Memorandum of Cooperation with the International Franchise Company Office 1

Our University will collaborate with Office 1 - the largest chain of stores for office products in Bulgaria.

The Rector of UNWE Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov welcomed the initiative for cooperation with Office 1 and the opportunity for career development and realization of students from the UNWE. He outlined how crucial it is to interact with practitioners and to organize internships and practices. Prof. Dimitar Dimitrov pointed out that such collaboration would contribute to the quality of the students' education through the organization of public lectures and discussions as well as consultations of the curriculum content.

The Chairman of the Management Board of Panda Cooperative/Office 1 Mrs. Elka Kamenova-Tsankova emphasised on the significance of the Memorandum for the business and mentioned that three people will be operationally related under the agreement and will work in different directions. She also invited the Rector to visit the company's new logistics centre in the village of Ravno Pole which is the most modern warehouse and logistics centre in South-East Europe with over 21 000 sq. m. of space. The base is equipped with the Austrian OSR robotic warehousing and order processing system which is unique in the industry in the region.

The Memorandum between the UNWE and Office 1 envisages a partnership in conducting research and scientific studies in the fields of economics, management, logistics, etc. Opportunities are provided for holding joint scientific events, training and competitions as well as collaborative project applications and joint public events to present the best practices in public management and training in this field.

The Coordinator for the Memorandum on behalf of the UNWE is Chief Assist. Dr. Petkan Iliev from the Economics Department and on behalf of Office 1 - Mrs. Elka Kamenova-Tsankova.

Chief Assist. Dr. Petkan Iliev, Mrs. Elka Kamenova-Tsankova, the Rector Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov, Prof. Dr. Tsvetana Stoyanova, Acting Vice-Rector for Institutional and Business Cooperation and Student Policies and Ilian Chabukliisky, Chairman of the Student Council

Due to the support by Office 1 the renovated space of the University Library was furnished.

Office 1 is the largest chain of stores for office products in Bulgaria. For over 24 years the company has been a market leader and preferred partner of 130 000 business customers. Office 1 has 40% market share, 64 stores in the country and employs over 400 people. The product portfolio consists of over 110 000 products.

Office 1 is an international franchising company with presence in 3 countries - Bulgaria, France and Greece. Since 2018 the worldwide rights to the Office 1 brand are owned by the Bulgarian cooperative company Panda.