BR Awards 2012 Winners

The seventh annual Business Review Awards Gala held last week recognized the best business initiatives of 2011 from across the industries.

While operational achievements such as expansion and acquisition strategies were celebrated, the gala also awarded companies’ efforts to conduct sustainable business, innovate in product development and use the online medium.

Established firms, both international and local, found their way onto the shortlist of nominees and landed several important prizes, but the event also recognized local startups from sectors not usually in the spotlight, such as the Artmark art auction house and the F64 photo studio.

Artmark is no longer just a vision in the mind of the two entrepreneurs behind the auction house (Manuela Plapcianu and Alexandru Baldea) but a reality for everyone out there and a sign of normality for the local art market, said Manuela Plapcianu, CEO of Artmark, when picking up the award for Entrepreneur of the Year. Commenting on the state of entrepreneurship in Romania, Plapcianu said that each and every entrepreneur, irrespective of their domain, deserves a statue in this country – “especially in this country.”

In the Best Business Initiative in SMEs category, F64 Studio was given the top prize, in recognition of the company’s development from a small photography studio at the beginning of the 1990s into a well established company, which last year opened its flagship store in Bucharest, the largest one in SEE. “We are devoted to the photo industry and we await you at our store, which is the largest in Eastern Europe,” said Marian Alecsiu, the company’s GM, receiving the award.

Sustainable business practices were also a topic of interest at the event and the corresponding award went to Raiffeisen Bank for developing the Raiffaisen Comunitati Program, aimed at supporting the bank’s dialog with the communities where it operates while awarding financial support for the implementation of community projects.

Renault Technologie Roumanie (RTR) took home the award for Innovation in Technology. RTR was inaugurated in 2007 and is the carmaker’s largest engineering center outside France. “I would like to assure you that innovation in Romania is alive and kicking. At Renault there are 2,500 Romanian engineers who are working very hard to set the bar even higher,” said Sorin Buse, GM of RTR.

A new award introduced at this year’s event was Online Strategy for Business Development, which went to eMag for rolling out the Black Friday initiative. A total of 1.2 million Romanians accessed the eMag website on the day of the campaign, 100,000 products were ordered and the company achieved sales of EUR 8 million “I think to do business in Romania, one does not need to be of age or have a beard, but just to do things extraordinarily well,” said Iulian Stanciu, GM of Asesoft, the company that bought into eMag in 2009.

Developments in the local retail sector were acknowledged with a Retail Strategy Award, which went to Mega Image, for its outlet location strategy. Throughout 2011 the firm opened 33 new stores, taking its national network to 105 outlets.

The Best Employment Initiative Award, also newly introduced, was awarded to Sfantul Constantin & Regina Maria Private Hospital Campus for hiring highly skilled medical personnel. Regina Maria opened a medical campus in Brasov, following a EUR 4.2 million investment, on the premises of the Sfantul Constantin private hospital, a EUR 20 million investment by Teo Health inaugurated last March.

“Two years ago, we showed a piece of paper with some figures on it to three investors. Regina Maria also joined in on the way. One year since opening, we are in the process of becoming one of the main private hospitals in Romania. Next month, we hope to perform the first kidney transplant. Tomorrow, we start preparations for a liver transplant which will take place in 2013,” said Bogdan Angheloiu, general manager of Sf. Constantin hospital.

Erste Group won the Deal of the Year prize for increasing its stake in BCR to 89 percent after acquiring a 24 percent share package from financial investment firms SIF Banat Crisana, SIF Transilvania, SIF Muntenia and SIF Moldova. “It was an important deal for Erste Group. This should be proof that Erste Bank and Erste Group are really involved in the Romanian market. We trust that after the crisis, we will come out stronger. We trust our clients and the Romanian economy very much,” commented Helmuth Hintringer, executive VP and CFO of BCR.

The big winner on the night was Romanian software company Bitdefender, which took home three awards: International Expansion, Excellence in Business and Business Leader of the Year for Florin Talpes. “We have 400 dedicated R&D people throughout Romania. Bitdefender has R&D divisions in Bucharest, Iasi, Timisoara and Cluj,” said Rares Stefan, business solutions director at the company.

Staff

More photos from the event here