The big winners of “50 Years PLAISIO – RetailBusiness Awards 2019”

With Metro/My market as the major protagonist, the 17th Awards ceremony was concluded for the competition “50 Years PLAISIO – RetailBusiness Awards 2019”, as the company was selected as Retailer of the Year, while its CEO Aristotelis Panteliadis, was honoured with the Retail Manager award. The great celebration of Retail Trade and Industry was held on Monday 18 February at the Athens Concert Hall, in the presence of more than 600 executives of the Retail, Industry, and Communications market, as well as representatives from the world of journalism. The hosts for the evening were journalist Dimitris Kampourakis and the athlete and presenter Dora Panteli.

Fully updated and following the trends and the needs of the market, the “50 Years PLAISIO – Retails Business Awards 2019” introduced in this year’s competition, for the first time, new award categories, both for retailers as well as suppliers, always true to their logic and philosophy that the awards must result through clear and completely transparent and merit-based procedures.

It should be mentioned that the winners, for yet another year, were selected following evaluation and voting by a wide-ranging evaluation committee, in which representatives from 19 institutional organisations and institutes of the Greek market participated (SEVT, IFES, ESVEP, NCHC, GRECA,HAA, the Franchise Association of Greece, HRBA, SEV, IELKA, European Communication Institute, Supply Chain Institute, IAB Hellas, SEPOA HMA, IPE, ECR Hellas, HIM and the Greek Marketing Academy), heads of data and research companies (GfK, IRI, Nielsen) and recognised representatives of academia, with KPMG constituting, this year also, being the competition’s audit body.

Suppliers of the Year, based on the survey that was carried out once again, exclusively for the magazine RetailBusiness and for Direction Business Network, by the Athens University of Economics, with Professors Giorgos Panigyrakis as scientific head, included Unilever Hellas (Non Food), Barba Stathis (Food & Drink), B/S/H (Appliances and Audiovisual Equipment) and Huwaei Hellas (Technology).

In addition, Honorary Awards were granted to Lidl Hellas for its successful 20 years in our country, to Plaisio for its 50-year anniversary of activity, and to AB Vassilopoulos for being present on the Greek market for 80 years. OPAP was honoured with the Rising Star award for developing the Play network, while REDS received the Retail Investment Award for its significant expansion at Smart Park.

 

The statements by the protagonists

“Today marks 17 years of a continued presence, which is clear proof on the one hand of the importance of the tradition, and on the other of the momentum of the market and its people”, mentioned the publisher of Direction Business network, Vangelis Papalios, in his welcome speech, adding that “our long-standing principle, moreover, and our sole objective from the very beginning was to support and honour Values and Excellency. This is the “secret” to success and, thanks to this logic it established itself, essentially from its very first steps, as the most important and distinguished tradition for Retail Trade and Industry in Greece, and one of the most important in Greek Business.”

On his part, Retail Manager Aristotelis Panteliadis, who is also the Managing Director of Metro/My market, selected Retailer of the Year, stated the following regarding the double award: “I am very happy about the two awards, because I believe that they pertain to our entire team and all the work we did and completed after a three-year plan to incorporate Veropoulos, which was crowned with success. We worked a great deal and very hard but, at the same time, it was a process that was exciting and interesting. We had planned a three-year course including all the stages. Now that this period has passed, I can say that we truly achieved everything we had planned. Of course, we must continue to better ourselves, and to meet the needs of consumers in the best possible way. We cannot stop improving, and this is what we will do. I hope that the most difficult part is behind us, and that we can be optimistic about the future. Nonetheless, better things won’t come on their own. We must work and strive towards this.”

Additionally, George Gerardos, Chairman and CEO of Plaisio Computers, which was the Title Sponsor of the competition, in his introductory greeting, referred to the 50-year landmark which the chain is celebrating this year, and set the tone for the future, stressing that “we have profited all 50 years. We profited during the recession and we had very good cashflow. What we are proud of is the fact that, during the entire duration of the recession, we did not reduce the salary of any employee. We are now entering 2019 with half a century of history, experience, and absolute trust. This is the heritage offered to us by our 50 years. We will therefore forget the recession and make new investments. A new generation of executives follows, the great team of 1,500 people we have, and to whom we owe our success. Thus we move forward to the next cycle of growth. We deserve it, as does Greek society.”

The Competition

The “50 Years PLAISIO – RetailBusiness Awards 2019” were organised by Direction Business Network and the magazine RetailBusiness, and were held, as they are every year, under the auspices of the Ministry of Finance and Development. They were organised in collaboration with the Hellenic Confederation of Commerce and Entrepreneurship (ESEE) and the Hellenic Retail Business Association (HRBA), while KPMG Sworn Auditors S.A., for the 14th year in a row, was the competition’s audit body, safeguarding the validity of the process.

Plaisio was the title sponsor, while OPAP was the Major Sponsor. AB Vassilopoulos was a sponsor in the categories “Supplier of the Year” Food & Drink and Non Food, and My Market was a sponsor for the categories Supplier’s CSR Campaign, Supplier’s Brand Campaign, and Supplier’s Social Media Campaign. Wind was the Telecoms Provider, and sponsors included Sklavenitis, Dimello, West Sales & Marketing Agency, EVIN Intzoglou, Zagori Natural Mineral Water, Screens Hellas and Tzortzis S.A., while Official Partners included Ogilvy, The Design Agency, ImagePro, Music4Media, flexbook, Future Μodels Management and Greek Wine Cellars. In addition, the competition was supported by Pressious Arvanitidis (Printing), Polichromo (Digital Printing) and Mass Courier (Courier Services) Web communications sponsors included Advertising.gr, BusinessNews.gr and Euro2day.gr, while the television communications sponsor was SBC.

 

*A detailed table follows which includes all the winners.