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Gabriela Stoițer, Marketing Manager at Bilka, featured in the “105 most powerful women in business” yearbook.

Business Magazin has launched the “105 most powerful women in business” catalogue, focusing “on the qualities of strong women and on how they can inspire the next generations of leaders.” Gabriela Stoițer, Marketing Manager at Bilka, is one of the 105 most powerful women in business, due to her “commitment and hard work”, but also due to the Company and the people she works with.

Gabriela Stoițer has run the Marketing and Communication Department of the domestic roof manufacturer Bilka ever since 2014. In this position, she handles an annual marketing budget of EUR 1.5 million and she is in charge of Bilka’s brand management, implementation and strategy, at both national and European level, the latter being one of the most recent challenges. Gabriela Stoițer describes her career path as being natural, following the normal steps of a marketing and communication profession. She is of the opinion that job performance is closely related to the level of involvement and hard work: “A marketing professional cannot perform without the company’s support and, ultimately, without the marketing budgets, no matter how many qualities she/he may have”,  Stoițer declares when describing her role within the Company. According to her, the marketing budget, strategy and actions are closely linked to the business and sales strategy and actions; therefore, the accomplishments and the results are also reflected in the business and sales goals achieved. Her duties also include providing marketing support to Bilka’s more than 500 partners across the country. Her long-term plans are to further contribute to the company’s development. “The new development plans of the Company lay out the prerequisites for solid growth in the following decade as well. Bilka will be, undoubtedly, a significant player at regional level and a brand of relevance at European level, holding factories in the EU, but also in Eastern Europe. The real challenges are yet to come.”

“As for me, I believe that my professional achievements are due to a great deal of commitment and work, but are also closely related to the Company and the people I work with.”

Article published in the “105 most powerful women in business” catalogue, issued by Business Magazin in March 2020.

Bilka is ranked among Romania’s 50 most powerful brands, according to the latest report by Brand Finance, published by Ziarul Financiar.

“Almost 70% of the 50 most valuable Romanian brands have been created and developed by the private sector over the last 30 years. In the ranking, there are only three companies which have the state  as the main shareholder (…), more than 25 are Romanian entrepreneurial undertakings, two of them are owned by foreign businessmen and the rest of the companies are now supported by multinational corporations, although their names are “made in Romania”.  Romania’s 50 most powerful brands are worth EUR 5.8 billion, an increase by 16% versus last year. Dacia is the only brand rated at over EUR 1 billion. The threshold to enter the top 10 is EUR 137 million. (…)”

“(…) Only three new names make their way into the 2020 ranking on positions 47, 48 and 49, notably the building company Bog’Art, Farmacia Tei and the local construction material manufacturer, Bilka.

The aggregate value of the 50 most valuable Romanian brands has increased by 16 percent as compared to last year’s ranking, up to EUR 5.8 billion, according to the Brand Finance report. (…)”

The article was published in Ziarul Financiar, on March 20, 2020, author Cristina Roșca.

Bilka from Brașov continues its fast development and wants businesses to reach RON 750m in 2020: ‘We intend to increase the number of countries where Bilka products are delivered’.

BILKA STEEL, the roofing manufacturer from Brașov, owned by Horațiu Țepeș, reached a turnover of RON 655m (meaning €138m), after a 31% increase in 2019. Now, the entrepreneur’s objective for 2020 is to exceed the threshold of RON 750m.

‘Our biggest challenge is to maintain our growth rate in the residential division, which at this point has reached maturity. At the same time, we want to develop the industrial division and look at areas related to our field of activity that can contribute to the growth and development of the company and its product portfolio. We are constantly looking for new development means’, declared Horațiu Țepeș, the owner of Bilka Steel, for Ziarul Financiar.

The company is involved in a large investment plan, totalling 25 million euros, which would materialize in the expansion of the production capacities for the development of the industrial product division. Two years ago, the company purchased for expansion purposes the industrial platform Hidromecanica 2 Brașov, in the vicinity of the halls already owned by the company. The deadline for the investment completion on this platform is the year 2021, when the factory of thermal insulation panels and other metal profiles is going to be inaugurated. 10 million euros of the total amount allocated for this purpose will be invested in 2020.

‘As regards the expansion of markets and retail channels, we intend to strengthen the distribution network at national level and increase the export network. This year we want to increase the number of countries where Bilka products will be delivered.’

Currently, Bilka is exporting roofs to Bulgaria, Hungary, the Republic of Moldova, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, and Ukraine. In 2019, the export sales reached 14 million euros, and by the end of 2020, Horațiu Țepeș has poposed to increase the sales abroad by 50%.

‘As for the number of employees, we currently have 550 employees. There will be no major staff fluctuations this year. By the end of 2020 we estimate that we will have 600 employees’, says Horațiu Țepeș.

He stresses that in 2019 the roofing market has grown by about 15%. The latest data shows that the sector is worth over 300 million euros.

‘We believe that in 2020 we will not see significant changes in the roofing market, the upward trend of the past years will most likely be maintained. We still have many buildings to cover until we reach the level of European countries that have a richer history in metal roofs.’

On the local roofing market, Bilka Steel competes with Blachotrapez (Poland), Metigla (Belgium), Impro (Poland), Wetterbest (Romania) or Novatik (Romania).

The entrepreneur Horațiu Țepeș from Brașov founded Bilka Steel in 2007, one year before the financial crisis, after previously working at Rova, a Slovak company, which was later taken over by the Swedes from Lindab, with whom he is currently competing. The name Bilka comes from a village in Bulgaria. He needed a short and meaningful name for the company and he chose it in his office while looking at a map of Europe hanged on the wall. That is how the Bilka brand was born.

Article published in Ziarul Financiar, Jaunary 16, 2020, author Alina Vasiliu

Capital Media has prepared this year the “Top 100 employers” rakings. Bilka is one of them, managing to achieve a good score thanks to the human resources policy of the company, as well as to attention paid to the labour market.

A high performing team

The fastest growth in the Romanian industry over the last decade. This is the performance that BILKA can take pride in, a company that has become by far the leader in the Romanian roofing market. All this speedy development could not have been possible without the support and the engagement of the employees. In this regard, high praise goes to the human resources department that, on top of dealing with the complex task of recruiting the best suited people, managed to pass on to the employees an organisational culture that Horațiu Țepeș, the founder of the company, has been committed to ever since he took his first steps in the field of entrepreneurship.

“At BILKA, I have learned from the first years of activity that one of the major drivers of performance is responsibility. We believe we are responsible towards our customers and our partners, towards our employees, and towards the community where we carry out our activities. Therefore, responsibility has become one of the core values of the company, around which we build our entire organisational culture”, points out Elena Munteanu, the human resources manager of the company.

Development based on a solid HR strategy

In Romania, the competition for good quality and highly qualified labour force has become fierce, especially in the county of Brașov, the place that has attracted numerous multinational companies thanks to its industrial tradition. “For the company, it is an important achievement that in the last year alone we have managed to draw in one hundred new employees, to integrate them in the Bilka organizational culture, and to support them in embracing the company’s values. Currently, we have 500 employees”, says Elena Munteanu, summing up the challenge she has managed to overcome in the recent period.

How did they manage to compete with the world’s industrial giants, also producing in Brașov? Through the benefits offered by the company and paying attention to the needs of each employee. Moreover, net wages in the company are higher than the local and even the national averages. Regardless, retaining employees is one of the top priorities of the HR department, a factor that generated in-depth analyses. “We have noticed over time that employees generally leave a workplace for other reasons than salary. Thus, in addition to the salary package and the benefits we commit to provide under our contracts, all of which are above the county averages, our strategy is to be permanently connected to the needs of our employees. We constantly seek to identify the strong points of every person and guide them towards the position that suits them best, therefore avoiding employees becoming demotivated. We come up all the time with new opportunities to advance, with new trainings and systems to evaluate and appreciate performance”, says the BILKA human resources manager about her strategy.

“We are and always have been observant when it comes to the labour market, we constantly adjust to changes, and we manage through our salary packages, work schedule, and bonuses to attract the labour force and to keep it, hence why our retention rate is very high.”

Mihai Sandu took over the export department of Bilka, the Romanian market leader in metal roofing, in 2016, as soon as it created. However, his story in the company, begun eight years ago, when, as a student, he started working for one of the company’s service providers. In 2012, as a 20-year-old, he became a logistics coordinator at Bilka.

“The path from logistics to the export department took a detour through the sales department for the domestic market, where I had the opportunity to learn as much as possible about sales, and to lay the foundation for my rise in the company”, says he, describing his evolution up to his current role. This meant developing export sales “somehow from scratch”.

”In the beginning it was just me in the department working twice as hard to make the brand known abroad, but also, at times, to overcome the language barriers. Over time, the numbers have shown that through hard work and commitment challenges can be turned into performance. Right now, exports are 10% of the company’s turnover and they continue to grow”, says he about the results that have been achieved.

The value of complete roofing systems exported last year reached 11 million euros, up 50% from 2017. Bilka products are sold abroad in countries such as Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, and Ukraine. The team, currently made up of four employees, focuses on developing new markets – including on different continents – and on strengthening the company’s position on the markets it has already entered. ”The growth potential we see for the export market, and the investments we made over the course of the last years which make us competitive all over Europe, with markets where we can become leaders in the next five years, allows us to access more and more markets and make us look towards other continents as well.”

“The next step is to become the European leader in the roofing market. This is a long-term goal to which I will devote myself over the next years. Thus, my growing opportunities within Bilka are boundless.”

Article published in the Top 100 Best-Performing Young Managers Magazine, by Business Magazin.

“In the complicated world of business, it’s extremely hard to make it to the top. And, if we think we’re talking about a sector where men are, in most cases, law-making, it’s all the more complicated for a woman to get ahead. However, in the Romanian business world, there are many ladies who have achieved enviable performances….” Starting from this, the National Confederation for Women Entrepreneurs together with banii.net platform launched the yearbook dedicated to women in the Romanian business world and to the recognition of their merits.

Among them there is also Bilka’s Marketing Manager, Gabriela Stoițer, who, since 2014, has been managing the company’s marketing strategy, perhaps being “the youngest marketing director in the construction material industry”.

This Top, published in April 2019, was prepared by banii.net platform and the National Confederation for Women Entrepreneurs.

Business Review Magazine, together with banii.net platform, prepared the top 100 best entrepreneurs, based on a calculation formula that takes into account the business and entrepreneur’s notoriety, the value of the business and its evolution over the past 5 years, the number of employees and the social involvement. By calculating these criteria, Horațiu Țepeș ranks the 21st in the Top 100 best entrepreneurs, and he is also awarded the Diploma of Excellence for “The Largest Stainless Steel Roofing Tile Manufacturer in South Eastern Europe”.

You may find the full article below, published in the Top 100 Entrepreneurs, Business Review and banii.net, 2018 edition:

Plans to conquer Europe

In just a few years, Horațiu Țepeș succeeded in converting BILKA, the brand he created, into the leader of the Romanian metal roofing tile market. Later, the company founded in Brașov became the largest profile manufacturer in Eastern Europe. The next step is an easy guess ‒ the entrepreneur aims at making the company the leader of the roofing market across Europe. “It’s a long-term goal and we have the strategy and resources to get there”, said Horațiu Țepeș with conviction. So far, all the entrepreneur’s plans have been accomplished entirely, therefore he has all the reasons to be optimistic.

First roofs

The story of BILKA started in 2004. Still a student, Țepeș got a job in a Slovak company. He learned quickly everything he could about roofs, and he realized that the Romanian market is at the beginning and he could find many unexplored niches. So he got permission from the Slovakian owner to open a distributor company in Făgăraș. He became an entrepreneur, but he kept his job. That is until 2007 when the company for which he was working was sold (…). At that point, he chose to focus on his own business. The decision proved to be very inspiring. In just one year, the entrepreneur has increased its turnover by no less than ten times. Then, although the crisis started to be felt, he took the next step: production. He invested around EUR 400,000, a large amount for the company’s situation, in a production line and other equipment. Since that investment, BILKA has begun to be ranked every year higher and higher in the top of the metal roofing manufacturers. Although the company quickly became a leader on the market, Horațiu Țepeș continued his strategy, building new production facilities and acquiring state-of-the-art equipment. Thus, following an investment plan of EUR 10 million, Țepeș bought and used the Romlag platform, which belonged to the Rulmentul factory in Brașov. Then, a year ago, with EUR 5.5 million, BILKA purchased Hidromecanica 2 Brașov. By adding the new area to the 4.5 hectares, i.e. the current area of BILKA plant, a total area of 14 hectares is reached. The total investment plan for this new development phase amounts to EUR 20 million and the deadline for completion is 2020.

Top results

BILKA ended last year with a turnover of RON 394 million (EUR 86 million), an increase of 45% compared to 2016 when its turnover was RON 271 million. In only one year, the company produced and sold 57,000 full roof systems and reached a consumption of 80,000 tons of steel, being the largest pre-painted steel consumer in Eastern Europe. In 2018, at the beginning of November, the company reached the threshold of EUR 100 million, a 30% increase compared to the same period of 2017. Another interesting milestone was reached at the end of last year ‒ since its establishment, BILKA had covered over 200,000 houses. All these results can best be explained based on the level of investments that have already reached over EUR 40 million. How did Horațiu Țepeș succeed in having hundreds of employees, investing tens of millions of Euros and becoming the leader of the Eastern European metal roofing tile market? The answer is simple: business became his passion. He spends a lot of time at the office and he is always connected to the business he runs.

Forbes Magazine has brought together the top 100 business figures with outstanding outcome in the Romanian economy as part of the “Forbes Romania Business Hall of Fame” project. The magazine’s distinction was awarded to those who built, developed and had a vision about changing the business rules. Horațiu Țepeș, Bilka is one of these personalities, awarded with the “100 Business Hall of Fame” diploma.