Since Germán Bahamón arrived at the National Federation of Coffee Growers, one of his first announcements was related to cutting spending and restructuring the headquarters, which he has begun to carry out. The goal is to reduce spending by 20% before his first year at the head of the organization.
As announced in dialogue with LA NACIÓN last June by the general manager of the National Federation of Coffee Growers, Germán Alberto Bahamón, the union will undergo a restructuring that is, precisely, one of its main goals as head of the organization.
According to what was announced at that time by the manager, in the first meeting he had with the Steering Committee of Fedecafeteros he brought a proposal for a new organizational structure that sought to reduce the size of the central office and bring it closer to the regions. “That organization that I proposed, and that was unanimously accepted, not only showed austerity in the reduction of management positions, but also brought benefits from the point of view of spending in the central office, and creates an operations management that has as “The objective is to make processes more efficient, get closer to the regions and have a better relationship with the cooperative system, in charge of the most important public good for coffee growers: the purchase guarantee.”
Now, the first actions taken for this purpose are already beginning to materialize. The manager announced last weekend that “the decisions regarding the transformation of the Federation to make us more efficient and transfer better services to coffee growers, impose the need and goal of reducing the expenses of the Bogotá headquarters by 20%” , accurate.
“In the selection process I presented to the coffee growers my vision of the National Federation of Coffee Growers, I indicated that one of the challenges and purposes would be to make the union sustainable and austerity, in addition to a coffee clamor, is a fundamental element for that purpose” , he recalled.
According to the manager, after more than 30 years since the end of the Price Pact era in which coffee had the opportunity to bring progress to the country, it is important to ground it in reality and plan for the future. “The organization of cultivation has suffered structural market variations that directly impact us, in this sense, the time has come to prepare the union to conclude its first 100 years and project it for the following ones.”
Thus, the search for efficiency “has as its pillar the generation of a collective consciousness regarding the imminent need to give birth to a culture of austerity built from concrete situations that allow the rearrangement of the union, to transfer more and better benefits to the coffee growers,” he stressed.
He noted that the transformation of the FNC began 4 months ago and the “measurable and challenging” objective is to reduce 20% of the operating expenses of the union’s companies at the headquarters in Bogotá when the first year of this new management is completed.
“The transformation of the FNC will protect the employees who are the most important asset of the union, but it will not stop at the desire expressed by the coffee growers for austerity and efficiency,” said Bahamón.
Charges eliminated
To achieve this purpose of a culture of austerity, “7 management positions have been eliminated and instructions have been given regarding the elimination of superfluous expenses such as memberships in social clubs and television subscriptions, among others.”
International offices
On the other hand, work has been underway to redesign the commercial function of the Federation, starting with the reorientation of the offices abroad so that their focus takes on a purely commercial character and in accordance with new times. In this sense, after working hand in hand on the redesign of the commercial function of the offices abroad and after 4 months of having put his resignation under consideration, Juan Esteban Orduz will leave his position at CCF (Colombian Coffee Federation). .
But, the reorganization of said office entails the non-replacement of that position and the activities carried out there will be assumed in part by the staff currently present there and by the headquarters in Bogotá, in such a way that the commercial function is attended to without trauma. and resource management for social investment.
Sell real estate
Along the same path of resizing the offices abroad and facing the new times, the manager asked the Minister of Finance and Public Credit, Ricardo Bonilla, for his collaboration to advance the legal procedures that allow the National Committee to present the disposal alternatives. of real estate in New York and Tokyo to improve the income of the National Coffee Fund and thus meet the needs of coffee growing.
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