Personal Life of George Leventis & Work Life

The Arabia Times: Explain your background and your Company in detail.

George Leventis: I am the Founder of BEST FOR. I have a PhD in Business Administration. I have a long time experience in Management of big companies, in high level positions. An advocate of free economy, I developed together with my colleagues, a new marketing model in retail sales, on which the start of a new philosophy of stores, Best For, was based. Many of my articles on entrepreneurship have been published in financial publications. For five years I served as General Secretary of the Hellenic Informatics Association. I also served for many years as a franchise development consultant. 

Apart from Best For, www.bestfor.com. I currently have two other companies. Nostra Development,www.nostra.gr (a luxury home builder) and the consulting firm TeamLogic www.teamlogic.gr

The Arabia Times: Give us one word that describes you the best.

George Leventis: Fair relationship between head office – franchise partner and customer

Goals & Strength of George Leventis

The Arabia Times: What are your goals?

George Leventis: “Best for” is a Pioneer European Company with headquarters based in Thessaloniki, Greece. The Company is specialized in the creation and retail of useful innovative products.

BEST FOR… was also created by the need for people to always have the best quality products at the lowest price. It’s no coincidence that everybody asks us how we can get such low prices with such good quality. After all, that was our inspiration for our name! BEST FOR… YOU
Because we know that for a beautiful life you don’t need to spend a fortune. And certainly not in BEST FOR… This is our Life Philosophy!

Today our company has a presence in 9 countries. Our goal is to open 30 new stores worldwide in the next 3 years. To this end, we continue to be in contact with interested parties who want to invest in our company and our vision in order to make the best choices for a long term and profitable partnership.

The Arabia Times: What do you feel is the biggest strength of “BEST FOR” right now?

George Leventis: Best For is a company with retail stores selling quality consumer goods at very good prices.

At Best for we believe that access to products with innovative and beautiful design, quality and respect for the environment, is not only for the few.

With prices truly for everyone, we make affordable more than 8000 items that cover most of our needs, products for child, woman, man, home, office, hobbies, electronics, seasonal products, snacks and accessorize.

The current economic conditions are highly conducive to the development of companies with the Best For philosophy.

Companies dedicated and committed to providing customers with quality products with beautiful appearance at perfectly reasonable prices.

In the midst of the current global economic slowdown, the dominant model worldwide at the moment is either branded very expensive products or very cheap low quality imitations.

Between these two extreme trends lies the idea of the birth of Best For

Bringing a reasonable balance.

For us Best For is a philosophy of life, we make this philosophy our commercial business.

Increasing the number of stores which will simultaneously bring about the supply of larger quantities of goods, will continuously help us to achieve greater economies of scale and improve both our services and profit rates.

Our stores are located in central locations in cities, (main shopping streets, shopping malls) so that everyone has easy and direct access to them

Path & Motivation

The Arabia Times: What was the path you took to get to where you are today?

George Leventis: Our secret is that we have no secrets.!!!

Our relationship with our partners, whom we consider our family, is clear from the beginning and is based on mutual benefit for both sides. It is a winner-winner relationship.

The Arabia Times: What motivated you to start “BEST FOR”?

George Leventis: As I said above the best is for us “life philosophy”. We want to sell to our customers quality products at “real” prices.

We found that the dominant model worldwide was either branded, highly appreciated expensive products, or very cheap, low quality imitations. Between these two extreme trends we saw an opportunity and designed a new approach that combines quality and smart design with affordability – a combination that creates a totally competitive value to the consumer.

In our stores, we want every customer to understand that we respect the value of their money by giving them a sense of opportunity.

The Arabia Times: Can you tell me about any recent changes or updates to your franchise system?

George Leventis: In our stores, we are constantly improving our sales techniques and product mix with new methods according to the feedback we receive from our stores around the world. A very important change we have made is that now the products we put on sale in each country are not exactly the same in all countries. In addition to the standard codes that all stores have, we do market research on the local specifics of each country and add products that are compatible with the different culture and local habits. This has greatly increased the profitability of our stores.

We also created a new concept which combines two stores into one.

It includes in the same space two complete and integrated businesses.

Best For shop & Coffee shop

Coffee shop customers while sitting and enjoying selected beverages to choose from the wide variety or unique snacks and food, and at the same time they will be inside a store with +8000 items of BEST FOR… So they will be able to get up at any time to browse the products and spend their time more pleasantly than just sitting in a typical café. In this way, a large percentage of the café’s customers will buy one of BEST FOR… On the other hand, customers who enter to buy BEST FOR… products have the incentive to either sit down after their purchases to enjoy a beverage or to take away.

Vision & Updates of George Leventis

The Arabia Times: What do you value the most about “BEST FOR” vision?

George Leventis: The family relationship we all have with each other and our shared vision for success. Our motto is , together everyone can win more.

Is a strategic approach that emphasizes making decisions based on what is best for a particular stakeholder or group of stakeholders. Instead of focusing solely on maximizing profits or a one-size-fits-all solution, the “BEST FOR” vision takes into account the specific needs and interests of different stakeholders and aims to create positive outcomes for them.

This approach acknowledges that different stakeholders may have varying priorities and concerns, and it strives to find solutions that are mutually beneficial and sustainable in the long term. It could involve considering factors such as customer satisfaction, employee well-being, environmental impact, social responsibility, and community development, among others.

By adopting a “BEST FOR” vision, organizations and individuals demonstrate a commitment to ethical decision-making and a genuine concern for the welfare of those affected by their actions. This approach can help build trust, foster stronger relationships with stakeholders, and contribute to the overall success and longevity of a business or initiative.

The Arabia Times: How do you stay informed on the latest updates to the field?

George Leventis: We created a strong team of experienced European and Asian and Arab executives who, after studying the Asian, Arab and European markets, developed a business model of finding innovative products, production sources and suppliers, a group of designers-fast fashion, in order to rapidly develop it to a global scope.

For this purpose, more than 100 professional buyers are employed to research the global market in order to understand the demand in favour of consumers. After collecting all the relevant information, the design team starts working out a new product development plan based on this data.

Faced Challenges & Future

The Arabia Times: What are the key values which helped you to overcome the challenges in your path? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership?

George Leventis: Our honesty towards our partners. We have not allowed and will not in the future allow any of our interested partners to make a business move and risk losing their investment money if we do not thoroughly examine all the parameters and are not sure of the outcome. Of course an investment always includes risk, but we want to limit it as much as possible. We have several times refused interested parties to proceed with the investment despite their desire to the contrary. We are not interested in short-term profit, but in a long-term successful partnership. This is a principle we do not negotiate for a short-term profit.

The Arabia Times: How do you see the company is changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?

George Leventis: I see it becoming a recognized brand that will establish itself in the minds of its consumers and customers as a leader in its field and in what it stands for. I personally, as the team leader will provide the vision and motivation to the employees and our partners

Competition

The Arabia Times: What benefits are your clients getting from “BEST FOR” in this competitive world?

George Leventis: Consumers demand quality service, fair pricing, and a convenient store location.

There is plenty of competition at the moment but no one yet offers the package and range of our business. In this area we dare to say that in Europe we are the leader. In our stores we use the total service strategy.

After all, we offer more than just selling goods. We sell our philosophy.

We want to create the kind of service that provides an atmosphere that creates a positive shopping experience for our customers.

Advice from George Leventis

The Arabia Times: Would you like to say anything else to our viewers?

George Leventis: For us The BEST FOR… is not just a trading company. It is a lifestyle philosophy that we all want to share with our customers.  We do what we do because we love it and in second place for us comes commercial profit. Every new day we go to work with great joy and new ideas and our customers understand that. That’s why we have achieved impressive business results in just 5 years.

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