Optimism reigns throughout Colombia today, despite the financial crisis affecting other parts of the world. Having experienced its own between 1998 and 2001, Colombian businesses are now taking measures to safeguard the country’s future and ensure it does not return to doom and gloom. With this goal in mind, social responsibility is of utmost importance and one company in particular has made this objective its main priority: Sociedades Bolívar.
Looking back
The group began its operations in 1939 with the creation of the insurance company Compañía de Seguros Bolívar S.A., specializing in family and individual life insurance. Over the years, the group has expanded through the creation of new companies and acquisitions to become the third largest group of companies in Colombia, after Bancolombia and Aval.
If residents can’t live with dignity, our subsidized housing communities may become slums. By creating communities, we can make better neighborhoods and better towns. Miguel Cortés Kotal,
President of Sociedades Bolívar |
The company’s solid ethical, commercial and social principles earned its confidence among clients and within the sector. Miguel Cortés Kotal, President of Sociedades Bolívar, underscores these driving principles that continue today and are a reflection of his personal belief that a country must grow together.
“Today, private companies, and by private I mean non-governmental, need to work closely with the government to improve society. Social inclusion is complex, but we have to be able to do it. We are responsible to society at large and ultimately we need help in improving the standards of living, education, housing, etc.,” says Mr. Cortés.
Despite the group’s aggressive business lines, which over time have made it one of the country’s largest and most successful financial groups specializing in the insurance, banking and construction sectors, Sociedades Bolívar’s social commitments to the country remain one of the greatest priorities in its business development.
Initiatives by private companies such as Sociedades Bolívar have contributed to the government’s efforts of social integration and quelling violence across the country. “Community life in the lowest levels of Colombian society is complex and can be violent,” says Mr. Cortés.
Building communities
The company is focused on the development of low-income housing oriented at creating communities and providing a better standard of living for those within it. In 2011, Sociedades Bolívar, through its construction company Constructora Bolívar, built 6,740 houses. “We teach those who purchase our low-income homes how to live as a community, to take pride in community property, and how to care for it,” adds Mr. Cortés. “We have six-month courses for community managers so they can learn how to manage community property and become community leaders. We have educational and sports facilities. If the residents can’t live with dignity, our subsidized housing communities may become slums. By creating communities, we can make better neighborhoods and better towns.”
Mr. Cortés has witnessed the positive results these developments produce. “The residents’ desire to educate their children is growing stronger than the temptation to make them start working at a very young age,” he says.
Innovating for the people
Providing opportunities for broader sectors of the population is also reflected in the group’s development of banking products and services, for example through its creation of a new concept of micro-credits that will make the product more accessible to a larger part of the population.
Although in Colombia interest rates for micro-credit lending, which average 28%, are considerably lower than those in other parts of Latin America, where they can reach 75%, according to Mr. Cortés, the cost remains beyond most people’s reach. “We are coming up with a lighter and easier way of lending and collecting via the use of the cell phone, whereby we can lend and collect via an e-wallet. We call our product DaviPlata,” explains Mr. Cortés.
Similarly, the group is looking into offering micro-insurance, which would also be available to people that do not have bank accounts. If DaviPlata is used, the user can pay his insurance premium, water charges or electricity bill via a cell phone.
Bolívar-Davivienda Foundation
Sociedades Bolívar set up the Bolívar-Davivienda Foundation to be committed to long-term social sustainability. “Rather than simply giving donations to charitable organizations, we have many other valuable goals,” says Mr. Cortés. Those goals include providing courses for the managers of the Foundation’s beneficiary organizations to ensure their lasting and responsible management, as well as providing company talent who work as volunteers on the boards of directors of small and medium companies, and teaching communities new activities that will contribute to their self-sustainability.
Defining principles
The group is proud of its victories in Colombia’s Great Place to Work Awards, in which it has participated the past two years. For Mr. Cortés, this sort of merit is a recognition of the values – respect, honesty, transparency, teamwork and discipline – which have created a solid workforce that keeps the company moving forward.
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