The doors of the World Trade Organization (WTO) will be opened to our country sooner or later. At that time, competition will not be limited to the country or the region, but will be as vast as the whole world and the most important point would be competitive advantages and reliance on modern economic principles; an economy whose basis would no longer be macro-economy but small-scale economy; the economy of corporations. At that time our economic corporations must be capable of surviving in a competitive environment, to fend for themselves and be able to attract customers from all across the world.

The question that occurs to one’s mind is that now that the basis for the success of macro-economy is having prosperous economic corporations, what is the basis of having prosperous economic corporations? The answer given to this question by the modern economy is a successful director and satisfied customers. Based on this recommendation, modern economic principles introduce quality management in parallel to strategic management.

Strategic management is having information, sciences and techniques and, in short, needed tools, on the one hand, and having set goals, on the other hand. Quality management aims at satisfaction of customers, boosting quality of products, introducing suitable prices and supporting clients.

Having a director with good command of strategic management and adequate information one can be successful with regard to the future prospects of an economic corporation.

By presenting these brief definitions, we want to review the reasons for the success of one of our country’s economic corporations.

Pars Tire Company that once had focused on producing various kinds of vehicle tires to meet our country’s requirements and provide tires for logistic equipment and systems during the Holy Defense shifted its efforts to meeting the domestic need during the reconstruction period. The company pursued earning more foreign exchange since 1996 after inauguration of its new production line. It was recently privatized and is now looking forward to globalization by observing the principles of modern economy. The main factor that has promised a bright future for the company is a management that is familiar with the concepts of strategic and quality management. Its management is currently busy step-by-step executing principles of this management as a tool for future success and, undoubtedly one of the most prominent directors in this regard is managing director of this company. Since he took charge of the company in 2000, when it was still affiliated to the public sector, he brought about positive changes in domestic cement industries.

Mahmoud Ghaeli is managing director of one of the most successful cement factories in the country and is also member of the board of directors or project director of some other cement factories. He is also a renowned figure in the domestic rubber and tire industry. A delicate question that arises here is how it is possible for a person who has always been working with cement factories to became a prominent director of rubber industry as well, so that, even the private owner of Pars Rubber Co. has kept him and is not willing to lose him? The answer is clear enough. Ghaeli is a director familiar with the principles of modern economy as well as strategic and quality management sciences. With this skill even if he became director of an economic corporation in the service sector, that corporation would be successful too.

The following is summary of an interview with Mahmoud Ghaeli.

The Company has a production capacity of 40,000 tons of various kinds of tires per year, 85-90 percent of which are tires for heavy vehicles including minibuses, buses and trailers. The company, which markets its products under the trademark ‘Pirouzi’, is the biggest tire production unit in Iran. It also produces tires for sedan cars in various sizes. It exports its products to the Persian Gulf littoral states, as well as Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Central Asian countries and a number of African states. However, our main customers are Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. On average we export one-sixth of our products.

Export is an important economic affair. During the war, the government equipped the company to increase production of tires for heavy vehicles. After the war our products were not used in the domestic market and we could not change our production line again because it would not have been economical. We had only two choices. Reducing production or finding new markets. We accepted the second option and targeted for neighboring countries. At present the name of ‘Pirouzi’ tire is well-known in countries such as Iraq.

First we established a good working relation with overseas customers and earned their trust and confidence. We guarantee our tires for four years inside the country and for one year abroad. Of course, since we are committed to quality management, the quantity of returned product is very low compared to our exports and most returned packages were due to faulty packaging.

In addition to observing Iran’s national standards and receiving the permit of using Iran’s standard emblem, we produce or products in line with international standards. Our production and quality assurance is carried out according to stipulations of ISO 9002 whose certificate we obtained a while ago. We have also completed the course for obtaining the ISO 14001 certificate. We are also in the process of obtaining the ISO TS certificate for vocational safety and pursue establishment of a unified and comprehensive quality management system.

We consider the domestic market as a considerable part of the global market and we feel special commitment to our fellow countrymen. Therefore, our guarantee for the domestic market is four times that of the foreign markets. On the other hand, we do our best to support the right of consumers and were awarded a commendations plaque on the occasion of 28 February 2003 by Consumers’ Rights Support Organization. We have tried to establish a good rapport with final consumers. We have conducted polls among bus, minibus and trailer drivers and other consumers of our products. We have also trained our representative agents as how to treat customers. For this reason, we hold two or three sessions with our agents per year the latest of which was held in Hotel Homa of Khazar about two months ago.

This issue has two aspects. One is improving consumption culture with the other aspect being attention to necessary measures for increasing safety of products. We have tried to establish the suitable culture for using tires through advertisements, while taking every measure for increasing the safety of our products.

We have held training courses for our personnel in accordance with global standards. We have signed a contract with the University of Applied Science and Technology to support 25 scholarships at the university for the current year.

The Pars Tire factory has two production lines. One of them was made operational in 1984 while the other one came on-stream in 1996. We have also drawn up a development plan for the company which has been pursued more diligently since the company was privatized. My final recommendation to the government and other exporters is that export is not a commercial affair but a national duty and a way of uplifting the country’s economy.