UNGC Local Network Armenia – Steering Committee Meeting ...

UNGC Local Network Armenia – Steering Committee Meeting
Minutes of Meeting, Yerevan, November 5, 2009, 12.00p.m.
The Steering Committee Meeting took place in VivaCell-MTS office.
List of Attendees:
Mr. Ralph Yirikian Chairman General Manager VivaCell-MTS
Mr. Gagik Danielyan General Director Coca-Cola Armenia
Mr. Gurgen Hakobyan Partner Grant Thornton
Ms. Narine Melikyan Deputy Head of BoD Ashtarak-kat
Ms. Shushan Avagimyan Marketing Director Cascade Capital
Ms. Diana Gaziyan Executive Director AMCHAM
Ms. Susanna Khalatyan Advisor to CEO UMBA
Other participants:
Ms. Narine Arustamyan CSR specialist VivaCell-MTS
Mr. Sevak Amalyan Project Coordinator UNDP/GC
1. Welcome notes and introduction to the agenda:
Mr. Ralph Yirikian welcomed participants of the meeting to the VivaCell-MTS and stressed
the importance of the first meeting of SC. The agenda was presented to the participants and
the main reasons for including the items in the agenda were described. The Chairman
informed that the minutes of the meeting will be considered as approved by the participants
in case there are no comments made during a week after receiving the minutes.
Mr. Gurgen Hakobyan mentioned the importance of the meeting which was highly
expected/needed since establishment of the SC in May, 2009.
Agreements/decisions: Participants agreed to develop an action plan for 2010 to be
submitted to the General Meeting of the Network and for this reason the SC will meet once
more in December.
2. Practicing the 10 principles of GC: Adoption of the Code of Ethics as a first step.
Mr. Ralph Yirikian emphasized the importance of applying the 10 principles by the business
community of the country. Companies, signatories of the UNGC should work and
demonstrate the progress toward the ten principles. Existence of internal documents such us
Code of ethics/conduct etc. in the companies members of GC is very important and the SC
should require and promote companies to adopt such documents. SC should decide on how to
encourage and make companies to adopt such documents. Chairman mentioned that
VivaCell-MTS has Code of Ethics and is ready to share it with other companies and assist
them in development of the document. It is important that development and adoption of such
documents are supported and demanded by the top management of the companies and that
the managers promote it by obeying and following the code themselves.
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Ms. Narine Melikyan mentioned that Ashtarak-kat Company has the Code of Ethics adopted
since 2006 and that document stresses the values the company believes in and strives for. The
document as well as other internal documents of the company is available on the official
website of the company. Also important, the company organized special trainings for the staff
on the mentioned documents to make sure that each employee is well aware and able to apply
the Corporate Values. Nevertheless, a lot has to be done yet and the management of the
company is the primary responsible for that. There are difficulties, moments of
discouragement, however, the only way to overcome these is for the management to apply
and obey the rules on their own and serve as an example for all the others.
Mr. Gagik Danielyan added that usually companies/employees are resistant to changes and
change is really hard to make happen. Management should be the first to show the
importance of the changes and the benefit it can bring to the company and the employees on
own example. The Coca Cola company has the Code of Business Conduct adopted in the
company along with other internal procedures and regulations. The company is ready to share
the documents and its experience with others. Mr. Danielyan rejected the opinion that there is
something unique in Armenian reality and that it is difficult to introduce mentioned changes
in our country mentioning that everything depends on the commitment of the management of
the given company.
Mr. Gurgen Hakobyan said that the case of GTA is different because as an audit company
working in a strongly regulated field they were supposed to have all kind of regulatory
documents in place and moreover, being a part of international organization all the required
documents were adopted from the very beginning. Introduction and adoption of the
documents was easy in GTA as there are only qualified and educated people working in the
company who are open and they do understand the importance of corporate policies etc. The
most important thing for an audit/consulting company is to create the demand and require
client companies to apply effective internal regulations trough adoption of different kinds of
documents and for this reason the audit should itself have an effective regulatory system
within the company.
Ms. Susanna Khalatyan mentioned that UMBA fully understands the importance of such
documents and have tried several times to request companies to develop and adopt them.
However, the reaction of the companies, members of UMBA was mainly negative and the
prevailing opinion is that it is not the time and it is not that important/urgent for companies to
deal with the issue.
Agreements/decisions: Participants agreed that the members of the SC as well as other
companies in the network should be an example for others and for this reason these
companies should join their efforts in practicing more CSR through concrete actions/projects
and then only demand/require other companies to act similarly.
3. Raising the staff awareness and revising the strategy according to UNGC
principles.
Mr. Ralph Yirikian mentioned that the GC member companies should be required to show
the concrete steps toward raising the employees’ awareness on CSR/GC and make the
necessary corrections in their business strategies to comply with the 10 principles of GC. This
all should be started from simple things such as improving the working
conditions/environment for the employees. The employees are ambassadors of the companies
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to the society and the messages they bring to the society are crucial. In response to the
concern that the crisis is not the right time for making such changes the Chairman brought the
example of VivaCell-MTS for which the crisis became a chance for optimization and
introduction of radical changes in the way the business is done. The reaction to the crisis
should make sure that the company gets a competitive advantage when the crisis is over.
Companies as well as the society in large should learn and be open to novelties, new
mentality, approaches and reality. VivaCell-MTS has simple examples of how internally the
business can be changed in response to new realities – procurement of recycled paper only,
encouraging and supporting volunteerism among the employees are the examples.
Ms. Diana Gaziyan stressed that there is no culture of giving among the Armenian business
community and it can be reached through showing that the companies can benefit and gain
competitive advantage by creating positive image in the market. For example people in
Armenia prefer VivaCell-MTS for their socially responsible image and they become clients
of the company regardless of the quantity of the advertisement and tariffs offered by the
competitors in the market.
Agreements/decisions: Participants agreed to develop concrete plan of actions and decide on
strategic directions for initiating concrete projects to be implemented by the GC network in
Armenia.
4. External CSR investments – selection of fields of interest.
Mr. Ralph Yirikian mentioned that as a part of activities for 2010 the Network should
implement concrete projects in one of the fields of environment, education or science
depending on the decision of the SC. The companies are not expected to support and
contribute to the projects equally but rather according to their size and financial capacities.
In regard to the government’s role in promoting CSR the Chairman mentioned that of course
the state has a role to play however, we can’t wait and should not expect too much. The GC
in Armenia can trigger the government’s actions by its own effective and rapid actions.
Mr. Gurgen Hakobyan said that the education is the priority for GTA and that is the field
where the company is mainly practicing its CSR activities. To educate and demand that is
what an audit/consulting company can do. Currently CSR is not even included in the
curriculum of our universities and not surprisingly people have no idea of CSR. There can be
different formats and approaches for reaching people with the ideas. In addition, there should
be created a demand for CSR in the country and all the stakeholders and especially the
government has an important role to play here. GTA is ready to support and work for creating
the demand for CSR in Armenia particularly working with the government.
Ms. Diana Gaziyan raised the issues of involving the government in the works of the
Network and especially of the SC. Creating public policy on CSR is the primary duty of the
government and the GC in Armenia should promote this idea.
Agreements/decisions:
- Participants voted for all the three proposed fields/directions for implementation of
concrete projects. By the suggestion of the chairman the healthcare was also included in
the list of priorities.
- It was decided to bring other stakeholders and companies to the room and organize
wider discussions on CSR, which will help spreading the idea among wider audience.
Proposed by the UMBA representative it was decided to organize series of meetings with
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usinesses members of UMBA where SC members will share their experience of
practicing CSR and disseminate the idea of CSR at the same time.
- The participants agreed to discuss further the proposal by GTA for a collective action by
the GC members on cutting the companies’ budgets on seasonal greeting cards/presents
and spend the budgets on the projects to be selected by the SC.
- The participants decided to propose concrete projects for the next meeting of SC to
discuss and select projects to be implemented. The selected projects will be submitted to
the General Meeting of the GC meeting in December.
- It was decided to hold the next meeting of the SC on December 10, 2009 at 12.00pm in
VivaCell-MTS office.
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