Cosmin Buzăianu is an entrepreneur from Focșani and the administrator of ELECTRIC SRL, a Romanian company that he has built and developed around manufacturing, investment, and the belief that Romania can have a competitive industry when there is courage, discipline, and a long-term vision.

He has been active in the packaging industry for many years, and today ELECTRIC SRL produces a very wide range of flexible and rigid packaging: films, bags and pouches, PET and HDPE bottles, preforms, caps, and various components intended for the food industry, retail, and other industrial sectors. The company has reached approximately 240 employees, operates several production facilities in Vrancea County, and works with both Romanian companies and international companies and retail chains.

For him, business is not just about turnover or year-on-year growth. First and foremost, it means building something that lasts. He likes manufacturing because it is one of the few areas where the result of your work becomes physical, visible, and measurable. Every day, you see the machinery operating, products coming off the production lines, people developing, and investments turning into real production capacity.

He has always believed that an entrepreneur must be very close to what is happening within their company. That is why he is directly involved in both business development and the technical side, investments, automation, new projects, and product development. He constantly tries to understand how they can produce better, more efficiently, and more competitively. He believes that the difference between a company that merely operates and one that evolves lies in its ability to never be satisfied with what it already has.

In recent years, he has invested heavily in technology, automation, production capacity development, and energy efficiency. For him, sustainability should not remain merely a marketing concept. It must mean concrete investments: lower energy consumption, the use of renewable energy, the integration of recycled materials wherever the application allows, and, above all, the development of increasingly efficient industrial processes.

He also strongly believes in Romanian manufacturing. Romania has capable people, an industrial tradition, and entrepreneurs who can build companies that are competitive at European level. Our problem is not a lack of potential, but the fact that we have often become accustomed to believing that what comes from abroad is automatically better. He believes exactly the opposite: if we invest in technology, people, and know-how, we can manufacture products here that can compete without any inferiority complex with what is produced in any other European country.

He sees the future of industry as much more automated, digitalized, and efficient. The companies that will remain competitive will be those that manage to combine people’s experience with technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, and data analysis. Repetitive work will increasingly be taken over by automated systems, while people will need to become better prepared and bring value through decision-making, creativity, and experience.

At the same time, he believes that the coming years will force Romanian companies to become much more independent and resilient. Energy, raw materials, logistics, and geopolitical changes have shown us how vulnerable supply chains can become. For this reason, he is trying to build ELECTRIC SRL as a company capable of controlling as many of the essential elements of its own production process as possible.

He does not believe much in rapid success. He believes in growth built year after year, in investments sometimes made before the market demands them, and in the ability to see opportunities where others see only problems. He has made mistakes, faced difficult projects and challenging periods, but he believes that these are precisely the experiences that shape an entrepreneur.

His objective for the coming years is to continue developing ELECTRIC SRL, enter new production segments, increase the level of automation, and transform the company into an increasingly relevant Romanian manufacturer on the European market.

Ultimately, perhaps the thing he believes in most is that a strong country needs people who produce. Factories, investments, engineers, technicians, entrepreneurs, and people who have the courage to build. And he wants to contribute, even if only a little, to this effort through what he does.

C&B: What is the mission you have taken on through your work?

Cosmin: The mission we have taken on is to move beyond the pattern of a supplier that simply delivers packaging. A packaging supplier should not only deliver a product. It must deliver identity and, above all, it must solve a problem.

We do not want to be just another alternative to a client’s current supplier. A discussion with a packaging supplier should resemble a discussion with a doctor: What problems do you have? What is not working? What do you want to achieve? What should your product look like and what should it communicate?

We produce the packaging in which the client presents and sells their work. And the consumer, before knowing the contents, sees the packaging. We buy with our eyes first. We buy an image, a promise, sometimes even a dream. Only afterwards do we discover what is inside, and if the product confirms the promise of the packaging, we come back.

That is why our mission is to do things professionally, from understanding the client’s needs to the product that reaches the shelf. We do not just want to manufacture packaging. We want to contribute to how our clients’ products are seen, understood, and chosen.

C&B: What is the most important problem you see today in the field you operate in, and how do you think it can be solved?

Cosmin: The biggest problem I see in our field is the stigma placed on plastic by some consumers. There is a perception that plastic is cheap packaging, while glass or paper are automatically considered premium and environmentally friendly alternatives. It is a partially true perception, but far too simplified.

We should not blindly defend plastic, but neither should we condemn it without analyzing the entire life cycle of the packaging. Plastic is lightweight, efficient for transportation, can be recycled, and requires less energy for production and distribution. Glass is an excellent packaging material when it is returnable and reused. If we use it only once and then throw it away, we need to calculate the energy consumed for production, the weight transported, and the carbon footprint generated throughout its entire journey.

This is where mathematics comes in, not just perception. What carbon footprint does a plastic bottle have throughout its entire life cycle? What footprint does a glass bottle used only once have? How many times is it reused? How far is it transported? What percentage is collected and recycled? Only after answering these questions can we say which solution is better. Search the internet for pictures of “glass beaches.”

The same applies to the discussion about microplastics. In controlled industrial processes and during normal use of the packaging, they do not occur… The serious problem arises when waste is abandoned in nature, remains in the environment for years, and gradually fragments.

The solution is education, supported by real collection and recycling systems. It is not enough to say that one material is bad and another is good. We need to understand the chemistry, physics, logistics, and actual impact of each type of packaging. The discoveries already exist, but they need to be explained to people in a clearer, more appealing way and in a way that is closer to everyday reality.

The problem is not the material when it is used responsibly. The problem is the lack of responsibility after the packaging has fulfilled its purpose.

C&B: What is the most valuable lesson you have learned throughout your experience and that you believe is worth passing on?

Cosmin: Perseverance. It is irreplaceable.

I have learned that results do not always come when you expect them to, nor at the pace you would like. There are moments when you work hard without seeing the effects immediately, but that is precisely when perseverance makes the difference.

And when perseverance meets the pleasure of doing something you enjoy, work begins to produce the best results. I believe that, once you learn to do very well the thing you enjoy most, you have the greatest chances of building something lasting.

Talent can help you get started, but perseverance is what takes you further.

C&B: If you had the opportunity to change just one thing in Romania, what would it be and why?

Cosmin: I would change education. Not just the school curriculum, but the way we prepare people for real life.

We live in a society where many people see work as a burden or a secondary obligation. In reality, most of us spend a very large part of our lives at work. That is why we should learn to choose, respect, and take responsibility for our work, rather than constantly treating it as a punishment.

Education also explains many of the problems related to pollution, recycling, and consumption. We have a firmly stated position regarding plastic packaging, even though we use it every day. At the same time, we sometimes choose heavier packaging that requires more energy simply because we perceive it as more environmentally friendly, even though we throw it away after the first use.

Education should teach us to ask questions, calculate, verify, and look at a problem from several angles. We do not just need people who know the answers from textbooks. We need people capable of understanding the world they live in and making responsible decisions.

C&B: How can we help people, companies, and communities develop better together?

Cosmin: Through real involvement. Entrepreneurs should not exist separately from the communities they are part of.

Personally, I am open to organized visits for pupils and students, together with their teachers. However, I would like these visits not to take place only during Green Week or the “Școala Altfel” program. I would like there to be continuity: students could return after a year, we could see how they have developed, and they could see how the company they visited has evolved.

I would like us to receive questions, including difficult questions. I would like to spark curiosity and show young people how a factory actually works, how decisions are made, how problems are solved, and how much work goes into an apparently simple product.

Only through involvement in people’s education can we have better-prepared employees, higher-performing companies, more informed consumers, and more developed communities.

The world we live in is complex, and the same problem can be viewed from many different angles. When we learn not to remain stuck in a single perspective, we have the chance to discover the angle from which the solution emerges.

Through his experience in the packaging industry, Cosmin Buzăianu highlights the importance of Romanian manufacturing, investment in technology and automation, as well as education and perseverance in building a competitive and sustainable company. The story of ELECTRIC SRL reflects an entrepreneurial vision focused on long-term development, efficiency, and contributing to the growth of Romania’s industrial sector.

The post Cosmin Buzăianu, ELECTRIC SRL: “We buy with our eyes first” – an entrepreneur’s lessons on packaging manufacturing, industry and business appeared first on careers-business.com.