The Building Company Annual event built on success

For the first time in five years, The Building Company hosted an exclusive supplier exhibition on 19 February with 60 of the top suppliers in the building industry.

Delegates included 170 representatives of the company’s Retail Division brands from its national retail stores such as Buco, Timbercity and Chipbase. The delegates were divided into concentrated brand and regional groups in order to ensure sufficient interaction and engagement with suppliers.

The day’s festivities concluded with an informal Build-a-Burger dinner. Awards were handed out to the best stands of the day. Winners for best dressed stands were Ryobi, Duram and PG Bison/Thesen. The team also honoured Tony di Loreto – Timbercity Franchisee on his 70th Birthday with well wishes and tons of cupcakes, a perfect sweet ending to the evening.

Feedback from both the company and supplier delegates has been overwhelmingly positive. Many suppliers rated it as the best supplier expo of its kind ever attended. The event platinum sponsors included Plascon, Ryobi, Marley Building Systems and PG Bison/Thesen.

The second day commenced with The Building Company’s Annual Conference at the same venue. Delegates from all business clusters including Retail, Specialised and Wholesale attended the conference. Steve du Toit, CEO of The Building Company kicked off with the Keynote address. This was followed by a political and economic overview presented by the renowned economist, Daniel Silke. The executive team then interacted with its CEO and the audience in a ‘Talk Show’ setting to discuss progress on key deliverables. The audience were also asked to interact and ask questions relating to their specific business units.

To conclude the day, Leon Lourens – CEO of retail giant Pepkor addressed staff before all were treated with a team building activity. The day also marked the birth of a newly defined culture and a set of clear values, another milestone for the company.

Top industry suppliers, store managers and support office staff were invited to the Group’s Annual Awards Dinner on the evening of the 20th. The group’s top 100 suppliers were rated by operational staff on a national level, and top performers were recognised at this prestigious event. Winners were selected across the company’s three divisions, Retail, Specialised and Wholesale.

Winners for the Retail division included:

1 st place - Academy Brushware, 2 nd place - Swartland Investments and 3 rd place - Duram.

Supplier Merit Awards was awarded to Kansai Plascon, Marley Building Systems, Saint Gobain Weber and Electrolux.

Best Growth Award went to PG Bison.

Winners for the Specialised division included: Dormakaba, Ceramics Industries and Gerflor.

Wholesale division winners included: Lasher Tools, PG Bison and Far King.

Staff from the group’s support office were also recognised for exceptional service, the Business Support Award went to Wilma Petersen and the company Values Award was a tie, and was awarded to Lynn van der Merwe and Wilma Petersen.

A very special milestone of over 40 years’ service award went to Gideon van Tonder from Buco Brits and a CEO Award went to Nic Davis and Gavin Atkinson from Cachet International.

The awards ceremony then concluded with Performance awards to the top performing stores in each division before the evening ended on a high note with a performance by South African comedian, Nik Rabinowitz who had the audience in hysterics. This Awards Gala Dinner concluded events for The Building Company’s 2020 Conference and Supplier Expo. The company is indeed entering an exciting future.