Contributions to understandingtoday's role of highly qualified commerce personnel

This paper is a contribution at raising awareness of the fact that the commercial activity, consisting primarily in buying and selling, has become so complex and from another point of view, so important for companies in their struggling for market share, that it cannot be anymore performed with satisfactory results without professional education. The article insists on the necessity to define a profession of "commercial expert" requiring tertiary (or higher) education of specialty. The author do not underestimate the importance of the practical experience in defining the nature of the "commercial expertise", neither it neglects the role of complementary specialisations (technical, artistic, managerial and so on) depending on the exact position in terms of qualifications and sector of activity which is concerned. Finally, the article announce the necessity to define the commercial expert as one of the qualifications belonging to the national qualifications' framework, and to ensure that the core competencies are provided by higher education schools of commerce, as it is the case with more traditionally established professions, for instance pharmacist or architect.