BR AWARDS 2012 shortlist

The seventh edition of the BR Awards, an event dedicated to rewarding local achievements in business, is closing this week with a varied shortlist of top companies from across the sectors. This year’s event features revamped categories devised to recognize recent developments in the IT and online field, sustainable business practices and retail. Below we outline the contenders, who will hear the jury’s decision in a gala event this week. This year’s jury is made up of: Steven Van Groningen, president of the Foreign Investors’ Council (FIC) and CEO of Raiffeisen Bank, also president of the jury; Florin Pogonaru, chairman of the Romanian Businessmen Association (AOAR); Wargha Enayati, managing director, Regina Maria, the Private Healthcare Network; Emma Popa Radu, managing director, Advent International Office in Bucharest; Aneta Bogdan, managing partner, Brandient; Dan Bulucea, country manager, Google Romania; and Oana Petroff, managing director, Mindshare Romania.

Otilia Haraga, Simona Bazavan, Ovidiu Posirca

Sustainable Business Practices
Judging criteria:
– community involvement
– the chain-reaction effect, meaning creating more sustainable business around the core activity

Carrefour: Filiera Calitatii (Quality Lines) Program
Set up to sign direct supply contracts with local farmers, Carrefour’s Quality Lines program was extended last year with Romanian potato producer Agrico-M, which supplied about 20 percent of the potatoes sold in 2011 by the retailer. Carrefour said it intends to boost the share in the coming years and sign deals with other local farmers. In 2010 Carrefour launched its first two Quality Lines with local farmers for carrots and trout. Through this  program the retailer eliminates intermediaries, while supporting investment opportunities in local agriculture.

Raiffeisen Bank: Raiffeisen Comunitati program
Launched in 2009 as an annual offline financing program, Raiffeisen Comunitati developed into a blog supporting the bank’s ongoing dialog with the communities where it operates and  a contest-based financial program supporting the development and implementation of community projects. The program was also widened to support the best NGO projects, hospitals and schools in communities where there is at least one Raiffeisen Bank branch, either financially, through volunteering or through knowledge dissemination. The maximum value of an allocated grant was EUR 5,000.

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Raiffeisen Comunitati had four targets: the internal audience made up of Raiffeisen Bank employees; local NGOs working in the 210 urban communities in which the bank is present; active bloggers; and the communities targeted by projects.

The grant program reported 391 project submissions, of which 156 applications were accepted. Some 17 finalist projects won financial support from Raiffeisen Bank.

Unilever South Central Europe: Global Sustainability Program
The FMCG producer launched last year a global sustainability program which also impacted its local business. The program’s main objectives are to halve the environmental footprint of the firm’s products by 2020 and source all its agricultural raw materials sustainably.
The company has managed to reduce electricity consumption after investing EUR 50 million in the past two years in expanding the production capacity of its detergents factory in Ploiesti by 30 percent.

Retail Strategy
Judging criteria:
– new aspects of the market entry/expansion strategy in relation to the industry segment and the company’s previous strategy
– investment in development against the achieved results
– (marketing) strategies for developing a customer base or retaining and     growing the existing one: new ideas, customer-centric approach, results

Carrefour: Carrefour Express franchise
Part of its global multi-format strategy, Carrefour Romania launched last year its first local proximity store through a franchise agreement with local meat producer and retailer Angst, under the name of Carrefour Express. There were three such stores at the end of 2011. This year the scheme will be extended to all 24 existing Angst outlets and any new ones that will be opened in the meantime, according to Angst officials.
In addition to the three Carrefour Express stores, the retailer also runs 46 supermarkets and 25 hypermarkets in Romania.

eMag: online retail strategy
Last year, eMag launched Marketplace, the first online platform in Romania to host various retailers. On this platform, any of the retailers can promote and sell their products to eMag clients, with the product range, promotions and logistics of the orders being dealt with directly on the platform by the individual retailer. eMag marketplace has since seen the addition of new categories of products and services such as toys, books, music and even insurances policies.
eMag, along with Flanco, also pioneered the Black Friday initiative, which brought the firm sales of EUR 8 million in just one day. According to the study Superbrands 2011, eMag is the most recognized brand on the electro-IT segment. It is also the largest online retailer of IT&C products, with seven showrooms in Bucharest, Iasi, Ploiesti, Cluj, Timisoara, Constanta and Craiova.

Mega Image: outlet location strategy
Throughout 2011, Mega Image stepped up its expansion pace, opening 33 new stores and taking its national network to 105 outlets under the Mega Image and Shop&Go brands, the latter also having been launched last year. The Belgian retailer now owns the largest supermarket network in Bucharest.

In order to support its expansion pace in 2011 Mega Image invested in opening its own 40,000-sqm logistics center in Popesti Leordeni, following an investment of over EUR 20 million.

Murfatlar: Crama Murfatlar
The largest wine producer in Romania decided to invest in its own retail wine store network, Crama Murfatlar, which reached more than 100 shops country-wide in 2011. The shops are run under a franchise scheme in partnership with local entrepreneurs.
Sales reached 8.1 million liters of wine, worth EUR 14.5 million. The company plans to expand to 150 outlets by the end of 2012 and hopes that the stores will enable it to double its turnover in two years’ time.

ONLINE  STRATEGY FOR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Judging criteria:
–  innovative character of the online project with reference to the local market and the respective industry
–  the response generated by the project in terms of revenue, community building, public awareness

Citibank: Smart Banking Branch
Citibank developed a complex digital banking platform in Romania, for corporate and retail consumers. The lender opened its first digital smart branch locally last year, unique in the Europe and Middle East region, but also developed a smartphone-friendly banking application, all part of the smart banking strategy rolled out by Citi. The launch of a co-branded card with Vodafone and a permanent chat service are part of Citibank’s efforts to improve its customers’ banking services experience.

eMag: Black Friday Initiative
eMag pioneered the Black Friday concept in Romania, the day after Thanksgiving when promotions kick off the Christmas shopping season.  A total of 1.2 million Romanians accessed the eMAG website that day, which represents over 5 percent of the Romanian population. In total, 100,000 products were ordered and EUR 8 million in sales achieved in just one day.

Raiffeisen Bank: Studentocard online platform
Raiffeisen Bank promoted its Studentocard among university students, attracting around 35,000 customers by end-August 2011. The online channel studentbank.ro accounted for 35 percent of total applications for the debit card, registering traffic of 450,000 visitors and 1.5 million page views. The lender was able to attract more than 9,000 fans to the Facebook page specially designed for this program.

Vodafone: Manager SRL online video game
Vodafone Romania carved out a niche in the online sector by launching last year Manager SRL. This marked several premieres, as it was the first online interactive movie campaign in Romania, the country’s first business game experience and also the first Vodafone OpCo to launch a full role-play interaction to this extent.

So far, the website has registered over 100,000 unique visitors who have viewed over 700,000 video scenes. As many as 10,000 players shared their Manager diploma on social media while 11,000 wanted to receive info about Vodafone’s business products (which is optional). Overall, 95 percent of contacted users said they had found the experience positive or highly positive, while 90 percent found the campaign to be innovative and enjoyed the experience.

INNOVATION IN TECHNOLOGY
Judging criteria:
– innovative characteristics of the product
– local R&D activity

Bitdefender: security and antivirus product portfolio
2011 was a year of premieres for Bitdefender as the company launched the 2012 generation of products targeting a global market: Total Security 2012, Internet Security 2012, Antivirus Plus 2012, as well as a free anti-virus solution launched exclusively in Romania.

Three of the most important independent testing organizations in the world voted Bitdefender’s consumer products the number one choice (in terms of internet security), last year. Having established itself as a technological leader in consumer endpoint protection technologies, Bitdefender took a quantum leap, by targeting an emerging enterprise market: virtualization security.

As an aspiring provider of holistic security solutions, the firm launched an entirely new public/private/hybrid cloud platform supporting endpoint security across physical, virtual and mobile infrastructures. With a team of 623 people, Bitdefender keeps its innovation guns at home, as 99 percent of the research is done by Romanian-based teams.

Renault Technology: Dacia Duster SUV model
Renault Technologie Roumanie (RTR) was inaugurated in 2007, quickly becoming Renault’s largest engineering center outside France, employing almost 2,500 people in three locations: Bucharest (home to its automotive engineering and design offices), Titu (testing center) and Mioveni (technical support to Dacia plant).

Last year saw the completion of the Titu Technical Center project following a EUR 166 million investment. RTR is the engineering hub for all vehicles developed on the Logan platform and the R&D center reported a turnover of approximately EUR 100 million in 2010.
The Duster, Dacia’s SUV model, which is the most important project developed by RTR in Romania, accounted for almost 50 percent of the local carmaker’s sales in 2011.

Televoice: Evolio range
Last year, Romanian company Televoice,  launched the Evolio Neura tablet PC with Android OS, which it positioned as “an iPad killer,” claiming it offers more at a similar size and for a fair price. The overall investment in the project was in excess of USD 1 million.

The device was designed in Romania but the hardware was manufactured in Shenzen, China. Other launches included the EvoTab1 and EvoTab2 tablet PC as well as the Evobook2 eReader.
Televoice focuses on innovative products based on open standards and platforms that are competitive on the international market as well. In 2011, it came third in the tablet PC sales race in Romania, after Apple and Samsung.

Visual Fan: Allview range
Visual Fan, a Romanian-based company operating since 2002, sells IT&C products under the Allview brand. In 2011, the producer launched the first dual SIM smartphone under a Romanian brand, PC tablets – such as the AllDro Speed tablet – and smart TV boxes based on Android OS.
For this, Allview developed hardware and software systems and integrated them in the DroSeries product range. Allview also introduced the Selfcare application, a portal pre-installed on every dual SIM mobile phone and PC tablet under its brand.

INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION
Judging criteria:
– scope and reach of the international presence
– results achieved on foreign markets: (share in the company’s financial performance), products introduced, operational use of international locations

Bitdefender
Bitdefender’s international expansion aspirations materialized last year into a suite of products thrown onto the global market, new offices opened in foreign locations, a rebranding campaign and, overall, a more aggressive leader-oriented approach to the global market. Ten years after it came into being, Bitdefender completed a two-year, EUR 1 million rebranding process that reflected its Romanian roots and global aspirations to become world leader on the security solutions market.

Also last year, Bitdefender added a new international office, located in Dubai, to the list of two offices in the United States, one in Silicon Valley and another in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It also has offices in Great Britain, Germany and Spain and in addition a support center in Chile with a team that serves clients in South America.

Floating on the stock exchange remains a priority for the company, which has 623 employees. It last year reached the 400-million clients mark and aims to gain another 100 million by the end of the year.

Siveco
Software and consultancy provider Siveco is present in 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS, North Africa and the Middle East, and has 20 ongoing contracts for the European Commission.

In 2011, Siveco signed 224 national and international contracts in fields such as eBusiness, eLearning, eCustoms, eHealth, eAgriculture and eNuclear. The company is in an expansion mode that will see it establish a presence in 50 countries in four years from now, as its long-term mission is to become a global software integrator. Siveco’s portfolio of clients has increased to 1,400 due to new contracts abroad.

Totalsoft
Romanian company Totalsoft dates back to 1994 and is now part of the Global Finance investment group. With offices in Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Qatar, Totalsoft announced at end-2011 the opening of its first office in a Western European country, Austria, which caters to the Central Eastern European region and German-speaking countries. A company with 490 employees which posted a turnover of nearly EUR 26 million in 2011, Totalsoft saw a 30 percent y-o-y increase in international revenues.

One major achievement in 2011 was its selection as project management consulting provider for the biggest project in the world – the construction of the Jubail Refinery in Saudi Arabia. It also continued the Charisma solution roll-out in multinational companies, with implementations in new countries for its portfolio, such as the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and even Senegal.

TeamNet
Last year, TeamNet was ranked among the top ten companies in the Deloitte Central Europe Technology FAST 50 ranking for the fourth year in a row, with a 59 percent growth in sales y-o-y, the only Romanian company so garlanded. TeamNet, which dates back to 2001 and employs around 350 people, posted a turnover of EUR 32 million in 2011.
The company has offices abroad in Brussels and Chisinau and opened a new office in Belgrade in 2011. It was also among the top ten IT suppliers in the Republic of Moldova.

BEST EMPLOYMENT INITIATIVE
Judging criteria:
– number of appointments and quality of the jobs created
– effort to retain workforce despite difficult economic environment

Endava: comprehensive employment program
Last year British IT company Endava, which has three delivery centers in Romania (in Cluj, Iasi and Bucharest), announced an extensive employment program. Its headcount in Romania hiked by 33 percent in 2011, reaching 340 people in total.

The company organized Endava Career Days, developed a new recruitment program, a new line management approach and a talent management strategy to streamline its operations. The recruitment process that started last year will go on in 2012 as well: in the first half of 2012, 250 more people will be added to the roster. Endava has been present on the Romanian market since 2006 and posted a EUR 9.2 million turnover in 2011.

Intel: hired highly trained employees for its R&D center
Last year, the Intel software development center more than tripled its initial jobs forecast, hiring over 50 people as software engineers, quality engineers, software engineering managers and interns.

The team also moved to a new permanent office, with state-of-the-art facilities for R&D. The products that the R&D employees have worked on in the past year are used in the current Intel mobile platforms introduced to the market this year.

Siveco: doubled the number of employees
Set up 20 years ago, the company doubled its number of employees in 2011, reaching 1,200 people as a result of 224 national and international contracts it signed last year, including for European Commission institutions.

In Romania, the company also opened two more work points in Brasov and Ploiesti, on top of its existing ones in Cluj, Timisoara, Constanta, Craiova and Galati. Recruitment will continue this year too, as Siveco plans to hire about 150-200 people. In 2011, the firm saw its turnover grow by 12 percent to EUR 67 million.

Sfantul Constantin & Regina Maria private hospital campus: hired 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 following . The 3,000-sqm campus was built in partnership with Teo Health and includes an obstetrics and gynecology unit, a pediatrics unit, a polyclinic and a laboratory. Over 65 doctors were hired, along with other type of medical personnel.

BEST BUSINESS INITIATIVE IN SMEs
Judging criteria:
– innovation of the business idea
– achievement within the industry and looking at the resources involved

Artmark auction house
Artmark currently leads the local art market with a 77 percent share. The company positions itself as a one-stop-shop for art enthusiasts, encompassing an auction house, gallery and cultural center, and offering a wide range of services from advisory and guarantees to restoration, evaluation, private sales, logistics and related services. Last year Artmark launched the Art Consecrated Index, a monitoring tool of the weekly evolution of the art market for the 100 most representative Romanian artists.

In 2011 Artmark also released the Artmark Live application, which facilitates real-time bidding over the internet, and opened the Art Shop Dependent de Art, specialized in contemporary fine arts and decorative arts.
The firm reported a turnover of EUR 12 million last year, and a EUR 530,000 profit for the first half of 2011.

BOOKbyte digital library
The 28-year-old entrepreneurs Anca and Radu Apostoae are the owners of BOOKbyte, the first digital library with a full DRM integrated solution. BOOKbyte is focused on eBook distribution, eBook software development and eReader retail.
Launched in November 2010, the venture focused last year on developing a strong product package, with end-to-end solutions for clients and publishers. At the time of the launch only around 30 books were available for download. At the end of 2011 more than 400 titles were available from 10 Romanian publishers, most of them in a digital format for the first time. Last year BOOKbyte developed partnerships for ePub conversion and eBook creation services. It also became the official importer in Romania for Booken (a French eReader brand) and launched the Orizon, the world’s thinnest eReader.

F64 Photo Store
Marian Alecsiu, currently general manager, and Daniela Becheru, managing director, started F64 at the beginning of the 90s, initially as a small photography studio. F64 officially opened last year its flagship store in Bucharest’s Piata Unirii, the largest photo store in South-Eastern Europe and one of the largest worldwide.

The showroom has a surface of 1,300 sqm and a capacity to display approximately 5,000 products, selected from a range of 100 brands. F64 forecasted an annual turnover of EUR 14 million for 2011, which represent a 23 percent growth year-on-year. In 2012, the figure is expected to reach EUR 17.5 million.

Zebra Pay: instant payment network
Founded by Lucian Butnaru in October 2009, ZebraPay is an instant payment terminal company conceived as the first local model of one-stop-shops. Last year, Zebra Pay made USD 1.5 million of investments in its infrastructure, taking the self-service kiosk network to national level. At the end of 2011, the firm had installed 500 terminals in 30 cities across the country, with 15 services available at these points. Zebra Pay has 22 employees and posted a turnover of USD 750,000 in 2011.

ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR
Judging criteria:
– development of the business over the past two years
– unique characteristics of the business
– results achieved against investment and the overall industry

Dragos Atanasiu: Eurolines
Dragos Anastasiu, founder of the Eurolines group 17 years ago, struck a deal in 2011 with German company TUI Travel under which 25 of the local operator’s agencies will be rebranded as TUI Travel Center. The agencies will sell TUI products under the concept of Travel Hypermarket. “TUI did not have a distribution network in Romania while we did not have a brand. We have now joined forces,” said Anastasiu. The Eurolines Group, which has 500 employees, posted a turnover of EUR 46 million in 2011, a 22 percent hike. As part of the partnership, Eurolines Group has acquired Danubius Travel, more than 70 percent of which belonged to the TUI group.

Alexandru Baldea and Manuela Plapcianu: Artmark
Manuela Plapcianu, along with her partner Alexandru Baldea, are running one of the most interesting entrepreneurial ventures on the local market. Alexandru Baldea founded the Artmark galleries in July 2008 together with Radu Boroianu, benefiting from financing from a Dutch investment fund. Baldea is a founding member of the ArtSociety Cultural Center and teaches at the Art History department within the Bucharest University since 2010.

Plapcianu took over in February 2009as CEO of Artmark, a business in which she owns 20 percent. An art collector since 1985, Plapcianu has over 15 years of experience in management and leadership positions across the financial sector. She is an expert in financial markets, M&As, retail and corporate banking, crisis management and other fields. She holds an EMBA Asebuss from the Washington and Columbia NY universities.

Dragos Petrescu: Trotter Prim
Dragos Petrescu is a name strongly linked to the local restaurant industry. The Romanian entrepreneur owns shares in City Grill network of eateries and the manager of Caru’ Cu Bere.
2011 proved a good year for the businessman. Petrescu launched three new brands on the local market – Hanu’ Berarilor, Cantina Sport Bar and the Bundetot shaorma shop. He managed to increase sales by 16 percent and open five new units including a City Cafe unit in the Otopeni airport, Hanu’ Berarilor Elena Lupescu, the second restaurant under the Hanu’ Berarilor brand, and the BackWerk bakery on Magheru Blvd.

Ioan Popa: Transavia
Ioan Popa, the owner of the main shareholder of local poultry producer Transavia Group, has managed in the past 20 years to take the business to market leader position. At the end of 2011 the company had more than 1,300 employees and a production capacity of more than 50,000 tons of poultry per year. Due to the increasing price of fodder, in 2011 it expanded its business to crop production. About EUR 10 million has been invested into the new division. Popa hopes to reach a total surface of 10,000 hectares of land for cereal cultivation.

Iulian Stanciu: Network one Distribution, eMAG and Flanco
Iulian Stanciu created Asesoft (with Sebastian Ghita) when he was still a student at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest. At the end of 2011, Asesoft Distribution rebranded as Network One Distribution (NOD), with ambitions to become an international player and expand in the CEE region.

Stanciu is president of the NOD board, with a EUR 180 million turnover in 2011, up 24 percent y-o-y. He is also manager and major shareholder in Dante International, the company which runs the largest online retailer in Romania, eMag. Additionally, he is a major shareholder in IT&C retailer Flanco, which posted a turnover of EUR 110 million in 2011.

Camelia Sucu: Piata de gros
After investing in the furniture business, local businesswoman Camelia Sucu is putting her faith in agriculture as one of the sectors that will bring considerable returns in the years to come. She bought Piata de gros – a wholesale market for agricultural products in Bucharest which is supposed to bring together producers and retailers – in 2010 for EUR 5.5 million. Last October she announced plans to invest between EUR 10 million and EUR 15 million in modernizing and expanding the project. Sucu also invested last year in a cattle farm in Transylvania. The businesswoman owns the Class Living luxury furniture retailer and co-founded furniture company Mobexpert.

Deal of the Year
Judging criteria:
– financial details of the transaction
– impact within the industry/ local business scene
– novel elements characteristic to the transaction

Ameropa Holding buys  Azomures and Chimpex
Swiss grain and fertilizer trader Ameropa acquired Romanian fertilizer producer Azomures and Chimpex and Chimpex, a harbor operator in Constanta, both listed on the Stock Exchange, in a deal worth between EUR 100 and 275 million, according to media sources. Azomures reported a turnover of RON 1.6 billion last year, and a profit of RON 405 million.

Erste buys four SIFs’ shares in BCR

Austrian Erste Group Bank increased its stake in BCR to 89.12 percent after acquiring a 24 percent share package from financial investment firms SIF Banat Crisana, SIF Transilvania, SIF Muntenia and SIF Moldova. The transaction amounts to around EUR 400 million, involving a cash payment and a share swap between Erste and BCR, based on an average price of EUR 17.6 per share in July 2011-January 2012 and an average EUR/RON rate of 4.3143 in the same period. Erste consolidated its presence in CEE last year by achieving a maximum equity interest in BCR.

MetLife buys Alico
The American group MetLife has bought the divisions of the insurance company Aviva from Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic. The transaction will be completed this year after regulators from Romania and the United States approve it. The move is in line with the strategy of focusing on large markets that Aviva announced in November 2010. Aviva is present on the local market through Aviva Life Insurance and Aviva Private Pensions. The takeover will be done through Alico Asigurari Romania, a company that it is part of MetLife, along with Alico.

NEPI buys City Business Center
South African New Europe Property Investments has acquired City Business Center, three adjoining office buildings in Timisoara, covering 27,150 sqm, from businessman Ovidiu Sandor.

Although the deal was sealed this January, negotiations were carried out in 2011. The acquisition involved a share transfer from Sandor to NEPI totaling EUR 16.5 million. The office buildings have a value of EUR 45.6 million.

NEPI was listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange last summer and has invested around EUR 250 million in real estate in the last two years. The fund’s assets totaled EUR 360 million at end-2011.

BUSINESS LEADER OF THE YEAR
Judging criteria:
– remarkable individual (entrepreneurial) or group results achieved within the context of a specific industry (turnover/sales against the company’s previous performance and industry average)
– standing and presence in the company and industry community
– resources and innovation involved in achieving the results

Inaki Berroeta: Vodafone Romania
In December 2010 Spaniard Inaki Berroeta was named CEO of Vodafone Romania, the second biggest operator on the local market, with 8.32 million customers after the third quarter of the financial year 2011/2012. The operator was ranked number one in the list of Top Social Brands 2011. During his leadership Vodafone gave a strong push on the mobile internet segment, posting a 75 percent boost in its customer base and a 58 percent hike in its revenues on this segment y-o-y. Last year, the operator was certified by independent auditor P3 communications as having the best performing GSM/UMTS/CDMA network for mobile data in Romania. Vodafone is also leader of the business sector in Romania, with a 50 percent share of the market of mobile communication services for companies.

Cornelia Coman: ING Life Insurance Romania
Cornelia Coman has been at the helm of ING Life Insurance for more than three years, striving to keep the insurer in a leading position despite a difficult market. ING has rolled out customer feedback and personal financial plans, while upskilling their consultants and sales force. Last year, the firm increased its life insurance and voluntary pension sales by 11 percent, reporting gross written premiums of RON 544 million. In addition, the net assets of the two voluntary pension funds reached RON 200 million.

Mariana Gheorghe: OMV Petrom
Mariana Gheorghe has been CEO of OMV Petrom, the largest oil and gas group in South-Eastern Europe, since 2006. Under her mandate, the group has invested over EUR 6.6 billion in modernization and increased efficiency. In 2010 the group’s turnover was EUR 4.4 billion, while its EBIT was EUR 709 million.

This February, US Exxon Mobil and OMV Petrom, which teamed up in 2008, made a historic breakthrough by finding gas deposits in the Black Sea, during exploration works that started last year.

Prior to joining the group, Gheorghe worked for the European bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for 13 years, focusing on the oil and gas sector.

Robert Rekkers: Banca Transilvania
Until he stepped down recently, Robert Rekkers had been one of the longest-serving managers in the Romanian banking industry, working as general manager at Banca Transilvania for almost a decade. During his tenure the lender became the third biggest bank in Romania and managed to increase its value on the stock exchange from EUR 55 million in 2002 to EUR 1.7 billion in 2007.

Under his watch BT was always a target for financial groups planning to enter the local market. His arrival at BT coincided with the drawing up of a new business strategy by the management board of BT that involved three aspects: consolidating the bank, launching the BT Financial Group and repositioning the lender on the Romanian banking system.

Irina Socol: Siveco
Irina Socol is one of the pioneer businesswomen in Romanian IT, having started the software and consultancy provider Siveco in 1992 with her husband, Alexandru Radasanu. Socol is now CEO and president of a company which has doubled its headcount to 1,200 employees and reached a turnover of EUR 67 million in 2011, up 12 percent y-o-y. Siveco’s footprint reaches 17 countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS, North Africa and the Middle East.

Last year, the firm signed 224 new local and international multi-annual projects. It will provide software development and maintenance services worth EUR 10 million to six organizations in the European Union. Socol’s ambition is to turn Siveco into a global software integrator which will be present in 50 countries in four years. Listing the firm on the stock exchange in a few years’ time is still an option.

Florin Talpes: Bitdefender
One of the pioneers of the software industry in Romania and a math graduate-turned-Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Florin Talpes has transformed his flagship company Bitdefender into a major player on the global security market. Eleven years since its inception, Talpes’s success is measured in 400 million clients and a worldwide presence in over 100 countries.

In 2011, Bitdefender’s consumer products were voted the number one choice (in terms of internet security) by three of the most important independent testing organizations in the world. Talpes’s entrepreneurial journey started in 1990 as founder of Softwin, one of the most prominent home-grown Romanian software and services companies.
He also set down the basis of the Romanian Association of the Software Services Industry (ANIS), leading a team to develop the National Strategy for Software Services in Romania.

EXCELLENCE IN BUSINESS
Judging criteria:
–  innovative character and/or development achievement/potential of a business     developed locally
–  performance achieved base on the principles of customer focus, stakeholder     value, process management

Bitdefender
Last year, three of the most important independent testing organizations in the world voted Bitdefender’s consumer products the number one choice (in terms of internet security). The company’s 2012 range of security products also hit the shelves last year, including a free anti-virus edition launched exclusively in Romania. Last but not least, a pivotal change in Bitdefender’s philosophy took place, as it embraced a more aggressive corporate identity which should help it achieve its world leader target.

A new logo for the “defenders of the new digital world”, the Dacian wolf-dragon, and the slogan “Awake” were adopted during a EUR 1 million rebranding campaign. Bitdefender has reached the 400 million clients mark, and has a presence in 100 countries all over the world. Despite being a global company, it keeps its R&D operations at home, with 99 percent of its research done by Romanian-based teams.

Group Renault Romania
Car manufacturer Dacia, Romania’s leading exporter, sold around 30,000 units domestically on a declining auto market last year, but compensated through exports to France, Germany and Italy, where it sold around 160,000 vehicles last year.

Dacia has used the research center set up in Romania by Renault, which developed parts of the Duster, the SUV model that accounted for 47 percent of the brand’s total sales in 2011. Some 200,000 Dacia cars were manufactured at the Mioveni plant, while 1.5 million cars were produced on X90 platform. The Renault Group Romania is focusing on a complete car chain.

eMag
The largest online retailer in Romania, eMag, has been building up steam for the past ten years. eMag was one of the initiators of last year’s Black Friday campaign, bringing to Romania a shopping-at-a-big-discount concept that has been successfully tested on Western markets. The result was that in just one day, the firm’s website was visited by 1.2 million people, more than 5 percent of the Romanian population. Sales on that day reached an unprecedented peak of EUR 8 million, and 100,000 products.

Also last year, eMag moved its office to Swan Office and Technology Park where it rented 2,700 sqm, while its showroom and service continue to operate at Grant Mall. The retailer posted a EUR 62 million turnover in H1, 2011, with EUR 150 million estimated for the whole of the year, 50 percent up on 2010.

Orange
Orange kept its leader position on the Romanian telecom market, with 10.18 million customers and EUR 698 million in revenues after the first nine months of 2011. Additionally, the operator saw a 43 percent quarterly boost in its mobile internet base, reaching 4.3 million clients. Orange put EUR 110 million into network expansion, coverage of rural areas, new products and customer experience improvement. It also budgeted investments of up to EUR 600 million for 2011-2015.

Last year, the mobile operator kicked off an extensive project modernizing its communication network and supplying broadband services to rural areas, to be completed by end-2012. It also launched high-speed mobile internet in Bucharest and several other large cities, allowing 43.2 Mbps download speeds and 5.76 Mbps upload speeds.

Meanwhile, the operator revamped its network of stores and launched the Orange Care Center for mobile phones. In July, 2011, Frenchman Jean-Francois Fallacher was appointed at the helm of Orange Romania.

Simona Bazavan, Otilia Haraga, Ovidiu Posirca, Anda Sebesi