the room.

The widely-accepted birth of surround sound was in 1957. Musician and artist Henry Jacobs created concerts that were audio/visual in nature and took place at the Morrison Planetarium in San Francisco. The concerts are understood to have been the first that utilised surround sound as we know it.

“Immersive sound produced over loudspeakers or headphones has the capacity to deliver a seamless illusion of alternative

reality and change the way we relate to and behave in sound. It can revolutionise how we interact with, listen to, and live with music. It can redefine how we entertain, how we communicate, and how we collaborate. It opens creative possibility that we’ve never imagined before, and it has the potential to improve the quality of life. Immersive sound is strategically aligned with the future of communication and entertainment,” writes Wieslaw Woszczyk in “Immersive Sound: The Art and Science of Binaural and Multi-Channel Audio,” as quoted by highfidelity.com.

According to Wunderman Thompson’s trends list, social media platforms such as Instagram have driven a hyper-focus on visual elements over the past decade. Now, especially as digital platforms mature and engagement evolves, focus is shifting to multisensory elements—audio, in particular—for a truly immersive experience. “Spatial Audio has been even cooler than we expected. From musical performances to storytelling rooms and debates, it has really improved the experience on Clubhouse… so now we’re rolling it out to everyone,” Clubhouse representatives wrote.

“Sound and the mind are very, very intricately linked, and yet we almost never pay attention to sound. Sound is always there. It's our early warning system. It's also our emotional driver. It's our attentional driver. Everything you hear has some kind of an impact on you and changes how you respond to the rest of the world,” Seth Horowitz, auditory neuroscientist at Brown University, explained for NPR.

THE POWER OF SUPER APPS

A big trend of 2021 that has continued into 2022 has been the rise of “Super Apps.” They are permanently changing how companies design their apps and how consumers interact with them. More importantly, they have the potential to disrupt several industries at once, leveraging a single user base. Super apps are digital applications that offer a wide variety of services: users can, for example, chat with friends, order takeaway, shop and book a plane ticket—all within one app. The app thus becomes a multifaceted marketplace rather than just a single-service offering. According to Accenture, a super app is an umbrella app that offers a full ecosystem of services shaped around users’ everyday lifestyle needs, using one integrated interface or platform. It usually involves a marketplace of third-party offerings which are fully integrated into the ecosystem and makes use of vast amounts of data to engage with users and offer a wide variety of experiences and services.

Super apps offer multiple functions on a single seamless platform, from messaging to ecommerce to payments and financial services. Indonesia’s Gojek started as a motorbike ride-hailing service to help people cut

through Jakarta traffic, and it now delivers everything from food to medicine to masseurs. In 2021, in a deal valued at USD 18 billion, it announced that it was merging with Tokopedia, the country’s largest online marketplace, which also offers fintech and logistics services. The combined entity, named GoTo, has more than 100 million active users, 11 million merchants, two million drivers, and revenue that represents 2 percent of Indonesia’s USD 1 trillion economy. Singapore’s Grab, which calls itself the “Everyday Everything app,” started with ride-hailing around Southeast Asia and swiftly added delivery, payments, and financial services, landing a digital bank license with partner SingTel in 2020. Grab went public on the Nasdaq via the world’s largest special-purpose acquisition company deal, raising USD 4.5 billion, at the end of 2021.

Paytm is the most popular FinTech app in India. It enables users to complete a multitude of tasks centred around payments and investments. Core features include bill payments; booking trains, flights, movie tickets, and more; stock and mutual fund investments; and a full banking suite.

WeChat, owned by Tencent (China’s equivalent to Facebook), integrates a ton of customer services, including mobile payments, social media, gaming, and retail, all in one app.

Chinese tech giants invested early in Southeast Asian platforms and exported many of the super-app concepts pioneered back home to their neighbours.

As Chinese tech firms face increasing regulation, they are more likely than ever to look abroad for growth opportunities. By integrating other merchants and third-party services, super apps create ecosystems that monopolise the user’s time as they don’t need to use a variety of apps, leading to greater customer loyalty. As well as providing a wide range of experiences and services to engage users, super apps have grown popular for a more practical reason: one super app generally takes up much less phone memory than downloading dozens of single-purpose apps, all of which will require regular updating and may increase data usage—a big topic in lower bandwidth/income countries.

The rise of super apps has already created a sub-industry of services that exist to support their infrastructure. Companies such as Appboxo enable any app to become a super app by offering a marketplace of services that can then be provided to users.

Moreover, specialists say that the super apps trend is slowly shifting from Asia to Europe and the US, where a handful of technology firms are starting to adopt this approach.

“By bringing together a range of experiences, services, and functions on a single platform that customers already feel confident using, super apps provide seamless experiences that keep users engaged. Also, by offering loyalty rewards, users are encouraged to conduct more of their business on the super-app to maximise those benefits,” Accenture analysts wrote.

2022’s digital advertising trends

At the beginning of each year, we look back at what was good in the previous one, see what could be changed for the better, and identify new trends. Digital media has seen tremendous growth in recent years, especially during the pandemic period, so let’s talk about the digital trends we should be looking out for in 2022.

By Romanita Oprea

Catalina Ciociltan, United Media Services

According to Andrei Balan, head of strategy at MRM Romania, there are a number of noteworthy current trends in terms of digital advertising, but most of them follow the same dynamic we have been seeing over the past few years. One of these is digital transformation, which became a boiling hot topic during lockdown. “We’re now seeing more and more purely digital businesses that appear, operate, and communicate on social platforms, with a very small—if any—offline footprint. One or two years from now, these might breed a new niche: metaverse-native businesses. We also continue to witness the explosion of TikTok and an exponential development of its ad format and e-shopping ecosystems.” Moreover, Balan thinks that in terms of TikTok advertising, our market still faces a learning curve, but it’s definitely getting there. “And Andrei Balan, MRM Romania

once the users are in (which they are), ad and e-shopping tools are in place, and everyone gets used to working with (and not just scrolling through) TikTok, we will see brands and businesses operating full-force on there too—just as they’re now doing on Instagram, for example,” the MRM Romania representative noted.

The other large social platforms are trying hard to replicate TikTok’s incredible algorithm—and partly succeeding. In a couple years’ time, we’ll be having the same conversation about the Metaverse.

This viewpoint is shared by Catalina Ciociltan, digital strategy director at United Media Services, who says that while relatively new in marketing discussions, the Metaverse is becoming a playground for brands and advertisers as its benefits very clear: it’s a platform that is always active and operates in real time, which will spark faster connections and allow marketers to target different audiences and keep them engaged. The insights that will result from exploring this platform will also impact the way brands understand and actually approach their audiences.

“At the same time, NFTs, which are part of the Metaverse, are also infiltrating the digital environment as a link between owners and communities. For advertisers, this is a way to build communities around their brands and expand their digital footprints. Another trend has to do with data collection: adapting to the loss of cookies and the rise of consumer privacy is a movement that was accelerated in 2021 and will continue to progress. Advertisers should make sure they create and obtain first party data, so they won’t have to rely on other platforms’ data as much as they used to in the past,” said Ciociltan adds.

The role of media agencies is also crucial here. The way United Media Services has approached this matter has been to first make sure that all their clients were well informed about both the risks and the benefits of this change. Data measurement projects that weren’t seen as top priorities before are now being implemented with the agency’s support. At the same time, securing ad placements for clients and making sure they have accurate measurements after the shift are among the key objectives for United Media Services right now.

“Social commerce will continue to evolve, competing with traditional commerce, making changes in the way users shop and enabling and perfecting customer payments so that they can have a full shopping experience without leaving the platforms¬—providing real-time, user-friendly, tailor-made services,” Catalina Ciociltan concludes.

Ioana Anescu, executive director at IAB Romania, thinks that the acceleration of

e-commerce and m-commerce (mobile commerce) will continue, and that the development of big retailers’ digital platforms can lead to the localisation of a quite prominent international trend: retail media. Similarly, the development of marketplaces will lead to a significant growth of investments in this area.

From a technology standpoint, the disappearance of cookies will lead to new ways of analysing and understanding stored data as well as to an increased need for education and a better understanding of technologies and how they are integrated into the advertising ecosystem—from creation to implementation, analysis, and reporting.

“At the same time, much more emphasis will be placed on maintaining the one-toone relationship with consumers based on subscriptions, notifications, and newsletters. There will also be more emphasis on ‘retention-driven relationships.’ As for communication channels, the interest in video content continues to be fuelled by the tools provided by social platforms as well as the growing interest in the ‘attention economy.’ The huge amount of information available online is associated with a decline in users’ patience and willingness to consume written content, while the need for entertainment leads to brands being more accepting of video content,” Ioana Anescu explains.

Brands will need to be more deeply involved in dialogue with consumers and show empathy and social involvement, especially in the new international context where public opinion is particularly sensitive to slippage and lack of sensitivity in communication and very wary of potential advertising-based support of propaganda and misinformation.

In turn, Calin Buzea, managing director at Digitas Romania, believes that we are all experiencing uncertainty when it comes to the economy, and that is why digital trends in the industry are even more limited by budgets than they were before. This is why he thinks that the focus on performance will become the most important trend. “The second one is related to raising brand awareness through influencers in the shortest amount of time possible, riding a certain market momentum. We are experiencing a complex political and economic crisis that transfers a high degree of volatility to marketing plans and actions, to budgets and projects. I don't think we’re going to see more creativity in the coming period. Creativity in marketing communication requires a more chilled mindset. I sincerely doubt that this kind of relaxation could be achieved in agencies or marketing offices at this moment,” Buzea says.

THE POWER OF CREATIVITY

United Media Services teams strongly believe

that media and creative are two peas in a pod, because together they are more effective at generating results and delivering a higher ROI. They work with the support of a creative team to push creative ad campaigns, customised ads, and assets for different platforms or audiences. They are also very driven by their creative minds when facing challenges in an ever-evolving digital environment, in order to remain competitive and drive business results.

Looking at the evolution of the quality and number of campaigns entered in the MIXX Awards or other local festivals, as well as at the award recipients, Ioana Anescu says that we may talk about greater creativity. But she also believes that the evolution is the result of the higher number of tools, insights, conversations, and collective ideas in the industry. Creativity has also been augmented by stepping out of the comfort zone that we have all experienced in the last two years, not to mention the need to use imagination and creativity to escape the anxiety-generating avalanche of information, news, and content. “I think that in recent years, creativity has been what has kept the flame of entertainment burning and many of the digital campaigns we saw in 2021 had that daily escape element,” Anescu adds.

“We might talk about more creativity, but not so much in the classic, canonical kind.

Creativity is morphing. Fast times, rapid development, and convulsions of all sorts are pushing us to adapt and innovate in all sorts of unexpected ways. When trying to measure creativity one would traditionally look towards industry festivals,” says Andrei Balan, pointing out that creativity is overgrowing its traditional ways of measurement. “I think we’re moving into a new paradigm where creativity is a matter of engineering ways out of difficult situations or building a competitive edge in less difficult ones. I look fondly at the unlikely business transformations that happened out there (during lockdown, for example), at the creative use of digital platforms or tools by virtually anyone, at new ways of integrating AI into pretty much all of our workflows or at the innovative ways of supporting our northern neighbours. That is a new face of creativity, and I find it quite exciting,” the MRM Romania representative adds.

Guinea-Bissau tourism provides new opportunities for Romanian investors

A delegation from Guinea-Bissau, led by Tourism minister Fernando Vaz, visited Romania recently to present investment opportunities in the West African tourism sector. In a discussion with Business Review, Vaz outlined the benefits of investing in a country where tourism activities are just starting out, and where there are multiple opportunities for wildlife tourism, with pristine forest land and a child-friendly environment.

By Aurel Constantin

The biggest opportunity for tourism lies in areas that are still untouched, as well as in cultural tourism

Guinea-Bissau is a country on the West coast of the African continent, with less than two million inhabitants and a surface area of over 36,000 square kilometres. The country gained its independence from Portugal in 1974, and Romania was the first country to recognise its independence. Guinea-Bissau is now a republic, ruled by a democratically-elected president. The country has been inhabited since the early days of humanity, with evidence of agricultural practices going back as far as 1,000 B.C. It came under European colonial rule starting with the 15th century, having mainly been occupied by the Portuguese, which is why Portuguese remains its official language today. Monetarily, it is affiliated with the CFA Franc system, which provides stability, and it is also a member of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

“Guinea-Bissau is a small country, but it has several advantages in terms of tourism. It is only a four-hour flight from the European continent, which makes it a proximity destination. The country is safe, with an almost non-existent crime rate,” the country’s Tourism minister Fernando Vaz said. “There are several nature reserves that cover a total of 26 percent of the country's surface area. Beach and fishing tourism are very important in Guinea-Bissau, alongside many other tourist attractions. I hope that Romanian businesses will be attracted by all these investment options in my country,” he added.

The biggest opportunity for tourism lies in areas that are still untouched, as well as in cultural tourism. Guinea-Bissau has ten 4-star or 5-star hotels in its capital Bissau, as well as 50 other hotels that go up to 3 stars. In total, there are about 200 accommodation units in the northern part of the country, as well as almost 50 on the islands. “The archipelago consists of 88 small and large islands, it is considered to be the most important tourist destination in Guinea-Bissau, and it is the only archipelago on the West Coast of Africa with mangrove forests covering an area of over 37,000 hectares, including UNESCO areas of great interest. The area was also classified as important thanks to its bird migration patterns,” Vaz noted. In addition to the wide variety of birds, the area is also the home of the very rare sea hippopotamus—the only hippopotamus species that can live in salt water.

There are two airports in the country. Air Portugal has four weekly flights to Bissau, and Air Maroc has almost daily flights. GuineaBissau currently gets about 150,000 tourist visits per year, and it can accommodate around 3,000 tourists at a time. No visa is required for visits of up to 15 days. For longer periods, a visa can be obtained through an online platform for 40 euros, while a visa

obtained through the embassy costs 80 euros.

Fernando Vaz also pointed out that no vaccines are required for visits to Guinea-Bissau. As for covid-19, I can tell you that we’ve only had 107 cases of infection in the two years and a single death,” the minister said.

INVESTING IN TOURISM

Entrepreneur Mohammad Murad, who attended the Guinea-Bissau delegation conference, pointed out that warm and sunny countries will be increasingly sought-after in the next 50 years. “There are in-depth studies that link happiness levels to the amount of sun people get, and Guinea-Bissau gets a lot of sun,” he said, adding that tourists seek good weather, wildlife attractions, and comfort when they go on holiday. As Romanians are always looking for new and interesting destinations, local investors will certainly be interested in projects in Guinea-Bissau.

But investors are also looking for other things: low bureaucracy, security, and investment guarantees. “Guinea-Bissau is a member of many international institutions, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the West African Development Bank, all of which provide security and international competitiveness,” Fernando Vaz said. “The ease and speed of setting up a company in our country is worth noting¬: it takes about 24 hours. Companies can be fully foreign-owned; there is no need for resident shareholders. Our foreign investment legislation is favourable, offering tax exemptions for up to seven years. And even though the country is small, it is integrated into several large regional structures. The first gives access to a market of over 100 million consumers, while the second is even bigger, providing access to a market of 380 million inhabitants,” he explained.

As for bureaucracy, Fernando Vaz said that a One-Stop-Shop had been set up by the Finance Ministry to deal with all the documentation—notarial deeds, operating licenses, and tax residence—so that a company can be set up in a single day. “The share capital is symbolic, just one thousand euros, except for sectors such as fuel and aviation. To benefit from available fiscal incentives for up to 7 years, companies must carry out a feasibility study, which will cover a period of up to 30 years,” the Tourism minister noted.

“We also have an office at the Tourism Ministry that helps investors obtain all necessary permits and authorisations within ten days from the date when documents are submitted by the investor, minimising the risk of corruption and making the entire process much more convenient,” Vaz added.

To attract investors, Guinea-Bissau authorities offer tax incentives whereby a new company pays no taxes for three years, including no customs duties, and it is exempt from labour taxes for seven years. Tax incentives are applied on two levels: for the first, the value of the investment must reach at least USD 34 million, while for the second, it must reach USD 80 million. Investments are

“GUINEA-BISSAU IS A SMALL COUNTRY, BUT IT HAS SEVERAL ADVANTAGES IN TERMS OF TOURISM. IT IS ONLY A FOURHOUR FLIGHT FROM THE EUROPEAN CONTINENT, WHICH MAKES IT A PROXIMITY DESTINATION. THE COUNTRY IS SAFE, WITH AN ALMOST NON-EXISTENT CRIME RATE,”

FERNANDO VAZ, GUINEA-BISSAU'S TOURISM MINISTER

insured by the World Bank and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA).

Guinea-Bissau has significant potential for tourism ventures, with a wide range of natural and cultural destinations, and it has a privileged position thanks to both its geographical location and its natural resources. Dragos Raducan, the president of the Romanian Tourism Employers’ Federation, said that the first step would be for a group of potential investors to visit the country and examine its tourist destinations, together with a delegation of local officials. He added that the introduction of charter flights would also facilitate access to attractive destinations in Guinea-Bissau, putting the country on the map for Romanian tourists.