GENERAL FACTS

• Form of government: Pairlamentary democracy
• Capital: Ljubljana
• Official language: Slovene
• Monetary unit: Slovene tolar
• Religious affiliation: Roman Chatolic 96%
• Ehnic composition of teh population: Slovene 91%
• Area: 20, 256 sq km
• Neighbouring countries: Italy (W), Austria (N), Hungary (E), Croatia (S)
• Total population: 1, 964,036
• Population employed: 962,000
• Population unemployed: 64,000
• GDP per capita (2003): 12154 EURO (2.3 % higher than in 2002)
• Number of business subjects: 140, 237 (73,470 organizations and 66,767 physical persons). The majority of subjects are registered in “social and personal services (30, 293), followed by “wholesale, retail, and certain repair services (25, 748), “real estate, renting and business services” (20, 974), and “manufacturing industry” (19, 367).
• Merchandise exports (fob, USDbn, 2002): 10,5
• Merchandise imports (fob, USDbn, 2002): 10,7
• At the end of 2002 the total foreign direct investment (FDI) was 3.2 USDbn (216.3 USD million more than at the end of 2000. In the first 10 months of 2003 there was 94.1 EURO million of FDI in Slovenia and 226.3 EURO million of Slovenian direct investment abroad). The share of EU countries in FDI in Slovenia was 86% at the end of 2001. The most important countries for Slovenian economy in this respect were: Austria (47%), France (12%) and Germany (11%). The majority of FDI was placed in manufacturing industry (38%), in financial intermediating services (28%), and in wholesale, retail and motor vehicles repair services (14%). 58% of Slovenian FDI is placed in the states of former Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro and Macedonia).
  Sources: Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia; Slovenia Quaterly Forecast Report; Daily newspaper Veèer Maribor.
• Some of the biggest foreign companies - investors in Slovenia are: US based multinational company Goodyear, Belgium based bank KBC, Swiss based multinational company Novartis, Belgium based multinational company Interbrew, France based multinational company Renault, France based multinational bank Société Générale S.A., and Italia based multinational bank Sanpaolo IMI S.P.A.

MARKETING FACTS

Some interesting data revealing the relative importance of marketing knowledge on general:

• From all job offerings that appear in newspapers editions in Slovenia there is appx. 20 % covering jobs in marketing.
• There are 11 agencies specialised in facilitating marketing problems (market research, advertising, and public relations) with more than 20 full time employees (MM Magazin).
• There are three marketing departments each in one of the three Faculties in Slovenia (Faculty of Economy and Faculty of Social Sciences, both at the University of Ljubljana and Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Maribor). They are at the same time the nucleus for the 3 Institutes of marketing doing fundamental marketing research with generally same members as in departments (appx. 6-10). There are signs of new marketing department being formed at the Faculty of management at the University of Primorska in Koper.
• The official association of professionals dealing in marketing in Slovenia is Marketing Association of Slovenia (Društvo za marketing Slovenije). There are also other associations specialised for advertising, for public relations and for direct marketing.

Some interesting results on marketing issues concerning the whole population of companies over 20 employees in Slovenia gathered in 2001 by the research team from the Institute of marketing at the Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Maribor, Slovenia, led by Professor Boris Snoj on the behalf of international research project "Marketing in the 21st Century - Marketing Resources, Competitive Posititioning and Firm Perfomance" coordinated by Professor Graham Hooley from Aston Business School, Research Institute, Aston University, Birmingham, UK:

• The whole population of companies over 20 employees in Slovenia N = 2551 (which was app. 2% of the population of all companies in Slovenia) was contacted by mail, and the response rate from general managers of these companies was app. 30% (N = 759).
• The structure of companies that actually responded according to the main industry they operate in was: consumer durables 8.6%, fast moving consumer goods 14.7%, materials and components 20.5%, capital investment equipment 14.3%, business services 11.6%, consumer services 2.4% and other 27.9%.
• Compared with the preceeding research of the same population of companies in 1996, the share of companies with foreign capital increased from 6.7% to 15.3% in 2001.
• 69 % of the companies with foreign capital claimed that foreign (co)owners were having a crucial role in companies strategic decision making.
• Having in mind that in 2001 research, the organisational schemes of marketing were not researched, in the preceeding 1996 research 84.3% of the companies over 20 employees in Slovenia were organised in a way in which marketing represented a part of the sales department. In more than one half of the companies CEOs were responsible for marketing.
• The national market was the most important market for the most important products of 64.7 % of the companies, followed by EU markets, which were most imporant for 45.3% of the companies.
• The majority of managers claimed the increasing turbulence in the environment of their companies especially concerning increasingly demanding customers, intense, globally grounded competition and the increasing stream of new product launches.
• 43.2% of the companies claimed that their most important market was established but growing, and 40.6% stated their most important market to be at the mature stage.
• The highest percentage of companies in both research projects revealed that their performance was customer oriented (30.5% in 1996 and 35.3% in 2001). The change for almost 5% was also the highest positive change in business orientation whilst the business orientation with the highest negative change between 1996 and 2001 research was “the employee orientation”.
• The highest level of market orientation, measured by Narver-Slater scale was attained by companies in retailing industry and the lowest by companies in agriculture.
• The majority of managers acknowledged the importance of the concept of “learning company” as the strategic resource of competitive advantage.
• 24.5% companies claimed that their position in their main market was market challenger (second or third largest market share), followed by 19.5% companies claiming to be market follower (smaller market share).
• 37.7% managers stated that “ company as brand and its reputation” was among most important marketing assets and capabilities, followed by 32.1 % stating “ the good relations with key customers”, and 28.1% claiming “good understanding of teir customers’ needs and wants” as their most important marketing assets and capabilities.
• The most comonnly indicated marketing objective of companies (92%) is “to gain steady sales growth”, followed by “ targeting selected marketing segments within the total market” (71.5%), and “seeking to differentiate our products and services from competitors in the market” (70.4%).
• Among three most important positioning factors more than one third of companies ranked: "technical quality of our products and services" (37.1%), "the level of customer services and support" (35.8%), and "the degree of responsiveness to customer enquiries and requests" (33.5%).
• The most frequently agreed statements about marketing activities were: “We place great emphasis on building long term relations with key customers” (87.7% of managers), with “We place great emphasis on building long term relations with key suppliers” (80.2% managers) and “We customise our products and services so that they meet the requirements of individual customers" (77.0% managers).
• The most important performance measurement criteria were: “the level of customer satisfaction achieved” (60.9%), “the level of market share achieved” (48.1%) and “the level of the overall profit achieved” (42.2%).
• Many managers were not well informed about their companies performance compared with their competitors and even compared with the performance in the previous business year.

Professor Boris Snoj
Marketing Institute
Faculty of Economics and Business
University of Maribor
Maribor
Slovenia