Social Involvement

COTRACO ROM SRL considers corporate social responsibility (CSR) a commitment the company makes to its customers, suppliers, employees, community, environment, and partners.

Cotraco Rom SRL chooses to positively contribute to the community and the environment and to treat people with respect and dignity.

Since our success depends on how we understand and respond to our customers’ needs, we are committed to adhering to a contract by which we always aim to provide quality services, but we also know that we have a responsibility beyond contracts, to contribute to the development of the communities where our customers, agents, and employees live and work.

For our company, social responsibility focuses on 4 main areas:

• Work Environment
• Market
• Community
• Environment

Work Environment

Cotraco Rom is one of the main employers in the Sângeorgiu de Mureș community and is a company in full development. This is reflected in the work environment as follows:

• The salary level is above the local average.
• The company’s management organizes an annual retreat for employees and their families.
• Access to the workplace is easy, as the management team pays special attention to hiring people from the community.
• The working conditions are very good, with good activity spaces provided, meal spaces, and lunch provided at the workplace. Additionally, sales agents benefit from new cars to perform their regional work safely and efficiently.
• An aspect carefully managed by the management team is the continuous training of employees in fields related to their professional activity, as well as courses that can contribute to their long-term personal and professional development.
• Regarding the employees’ relationship with the company’s partners, the management team has created a system of allocating contracts by regions. Thus, the company’s agents always know which clients belong to them. To avoid creating tensions and destructive competition between agents, the customer allocation policy is clearly communicated, based on the principle of proximity, and collaboration between sales representatives is encouraged to meet customers’ needs.
• An aspect highly appreciated by employees is the family-like feeling in the company. Interactions between employees and the management team are informal, based on mutual respect and attention to each other’s needs. This element has been mentioned as a plus for the Cotraco group and a characteristic they want to keep long-term, even as the team grows.

Market

Cotraco Rom positions itself on the market as a distributor of high-quality products that comply with safety and security standards for users. Cotraco Rom also encourages distributors and end-users to use products with longer lifespans that can significantly reduce long-term costs.

Given the nature of the products in the company’s portfolio, information on use and safety is crucially important. Therefore, Cotraco Rom always accompanies its products with such information. Sales representatives also play an important role in distributing this information, providing constant details about these product characteristics.

Cotraco handles complaints or requests for additional information through its sales representatives and management team. Based on customer feedback, the company has received high scores for the quality of products and services and for providing opportunities to handle complaints or returns.

In addition to offering high-quality products, Cotraco Rom has always provided high-quality services in the distribution department through its sales representatives. The company’s policy is to meet its customers’ needs as much as possible, addressing their requests in the shortest time possible. Therefore, Cotraco Rom is perceived as a long-term partner that understands and respects its customers’ needs. Furthermore, Cotraco Rom’s sales agents have always communicated their products’ safety levels to avoid accidents due to poor information.

To maintain this working method, Cotraco Rom has also become a producer, creating its own products. In this way, the company aims to offer quality at a lower price and a much faster reaction speed in product distribution. This need to serve its customers and distributors translates into responsibility towards the local community by becoming a local producer, further contributing to its development.

In relation to suppliers, Cotraco Rom has stood out as a good and stable business partner that respects its partners. This has led to obtaining the status of exclusive distributor in Romania for certain products.

Another characteristic of Cotraco Rom’s working method is respecting its clients’ and suppliers’ right to confidentiality. Thus, through its partnership management policy, the company has committed to respecting the right not to disclose data on pricing policies, distribution networks, and other contract-related data.

Community

Cotraco Rom SRL promotes a good relationship with local authorities because the company’s management is involved in establishing community development plans.

Cotraco Rom SRL pays its taxes and duties on time, and the local City Hall has created a facility for companies that pay their local taxes by early March. This facility (a 10% tax reduction) has been well received by the local business environment, including Cotraco, and is seen long-term as an opening for future public-private partnerships.

Considering that Cotraco Rom is the third-largest company (by the number of employees) in the community, the local City Hall values the developed relationship with it, as it is also seen as a good employer in the community. Additionally, the company’s development plans are important for the community’s development plans, as the management aims to identify future employees from the local community.

Moreover, Cotraco Rom has considered the cultural and ethnic diversity of the community (e.g., Hungarians, Roma). Thus, the company has had and continues to have employees from various ethnic groups over time.

To maintain a good relationship between community representatives and Cotraco Rom, future professional training initiatives for local community members are seen as development opportunities. To attract the most suitable and interested community members to these training initiatives, a partnership between the two institutions has the potential to make the best use of each institution’s expertise: the City Hall can promote participation in courses, while Cotraco Rom can coordinate professional training.

Other relevant partners in this initiative are the Târgu Mureș County Small and Medium Enterprises Patronage and the Center Region Women Entrepreneurs Patronage. As support institutions for the region’s business environment, these institutions can act as catalysts and facilitators in the professional training process.

Besides activities related to local community development, Cotraco Rom has supported various community organizations or institutions through sponsorships, promoting local culture.

Environment

Regarding environmental protection, Cotraco Rom’s activity is carefully managed. The company is certified according to ISO 14000. This translates into selective waste management, production processes that consider waste collection and reuse, and zero greenhouse gas emissions resulting from production.

For efficiency and employee safety, the company has renewed its vehicle fleet, providing employees with cars

With the increase in production and the inauguration of the new production hall, Cotraco Rom has also considered ways to reduce waste resulting from packaging. Thus, the wood waste from the packaging of parts purchased from other suppliers will be used as a source of energy (for the thermal power plant). Additionally, the hall is equipped with photovoltaic cells that will provide part of the electricity needed for production or ancillary activities. And last but not least, a solution that can be used in the future and is already included in the company’s development plans is the identification and efficient use of reactive energy.

Cotraco Rom SRL has chosen sponsorship as the main point of its CSR policy, as a way of involvement in various aspects of community life where it operates. In nine years of activity, Cotraco Rom SRL has supported and continues to support, through financial assistance, events, actions, activities of various institutions, understanding that this is its moral duty to the community in which it has developed, investing over 200,000 euros in sponsorships in fields such as education, disadvantaged children, people with special needs, environmental protection, and volunteering.

Conclusion

Social responsibility is integrated into our organizational culture and daily activities that are much more efficient in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.