DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Industry
Vice-President, Bepensa — Coca-Cola
Bio
Andrés Zentella Ortega holds a Bachelor’s degree in Administration and a Master’s degree in strategic marketing from Mérida, México, and studied at the BARNA Business School in Santo Domingo. Having previously worked with Chevrolet and insurance company Grupo Nacional Provincial, both in Mérida, he joined Grupo Bepensa as an intern where he gained a practical overview of the industrial division. He has spent the past six years working in the Dominican Republic, and was promoted to the role of Executive Vice-President before becoming Vice-President.
The Bepensa Group is a renowned Mexican company with international operations in the Dominican Republic. With more than 60 years in the business, it is the largest commercial, industrial, and services corporation in the Southeast of Mexico, and has been present in the Dominican Republic since 2006. In that year, Bepensa signed a strategic alliance with Refrescos Nacionales, the bottling company for Coca-Cola, and decided to settle in the Dominican Republic. Our decision was motivated by the country’s stability, security, and guaranteed growth, which we considered to be the ideal scenario for our internationalization beyond Mexico. During the past seven years, our extensive experience in the production, bottling, and distribution of non-alcoholic beverages has allowed us to turn Bepensa Dominicana into in a leading company, offering quality products that have generated over 2,500 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs, positively reinforcing the industrial sector and national economy in general.
Bepensa Dominicana is a socially responsible company with a solid commitment to the development of the country and the communities in which we operate. This is why we have constant and concrete actions that contribute to both the preservation of the environment, and the educational development of the population. In that sense, we participate and support initiatives and non-profit organizations, such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC), with whom we have recently signed a partnership agreement to work on the recovery and conservation of rivers and watersheds in the Dominican Republic. Bepensa Dominicana Social Responsibility programs are part of the overall strategy of The Coca-Cola Company’s Live Positively campaign. This proposes a life philosophy that will join efforts to make our planet a better place to live in. It is a commitment that both Coca-Cola and Bepensa Dominicana have taken to make a difference and a positive global impact. This strategy is based on sustainability as the way to create a change in the world that will ensure a social, environmental, economic, and political future for upcoming generations. As part of this initiative, we promote active and healthy lifestyles, motivating consumers to achieve an energy balance and tackle the problem of obesity that affects millions of people around the world.
Bepensa Dominicana invests significantly in safety, production, and quality control processes. Since 2006, our company has allocated more than $134 million to the modernization and expansion of facilities, the distribution fleet, machinery, buildings, IT, cooling equipment, and vending machines. From 2006 to 2012, our bottling facility grew by 150%, increasing the efficiency of our production lines from 30% to more than 70%. We are the only company in the Dominican Republic to operate with four international ISO certifications. These efforts have allowed us to improve our efficiency and to expand our product portfolio, which now includes juice, isotonic, and energy drinks, and flavored waters in our quest to satisfy the different tastes and lifestyles of our consumers. Nowadays, Bepensa Dominicana bottles and distributes 13 brands reaching more than 65,000 customers. We have a bottling facility, eight production lines, 10 distribution centers, and 252 routes that cover the entire country.
We hope to continue growing and paying special attention to the demands of our consumers and market. We will be on top of the areas requiring improvement, innovation needs, and the demand for new products. Ultimately, this is what makes us stand out from the competition, and we will continue to focus our efforts in this regard. Finally, we hope to broaden our commitment to social responsibility, recycling, and the protection of the environment. Moreover, we will continue to develop programs, hand-in-hand with Coca-Cola, under this program. And meanwhile, our promotion of physical activity among citizens of all ages confirms our commitment to an active and healthy lifestyle.
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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - Industry
Interview
Country Manager, Unilever República Dominicana