Unlike previous years, the awards were not presented at the annual employee meeting in autumn, but rather via a video message on the company's intranet website.   

Even though the event was not live this time, the excitement and curiosity among Oberalp's employees was great. Just like the convention, this year's employee meeting was held digitally. The CEO Christoph Engl hosted the online event and everyone was also able to follow how Ruth Oberrauch personally sent the packages to the award winners.   

The first team to celebrate the prestigious trophy was the Oberalp Virtual Convention team, who worked under strong pressure and did a fantastic job. They were awarded the Creativity & Innovation Award for the organization of the Oberalp virtual Convention. 

There were six nominations for the Excellent Execution & Service Award, but for the jury there was a clear winner, namely the DACH Sales and Marketing Team for their consistent qualitative and quantitative performance over the past years. When it comes to customer loyalty and collaboration with our stores, no one can beat them.  

Once again, this year the Oberalp jury was up for a surprise, and so none of the three teams nominated for the Risk Award were awarded a prize. 

The IT Infrastructure, Business Application and Retail IT team received the Process Improvement Award in recognition of their efforts. Within a very short time, the team was able to implement a setup of well-functioning software tools and provide technical aids to enable working from home. All Oberalp employees in all subsidiaries could rely on the excellent service of their IT colleagues. 

The Sustainability Award, which is particularly important to Ruth Oberrauch herself, was given to Kai Blessenohl, Costing Manager Apparel. Kai designed and implemented a software that calculates the minimum wage in each country in which Oberalp’s suppliers are located and during price negotiations it allows us to verify workers receive a fair wage. The Fair Wear Foundation described this valuable tool as outstanding, and is one of the reasons why the Oberalp Group was once again awarded with “Leader” Status of the Fair Wear Foundation for the fourth year in a row. Congratulations Kai! 

This special, exceptional year has led the Oberalp jury to create a new award for 2020: The COVID Award. This was awarded to two teams who kept a cool head, smart management, commitment and creativity during the pandemic. One of the awards was assigned to the HR team at the headquarters in Bolzano, while the second one went to the Salewa Retail Team and the Under Armour Sales/Retail Team, who used the time spent in  home office to set up an online training program to continue their education during the lockdown.