BUSINESS ON THE NET

Mr. Bojidar Danev has been Chairman and Executive President of the Bulgarian Industrial Association since 1993. His professional experience includes positions as Executive Director of Interlease AD, Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Office of the Central Cooperative Union, Vice Chairman of the economic issues and Manager of the Centre for Economic Analysis of the Bulgarian Industrial and Economic Association and Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Cybernetics of the Bulgarian Academy of Science.Mr. Danev holds an MBA and Ph. D. degrees in Management and Automation from the Technical University in Sofia. In the period 1978 - 1980 he completed his Post Doctorate Specialization at the Hanover University, Germany. Mr. Danev delivers lectures in the United States of America, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, etc. On Nov. 29, 1999, Mr. Bojidar Danev, the Chairman and Executive President of the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), gave a speech to the AmCham members who attended the monthly AmCham General Membership Meeting at the Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan Mr. Danev focused his presentation on about the opportunities for doing electronic business and commerce in Bulgaria. He discussed the ways AmCham members could enhance their business via the services offered by BIA and how the Association and the Chamber could further cooperate for the benefit of the membership community of both organizations.Founded in Sofia in 1980, BIA is a voluntary and one of the biggest non-governmental organizations of Bulgarian businesses. Currently, it has an impressive number of 14,000 members from the private, public and cooperative sectors. With the broad scope of its activities, among which involvement in privatization and investments, support of small and medium-sized enterprises, establishing international economic co-operation and contacts and, most importantly, providing Internet services and intellectual property, BIA can be a valuable source of information and support. Mr. Danev stressed on the increasing importance of e-commerce to business, administration and customers in today's business environment. Gaining significant grounds on the global market and recently in Bulgaria, E-commerce is one of the major services BIA offers to its members. Following the links on its Web site, business companies, organizations or people can buy office materials and equipment, clothes and even books. However, expensive commodities are still not available on the Web, because the banking system in Bulgaria is still too conservative to allow the usage of credit cards for such purposes, Mr. Danev said. Along with selling products online, BIA's Web site offers what they call the "complete e-shop solution" which include a search engine for finding particular products, as well as maintenance of goods and services, of clients data and a company subsidiaries list, information about all orders and monitoring of the best sold products. With technological partners such as 3Com, Cisco and Microsoft, BIA also offers a solution to Internet communication problems through VNP and Team Networking. Their projects include creating virtual workgroups and workplaces which can be geographically dispersed, and in this way helping companies implement new networking models and management practices. Along with national and international corporations in Bulgaria, the beneficiaries of this program include government organizations such as the Council of Ministers, the National Statistics Institute and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and financial institutions such as the Bulgarian National Bank, the National Savings Bank and the Central Cooperative Bank.Apart from networking and communication solutions, the increasing importance of doing business on the Internet retains its primary importance among the services BIA offers. The "Laws and Regulations" system which is available online for BIA members offers invaluable legal information and advice to a wide range of professionals, including government officials, tax experts, accountants, practicing attorneys and many others. BIA provides its corporate business members with online bulletin boards, a daily electronic bulletin, and services like web design, hosting and marketing. Its Web site is very clearly organized and functional, providing links to all major projects maintained by the organization. Go ahead and check it out at: www.bia-bg.com. BIA grounds its international credibility on its membership in international organizations such as the International Employers' Organization (IOE), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and the International Labor Organization (ILO). On the national level, BIA is a member in the National Council for Tripartite Co-operation, the National Social Security Institute, etc.