Success stories

BAS Project: Marketing strategy and branding for the pension "La Bella Vista", Bucovina

Background
Clas Decent was established in 2005 in Poiana Negrii, a small village in Bucovina region, known for its beautiful landscapes and monasteries listed under the UNESCO heritage. The company employs eight people and operates the 3-star “La Bella Vista” pension with 10 rooms, sauna and entertainment room. A small lake nearby is used primarily to breed fish for the pension's restaurant. However, the pension had low average occupancy rate due lack of promotion, any package offering and poor communication strategy.

BAS Support
The BAS project aimed at developing an effective marketing plan and clearly identifying the competitive advantages of the site. Mr Doru Lupeanu, an experienced local consultant in the field, undertook an in depth analysis of the existing situation, revised the branding concept, target client groups and prepared the new marketing strategy. Importantly, the marketing plan included not only the pension but promotion of Bucovina region as attractive tourist destination. The consultant also helped to develop a set of advertising materials and advised on motivation and training of the employees. As Mr Lupeanu stated,”this was meant to provide the management with tools for a sustainable business development”.

Outcome
The company has benefited from this project almost immediately as the occupancy already grew by 30% in the next winter and spring season. In addition, the project also helped to introduce financial analysis tools and sound forecasts for the next 3 years and realistic evaluation of business sustainability.

BAS Project: Local software company reaching the EU market

Background
Business Information Systems (BIS) is a Romanian software company established in 1994, with strong expertise in banking payment systems based on SWIFT solutions and technologies in compliance with the ECB European Payments Council regulations. BIS provides consultancy, software solutions systems integration, adapted to individual customers’ needs in the Banking, Finance, Securities and Insurance industries. BIS has been successfully operating on domestic market, but wanted to assess the possibilities of expanding its business outside Romania, mainly in the European Union.

BAS support
The company approached BAS in search for professional advisory to undertake an objective analysis of the company’s portfolio, market positioning and drawing a business plan for the next period. GEA Strategy & Consulting was engaged in this project and conducted an in-depth analysis of the company's performance and prepared a business plan including the company valuation, financial analyses and forecasts, focusing on competitive approach to the EU market.

Outome
The key recommendations were to consolidate the domestic operations while attempting to license the company's software solutions in the EU. BIS had to reach beyond its customers' back-office and provide added value to the banking customers, both for retail and corporate customers. An improvement was also necessary in licensing the right to use the BIS payment solution in hosted computer architecture (SaaS). The project enabled the company to successfully participate in the high profile international industry events, such as SWIFT Operations Forum Europe, EBA Day and Sibos. Later on, the BIS payment solution licenses were sold to a British-Dutch micro finance institution and the company was shortlisted with several others planning to enhance their payment systems. At the project evaluation, the management stated that “It is our perception that BIS was indeed very lucky to benefit from this project, since the recommendations were a source of inspiration for the actions taken to approach, and succeed in, the new market”

Improved sales for local equipment producer

Background
RURIS is a family owned small producer of gardening and forestry equipment such as lawn mowers, chainsaws, leaf blowers, trimmers, snow throwers, irrigation equipment and related accessories. Since 2006 the company specialises in final assembly of imported parts, sales and after-sale service for its numerous products. All products are sold under the Ruris brand all over Romania, through a network of 60 dealers, 3 big retailers and 3 own specialized shops. The wide variety of products and a complex distribution scheme added to several difficulties in their supply chain, such as frequent shortages of certain products and overstocks with other product groups. Moreover, the company’s resources could not support both intensive operations and business growth.

BAS Support
BAS assisted to engage a suitable consultant to help in preparing a strategic business plan including the proper sizing of the company’s resources to support growth, restructuring the product portfolio and distribution channels, and positioning towards the competition. Over six months, the sales and stock planning has been introduced, lead product groups identified as well as budgeting and financial controls established.


Outcome
The company has managed to reshape its marketing and sales structure and revised its distribution network to address the demand in most effective but also profitable way. The sales teams have been reorganised with clear individual responsibilities and action plans regarding the distribution network development. One year on, the company reported on sales growth by €800,000 and 8 new employments. The management maintains contacts with the consultant who assists in periodical performance reviews.

BAS Project: redefining the visual identity for product line Elmi Prodfarm

Beneficiary comapny: Elmiplatn Bucharest

The first marketing completed project cofinanced by BAS Romanian Program consisted in the redefinition of the identity of a product line for Elmi Prodfarm, www.elmiplant.ro, a top 5 cosmetics manufacturer holding an 8% market share on the Romanian market.

The product portfolio of Elmi Prodfarm includes 3 main cosmetic brands: Elmiplant, Blossom and Bioten. Elmiplant's management wished to improve the existing image of the Bioten line, which did not convey the main strength of the products. i.e. their natural ingredients (honey, spirulina, chamomile etc.), which resulted in lower sales than expected.

The consultancy project devised to address the above issue included a research and analysis of the Bioten line against its competitors, followed by suggestions regarding Bioten's identity and positioning.

The new image builds especially on honey, well known for its healing properties, and conveys a more sophisticated message aimed to attract the target for this product line: young, active women. Following approval by the management, the consultant Spotlight developed the Bioten identity (logo and visual elements) and master packages for 11 products.

The Elmi Prodfarm project confirms the positive effect of business-minded, accessible financing for consultancy needs and encourages the BAS Romania team to continue its mission to promote the use of business advisory services by local SMEs and to foster the growth of the local consultancy industry.

BAS Project: implementing an integrated management system for Quality, Environment, Occupational Safety & Health Risk and Information Security in compliance with standards ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18000 and ISO 27000.

Beneficiary company: ELECTROGRUP Cluj

One case of successful management systems consulting comes from Electrogrup (www.electrogrup.ro), located in the Transylvanian city of Cluj. Electrogrup is a leading national provider of electrical and telecommunication installation services, which obtained financing to implement an integrated management system for Quality, Environment, Occupational Safety & Health Risk and Information Security in compliance with standards ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18000 and ISO 27000.

The project required not only significant knowledge and experience from the consultant, but also a considerable amount of time and dedication from staff at all levels in Electrogrup. The consultant selected by the company and the BAS Programme, Pegas from Targu Mures, has seven years experience consulting with over 900 management system projects under its belt.

The project comprised several stages developed over a 6 month period, including: analysis of the existing management system, training Electrogrup's top management regarding the provisions of standards, documentation, assistance in selecting the certifying body, internal auditor training and mentoring, internal audit, pre-audit and certification audit support.

Apart from obtaining certification and substantiating its commitment to superior service quality in the eyes of external parties, Electrogrup's well defined and documented procedures promise to have an immediate positive effect on the consistency of output and lead to better process control and flow with greater employee quality awareness.

Furthermore, the BAS-financed programme provided Electrogrup's management with direct experience in defining and coordinating consultancy projects, as well as setting realistic expectations in such undertakings.

The success of the project developed by Electrogrup and Pegas is just one of many successful projects implemented by BAS Romania in only its first year of activity.

The Business Advisory Services Programme Romania and Knopad Software, managed by Dragos Novac and owner of www.metropotam.ro, have developed a communication consultancy project delivered by Graffiti BBDO.

Metropotam.ro is a fully interactive website acting as Bucharest city guide by providing original content related to lifestyle, entertainment and going-out recommendations. In mid 2007, within a year of its launch, and with practically no investment in advertising, Metropotam had already logged around 100,000 monthly visits and 300,000 monthly page views. Still, the management team believed that an extra boost was needed to ensure a sustainable growth of the website's popularity and, therefore, to increase its attractiveness to online advertising clients.

In July 2007, the entrepreneurs decided to commission a positioning and communication campaign for the Metropotam brand. The selected consultant was Graffiti BBDO, Romania's first advertising agency, affiliated to the BBDO network since 1992. With a 100% Romanian team, Graffiti BBDO provides integrated communication services, from strategy to implementation, and has won, in the last five years, more than 45 national and international awards.

The project undertaken for Knopad Software began with a review of the local online industry and an analysis of the existing position of the Metropotam brand. Brand objectives were established: high awareness level among online brands, premium positioning as "the best event guide of Bucharest" and the envisaged development of both online and offline brand extensions. The consultancy team provided an in-depth analysis of the target audience and a review of Metropotam's brand architecture, slogan - "Urbanise yourself!" - and tone of voice - witty and friendly. A brand communication strategy and creative executions were developed, relying mostly on unconventional media campaigns devised for clubs, bars, underground / metro stations and trains. Starting in November 2007, the Metropotam posters were placed in 50 locations as well as on underground trains operating on the IMGB-Pipera line. The implementation of the strategy will continue with internet banners, and an additional underground campaign will be staged, as well as promotional activities related to various city events throughout the coming year.

"In a booming online industry, but where - mainly for financial reasons - still very few entrepreneurs use consultancy services to improve their chances of sustainable growth, we are glad to have provided financial and know-how support for the development of the Metropotam brand" says Camelia Dragoi, BAS Romania's National Programme Director.

The benefits of the BAS-supported project were almost immediate: following the increase in brand awareness, the popularity of the Metropotam website increased noticeably to over 200,000 visits and 500,000 page-views in February 2008.

Dragos Novac, the CEO of Knopad Software, stated: "We knew from Metropotam's inception that one of our long term competitive advantages would be our brand and therefore have developed the business by having "the metropotam" as part of our core values. This campaign is a natural step in communicating in a non-conventional way and true to our brand and business values. Ms.Catalina Cernica, the Managing Director of Graffiti BBDO, added: "The Metropotam project meant for Graffiti BBDO the opportunity to go more in-depth into interactive and digital communication. Beyond the classical consultancy relationship, we also learned valuable lessons from Metropotam in the process."

Development plan and training for sales team aiming to improve sales and negotiating skills of the sales team.

Beneficiary: a Romanian company acting in meet processing industry

Technical documentation for a milk processing site (sheepfold) and certification documentation for traditional milk products

Marketing study for a local producer of wooden-framed thermopan windows and doors