Stow and Robovision shine at virtual edition of 'Onderneming van het Jaar' event
While this edition was somewhat different than usual due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was still a dazzling event that honoured top enterprises. EY organised the 26th edition of the event in collaboration with De Tijd and BNP Paribas Fortis. This year, a wide audience had the opportunity to watch Prime Minister Alexander De Croo present the Enterprise of the Year award to Stow. Minister-President of Flanders Jan Jambon had the honour of handing over the Scale-up of the Year award to Robovision.
Stow takes stock
Stow is following in the footsteps of the Kinepolis Group, which won the award last year. Stow was declared the winner of a group that included three other finalists: Van Marcke, Abriso-Jiffy and Konings. Stow has been designing, manufacturing and selling industrial storage systems for 40 years. The company has grown by 13% on average each year since 2013. Stow owes this impressive growth rate to its ongoing focus on technological innovations and extensive automation in terms of storage. Today, the company is the European market leader with a turnover of EUR 614 million. Stow is now setting its sights even higher: it wants to become a global player. It has already taken the first steps to conquer the US market.
Michèle Sioen, award panel chair: "This award honours unique Belgian companies with an ambitious strategy and strong management. Stow is successfully responding to ever-changing trends in the supply chain sector. Growth is in the company's DNA. Its continued focus on high efficiency in all its processes and products has led to operational excellence".
Robovision is democratising AI
Ghent-based company Robovision was named 'Scale-up of the Year', an award presented to Guardsquare last year. The other nominees were also three fast-growing tech companies: FibriCheck, THEO Technologies and Unifly. The company offers solutions based on artificial intelligence (AI) to machine manufacturers in various industries. It has been extremely successful so far: Robovision has doubled in size each year for the past three years. Robovison contends that there are endless applications for AI, which is why it has built its own generic platform that allows the company to train, manage and deploy its own AI models. It complements this with existing codes and models. This allows the company to democratise AI and create a level playing field.
Hans Crijns, Professor at Vlerick Business School and award panel chair: "Robovision is the deserved winner thanks to its proven, ground-breaking proposition. Robovision's technology is widely applicable in the agricultural sector, the manufacturing industry, smart cities and so on. Robovision CEO Jonathan Berte has a strong vision. The company has tremendous growth potential and is having a significant impact both in Belgium and abroad."
Backing entrepreneurs now more than ever
Didier Beauvois, Head of Corporate Banking: "The past year has been challenging for companies. They need to be flexible and creative in order to respond in the right way. Stow and Robovision have come through this period with flying colours. They stayed on course and remained committed to their ambitions. All our finalists did an excellent job this year. They have all contributed to a positive business environment. I would like to offer my congratulations to each and every one of them. It is an honour to have been a partner of this event for so long. These entrepreneurs are the true lifeblood of the Belgian economy.
The awards for Belgium's French-speaking region were presented on 7 December. There, I-care was named ‘Entreprise de l’Année’. The Scale-up of the Year award went to Proxyclick. Read more here