The 2018 Romanian Courier and Postal Services Champions of the Year were Awarded in a Special Gala

The fifth annual edition of the Courier and Postal Services Awards Gala gathered some of the most important national and international companies active in the sector to celebrate and reward the achievements, success stories and dedication of companies and individuals that keep the sector on the move. The courier and postal services industry champions of the year received a formal recognition in front of over 100 industry managers, clients and service providers.

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

The Transaction of the Year in the Courier and Post Sector went to Urgent Cargus, who was purchased 100% by the Mid Europa Partners investment fund from ABRIS Capital investment fund. Finalists were Pink Post for the transaction whereby Pink Post took over the postal service division of Sameday Courier and Urgent Cargus who in July 2018 acquired X Courier, a small domestic courier company.

New Entry of the Year in the Courier and Post Sector was awarded to Glovo. Within 6 months of launch, Glovo has become one of the well-known names in the delivery market.The website has been completely rebuilt this year to provide a much better user experience. This year, a B2B website has been developed where courier orders can be placed in a business with a more business-oriented interface. Investments in the first year of launch are 1 MILLION EUR. and 6 months after launch, they enrolled in ~ 1500 couriers and 200,000 deliveries.

The other finalist was UBER EATS. Uber started in Romania in February 2015. More than two years away, Uber Eats officially introduces the service for you to order food. It is based on the already-developed network, and uses some existing infrastructure resources, but with small changes. The service was launched on the local market after it was available in Poland. Documents are available only in Bucharest and Uber claims that by the end of the year it will focus on Capital, the increase in the delivery area and the decrease in time. The service is launched with 100 restaurants and the Uber target is set to reach 300 by the end of the year.

The Investment of the Year in the Courier and Post Sector Awards went to FAN Courier for the HUB in Stefanestii de Jos. The construction of the new HUB began in August 2017 and was completed after 1 year and 2 months in October 2018. This new complex consists of a 14,000 m2 warehouse, a workshop, a 4,000 m2 parking space for TIRs and one of 2,000 m2 for cars.

The value of the investment was over 25 million euros. The new warehouse has 160 load gates. The sorting belt has a capacity of 39,000 parcels per hour, compared to 6,000 parcels per hour in the old warehouse.

Sameday Courier - PROJECT OPTISORTER By investing in the OPTISORTER sorting band, installed by RoSystec along with Bowe Systec, the sorting capacity in the Bucharest Hub has been increased to 7,000 packages / hour. 

The Sameday Courier investment in Logistic Manager software and eAWB worth 1 million Euro was the other nominee for this category. 

The Best Curier and Post Office website was awarded to www.fancourier.ro and www.balkancourier.ro were the category winners while www.altexpress.ro was finalist

The Social Involvement Project of a Courier and Post Office category went to FAN Courier for the project "Student in High School". In 2018, the FAN Courier Foundation launched its own full-scholarship project Elev at High School for 9th grade students. The program is aimed at 8th grade pupils in the rural area and with unfavorable financial situations that have good results in learning, they have entered high school and can not afford to reach it. In the selection stage, more than 100 children were selected, 25 of whom were selected for the transport, accommodation, table, supplies, handbooks and sporting suit. The beneficiaries are from all over Romania. This project is an exponential one, each year adding a new generation of students who will follow classes 9-12 and which the FAN Courier Foundation will support in this way.

DHL Express Romania - "Rugby for All Children" Sports Scholarship Program was a nominee. DHL contributes to the renaissance of Romanian rugby and supports the performance of sports enthusiasts, but with reduced material possibilities, in Gura Humorului, through the Rugby for All Children sports scholarship program

At the initiative of DHL Express Romania, in 2017 the Rugby junior scholarship program for juniors was launched for all children; Through this scholarship program, annual Accommodation and Meal fees are funded for a certain number of young people with special rugby skills from disadvantaged backgrounds. In the first year, a total of 9 scholarships were funded; and for the second year of the 2018/2019 program, 20 sports scholarships are funded.

Glovo was also nominated for the project developed together with SOS Children's Villages. At the end of 2018, Glovo has developed a partnership with SOS Children's Villages, where customers can deliver a list of foods using the courier option in the application. For each order delivered, Glovo is going to donate 1 Euro to SOS Children's Villages.

For the fifth year in a row the Car of the Year for Courier and Post Service award went to Ford Transit and finalists were VW Transporter and Mercedes Vito. This award is decided, as every year, by the votes cast by the courier and post companies, based on the personal experience in use.

The Technology Provider for Courier and Post Office Services Award went to Honeywell for Vocollect technology. Vocollect technology is an easy-to-use and more efficient solution that results in increased productivity by simplifying sorting and scanning from 300 to 900 expeditions per hour. Elimination of sorting errors from 8.5% to 1.5%. Its effectiveness can be evaluated by eliminating human sorting errors, maximizing the processed volume, and reducing the time dedicated to training.

Nominees were Vanderlande who has provided for FAN Courier a sorting band has a capacity of 39,000 parcels per hour, compared to 6,000 parcels per hour of the one in the old warehouse. This new band has a length of 385 meters, 312 slides and 2 induction zones where the parcels are loaded and transported at an average speed of 2.5 m / s.

Nominated aa finalist was BOEWE SYSTEC for the Optisorter Sorting Band implemented at Sameday Courier. With the OPTISORTER project successfully installed this year at Sameday Courier and BoweSystec, the sorting capacity in the Bucharest Hub has been increased to 7,000 packages / hour, thus ensuring an ROI of about 3 years.

Sorting is done for 63-line online barcode packages (AWB). The equipment also measures the volumetric and weight of the package (at a precision of 1mm and 10g), the information it attaches to the unique number (AWB) of the package in the database. The sorter has a displacement speed of 1m / s.

QQ Info Qurier was nominated for the project implemented in Nemo Express.  Nemo Express chose QQinfo to develop a series of managerial analyses using the Qlik Sense platform. As a result of this collaboration, QQinfo's analyzes of the Qurier solution have added value to Nemo's business by: Significantly reducing the time of automatic data processing 32 times daily! (from +24 hours to 0.75 hours). Eliminating decisions based on estimates - that there were situations where the high level of complexity of the processes required to obtain the results was so overwhelming, still making management decisions mostly based on estimates - a situation that led to management's inability to quickly identify situations unwanted, exceptions and even trends).

Zitec was nominated for Logistic Manager and eAWB implemented at Sameday Courier. Sameday Courier launched in August 2018 a new courier software application that allows for better scalability, both operationally and commercially.

NextConsult for the Salesforce program implemented at DPD was also a finalist.

The Best Fixed Point Delivery Solution Award went to Collect Point Fan Courier. Following internal analyzes and discussions with eCommerce partners, two years after the launch of Collect Point (Drop Off) in Inmedio stores and OMV Petrom filling stations, the Collect Point project team begins to implement a more complex service that provides customers with solutions who are accustomed to ordering online products. FAN Courier has set up a partnership with PayPoint Romania to enable customers to pick up products ordered online through a vast network of partner stores. Number of locations in operation: Approximately 800 partner stores nationwide with the possibility to expand to 5000 partner locations;

Finalists were the lockers of POST PANDURI, with a number of 65 locations in operation, being the oldest and largest network of this type in the country.

The lockers of DPD were finalists, in Bucharest and in the country there are 30 active locations, and by the end of 2019 the network will have more than 100 automatic machines. The lockers are located indoors, in the centers and commercial spaces. 

The EASY BOX from SAMEDAY Courier have 21 locations in operation and were also nominated by the jury.

The Highest Growth of Business Figures in the Courier and Post Sector went to Sameday Courier.

Manager of the Year in Courier and Mail ServicesWas for the second year Lucian Baltaru - CEO and Sameday Courier shareholder. Under the leadership of Lucian Baltaru, in 2015 Sameday became the first Romanian courier operator listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange and the first Romanian company listed on the AeRO platform of BVB. In 2017, after Octavian Badescu leaves the Sameday Courier, Lucian Baltaru continued to build his business with Dante International. Major projects this year include deliveries of up to 2 hours on the same day, extended to 21:00, express delivery on the seaside in the summer, and fixed-point delivery via the EasyBOX project.

Nominee was Victor Racariu - CEO of Glovo Romania. Within 6 months of launch, Glovo has become one of the main names in the delivery market. Starting from an unknown brand, Glovo has managed to grow sharply on all plans, orders, number of couriers, partners, delivery area. The industry in which Glovo operates is in itself an innovative, sharing economy where couriers can work when they want whatever transport they want.

Ioana TOMA - HR Manager Urgent Cargus was also a finalist for this category. Ioana Toma, HR Manager, Urgent Cargus, succeeded in not only maintaining but increasing in 2018 the number of employees by 30% in a difficult labor market. As a result, team size has grown from 1,000 employees to 1,200 in a few months.

Adrian Mihai, Neculai Mihai and Felix Patrascanu received a group nomination. The nomination of the three shareholders FAN Curier recognizes the merits of the constant growth of business and the continuation of massive investments. In over 20 years of activity on the Romanian market, the company has made investments of over 135 million euros, and 2018 is the year with the largest investments in the history of the company: more than 27.5 million euros. 

Black Friday HERO offered by ARMO was awarded by Florinel Chis to FAN Courier for the best service during this peak moment. 

The Company of the Year in Courier and Postal Services was awarded to FAN Courier, who expects to close this year's financial year with a turnover of 145 million euros. Over the past 10 years, the level of investment has increased 14 times and for 2019, the plans include the continuation of projects, over 15 million euros being already budgeted for this.

The sorting strip from Stefanesti's new HUB accelerates the level of automation of the current activity, amid the crisis of personnel. The fleet of cars has exceeded 3,900 units.

Finalists were DHL Express Romania, who's local business grew by more than 10% in revenue and over 20% in shipments and estimates a year with a two-digit increase in 2018.

This year, a new investment plan of over 8 million Euros was launched in operations.

The most important achievement is the new flight that arrives 3 hours earlier in Bucharest directly from Leipzig in October 2018 - which is an improvement of services and transit time, which allows deliveries on the same day for some large cities operated by IATA .

The other finalist was Sameday Courier registered higher incomes by more than 200% in 2017 compared to the previous year, reaching 41.2 million lei, compared to 13.4 million lei generated in 2016. The growth trend was maintained in 2018, with the "year to date" increase being over 100%. This dynamic was supported by a series of investments and projects launched during the year, including the accelerated development of the network, the opening of the country's project, the construction of a provincial pick-up line, the development of the storage structure, operational optimization, among which the most important is the acquisition of a sorting band over 1 million Euro). The company's number of employees has doubled compared to the same period last year.