Champions of the 2017 Courier and Postal Services Industry were awarded in a special ceremony

The fourth edition of the Awards Gala in Courier and Postal Services gathered in the framework of an elitist event some of the most important national and international companies active in the sector and had as main purpose the merits recognition of all those who have recorded spectacular results and developed successful projects in the last year.

GLS Romania has won the award for the courier company of the year and Lucian Baltaru, CEO of Sameday Courier has been awarded as Manager of the Year in the courier and postal services sector.

The nominations were made following the courier and postal service forms sent by the and by centralizing the information obtained from a polling box among e-commerce opperators. Jury of the 2017 edition consisting of Ramona Jurubita, Deputy Senior Partner at KPMG, Florinel Chis, President of the Romanian Online Store Association, Alexandru Petrescu, President of the National Loan Guarantee Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises, Octavian Badescu, Liviu Taloi, eCommerce Site Audit and Community Manager GPec and Adrian Ion, General Manager of GOVNET, had the mission of choosing the winners of 2017.

The other nominees for the company of the year in the courier and postal services industry were FAN Courier and Sameday Courier.

Manager of the year in the courier and postal services sector is Lucian Baltaru, Sameday Courier CEO, with over 11 years of experience in the courier services market, with passion for fast deliveries and a young team, has developed innovative, unique services in the market for multiple industries. In 2007, he drops off as a Sales Director within a courier service company and becomes a shareholder in Sameday Courier. Miklos Szoboszlay, Division Manager of GLS General Logistics Systems Romania and Lucian Aldescu, DPD Romania CEO were among the other nominees.

The company with the highest growth in courier and postal services was Sameday Courier. In 2016, the company recorded higher revenues of approximately 56% compared to the previous year, reaching 13.4 million lei, compared to 8.60 million lei accounted for in 2015. Other nominations:

FAN Courier: an increase of 28.31% (from € 87.76 million to € 112.61 million) and GLS Romania: Growth of 46.07% (from € 12.29 million to € 17.95 million).

The investment of the year in the courier and postal services sector was awarded to FAN Courier.

By the end of next year, the investments will exceed 36.5 million € (16.5 million € in 2017 and 20 million € in 2018), major investments aimed at expanding the company's main HUB, Stefanesti and the start of the works for construction at the HUB in Cluj for which a land of 24,000 sqm was acquired, the surface of the hall to be built with an area of 5,000 sqm.

The largest amounts invested in 2017 by FAN Courier were directed to the fleet - €7 million, the Stefanesti deposit - €6.7 million so far from the total of over €20 million . 10% of the value was intended to modernize FAN headquarters in the country and to invest in IT. The newly implemented services accounted for around 5% of the total investment volume in 2017. Other nominated investments were DPD Romania's.

The winner of the transaction of the year in courier and postal services was Pink Post – namely the transaction by which Octavian Radu took over Postmaster, the former subsidiary of the Österreichische Post and Total Post Group. The other finalist was the Sameday Courier acquisition by online retailer eMag.

Best Website was awarded to WWW.DHL.RO, while other nominees in the final were WWW.FANCOURIER.ROand WWW.UPS.RO.

SelfAWB by FAN Courier has won the best web application, updated this year with a new, user friendly and intuitive design, but without any substantial changes that would create difficulties for hard user users. A ticketing application has recently been added, one of the projects that will help us better manage customer complaints and requests through an alternative communication channel - SelfAWB Customer Support Section. Other nominees were GLS Connect Online, and Webexpress by Urgent Cargus.

The provider of courier technology and postal services selected by courier companies was KEBA Automation for KePol (Parcel Locker System) – the logistics solution for parcels implemented in Romania through eBOX by FAN Courier project. The other nominees: Honeywell, MasterCard.

The car of the year for courier services and postal services was awarded to Ford Transit, following votes received from courier companies and postal services. The other nominees were Dacia Dokker and Mercedes Vito.

The innovative solution for courier and postal services category was awarded to the Cash Deposit RCD 50 developed by ROPECO. The solution includes an authentication device for managing the process of depositing, counting, validating and storing banknotes. The solution significantly reduces processing time and the risk of accepting false banknotes eliminating the need for further reconciliation. Other nominations were Collect Point by FAN Courier - in PayPoint stores and Colet Expres.

The social impact program developed by a courier and postal service went to th eFAN Courier Foundation, a non-governmental organization built as a project open to partnerships with companies and entrepreneurs from Romania who want to get involved in community life. The FAN Courier Foundation currently supports 10 social impact programs.

Other nominations were received for the DHL Marathon and Sameday Courier program "Childhood Books in Every House"

The main partners of the event were: DPD, Fan Courier, Ford, Honeywell, Nemo Express, OMV PETROM and Suporting Partners: Alira, easypost, KEBA Automation, Oscar Downstream Pink Post. ROPECO, Sameday Courier and SMART ID.