TOP ESTONIAN ENTERPRISES

TALLINNA VESI AS
The Most Competitive
Service Enterprise
2009
Striving
for cleaner
water
The manager of Talinna Vesi surprises
with that he tells that his passion is
client service. This that he does not
drink bottled water is no more such a
surprise, but the justification is
slightly it – he is sure that the tap
water is of more quality compared to
bottled water. And really, he has a
water jug on the table instead of water
bottle. Everything should be quite well
with the quality of water in Tallinn, as
the data measured and analysed last
year indicate that the resident of
Tallinn has never seen so good water
flowing from the tap – 98% of the
maximum indicators have been
achieved.
The manager of Tallinna Vesi started his career
in the international company United Utilities
where he worked for total of 20 years by travelling
around the world and focusing on the
world’s electricity business. Plenderleith came
to work to Estonia when Tallinna Vesi was privatised
in 2004 and worked in the company for
about three years as the financial manager.
After that he married the Estonian and went
back to England for a year by requiring to develop
its knowledge in business development
and risk management sectors. In October last
year he came back here.
“In 1990s United Utilities expanded to the electricity
and water business and I managed to go
to South America, I stayed four years in Argentina.
Working there gave me an understanding
that the cultures are very different in
different countries – also the business cultures
proceed from that and infrastructures are at
very different levels, let alone the service. The
work in Latin America had excellent results and
I was really pleased with it – I was part of the
international business. When I came to Tallinn..
I almost jumped here.“
One could believe that water management is
boring and especially in the capital city of such
a small country as Estonia. Plenderleith tells
that as it was known that the company is taken
to the stock exchange when he came here and
there will be the first public sale of shares, the
arrival to Estonia was an excellent opportunity
and challenge for him. When arriving to Estonia
there was a surprising situation. Instead of
meeting the typical management of Eastern Europe,
he saw the very well functioning company
with rather Scandinavian attitude ahead of him.
Tallinna Vesi is proud of the last year. First of all,
the water quality reached the highest level in
Tallinn ever – the measurement results reached
98%. “This increases slowly, but imagine how
difficult it is to get this last five percents. This
year we want to reach 98.3% and finally also
99% or even up from there,” the manager says.
Last year the level of leakages also lowered. For
comparison: when Tallinna Vesi was privatised,
the water loss was even 35%. In 2008 17% was
achieved. When saying figuratively, the quantity
of saved water is equal to the daily water production
of Tartu. The other important factor in
water management is the breakdowns. “We had
last year no planned breakdown which would
have lasted more than 12 hours – the coping with
breakdowns is a challenge, as you never know
which are the weather conditions and what is ex-
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