To
put it
diplomatically, Greece was not the ideal place
to
do
business
in the
aftermath of the global financial
meltdown
of
2007–2008,
as the
government grappled with a
sovereign
debt
crisis,
gross domestic
product plummeted, bankruptcies
soared
and
social unrest
reached boiling
point.
By
2014, the country
was reeling from depression-like
conditions
–
unemployment hovered
around 25 percent, while more
than
a
third
of
the population were
living below the poverty
line,
barely
clinging
on.
In
the midst of this
entrepreneurial wasteland,
Taxiarchis
Konstantopoulos not only survived the barren years,
but
also
blossomed into one
of the country’s rare success
stories
during his
stint as General Manager of vehicle
glass
repair
and
replacement company
Carglass – part of the
sector-leading
multinational Belron UK trading as
Autoglass and
Laddaw.®®
Konstantopoulos’
triumph
amid economic calamity can be chalked up
to
courage,
vision
and hard
graft.
“It
was
a
journey that I would
not change for the world,”
says
Konstantopoulos, who
joined the Greek business in 2006.
“I
was
36
years
old, and I found it
a great personal
development
opportunity,
but I also had the
ambition.
“Carglass
was
a
small family business,
coming from a franchise, but
I
thought
it
could become a
reference point for the group.
And
it did,
by
focusing on
engagement, people
developments,
customer
service and entrepreneurship. It was a
very
difficult
time
for the Greek
economy. We became very
innovative.
We
worked as
a
team. And the Greek
business became a point
of
reference
in
terms of
customer
service.”
A
MARKET-LEADING
MOVE
His
efforts
didn’t go
unnoticed further up the Belron
chain.
After
successfully
implementing the company’s investment
programs
at
Carglass
and
developing
long-standing relationships with
key
industry
partners,
Konstantopoulos was appointed
Managing
Director of
Autoglass in February 2015. It is a
company
that
serves
more than one
million motorists across the
United
Kingdom
each year, making
it a market-leading specialist
in
these
territories.
“Autoglass
was
20 times bigger than
the Greek business. Previously
it
had
branches
and mobile
service, but in 2015 it took the
direction
of
mobile service only,
with mobile vans serving
the
customers,
and the
centralization of a lot of
activities.
And
that was
a
big transformation,”
he
recalls.
“Fuyao, a
leading global vehicle glass
provider,
is
dedicated to
delivering the best products
to
customers
through unwavering commitment. Fuyao’s
collaboration
with
Belron
exemplifies our shared values. Together,
we
are
driven to
‘make a difference with real care’.”
–
Curie
Chen,
Vice President, Fuyao
Group
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“This meant challenges for the organization. But again, by focusing on the basics – and the basics for me are the people experience and the customer experience, and putting a strong team around me with talent and ambition – the rest just followed.” It’s telling how Konstantopoulos refers to Autoglass employees as his people rather than simply ‘staff’. Converse with him and it quickly becomes apparent that nurturing a positive culture at Autoglass matters more than anything – whether it’s responding delicately to a colleague’s mental health issue (in the company’s Responsible Business Insights Report 2022, 91 percent of employees agreed with the statement ‘My manager cares about my wellbeing’) or ensuring mobile drivers’ vans are safer (an initiative that resulted in a 40 percent reduction in incident rates between 2018 and 2022).
“What
sets us apart from our competitors is the
focus
on
the
development of
people.”
Indeed,
Belron’s motto,
one shared by Autoglass, is to
make
a
difference
by
solving people’s
problems with real
care.
“What
sets
us
apart from our
competitors is the focus on
the
development
of people,”
Konstantopoulos says. “I’m
one
example.
I
was given the
opportunity to grow myself. I
was
given
the
right tools and the
right training to become
a
better
leader. And
through that process, you get the
best
out
of
people.
“The
culture
of
the business is
described by our values. We are
a
genuine,
collaborative,
driven and caring
organization.”
A
STRONG
CODE
Konstantopoulos
explains
that the company’s moral compass fans out
to
other
relationships,
including suppliers and client partners
–
a
network
that
ranges from Chinese
glass manufacturer
Fuyao
Glass
Industry Group to
Switzerland’s Specialty
Electronic
Materials.
“We
have
a
strong code of ethics,
a strong code of conduct,
and
these
relationships are
based on respect and
transparency,”
he
reveals.
“We
are exchanging data,
helping each other
with
forecasting future
trends. This is how we see
partnerships.
We
support
each
other in order to
be
successful.”
“We
have a strong code of ethics, a strong
code
of
conduct, and these relationships are
based
on
respect and
transparency.”
Perhaps
battle-hardened
by his experience in Greece,
Konstantopoulos
was able
to safely steer Autoglass through the
choppy
waters
stirred
up by the Brexit
transition and COVID-19
pandemic,
a
feat he
puts
down to forging such
strong business
alliances.
“In
collaboration with
our global business, we spoke to
our
suppliers
and they helped
us with stock, building stock
levels
that
would provide us
with enough capacity and
contingency
in
case we
had
an unexpected event,”
he
confirms.
“We
were
proactive and
preparing for challenges in the
supply
chain.
Supply chain is
important because if you don’t
have
the
glass,
you
can’t even start
your
day.”
