Giordano recently won top awards for service excellence in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, reaffirming Giordano’s reputation for service excellence.  The company also announced the launch of Giordano University, scheduled for the end of 2006, to reinforce its leadership in staff development and service excellence.

 In Singapore, Giordano beat all other specialty retailers to capture the top two spots in this year’s Mystery Shoppers Award presented by the Singapore Retailers Association (SRA) and two Giordano employees also won top awards in the Retail Manager of the Year and the Young Retail Executive of the Year categories.  “This is the first time that a retailer managed a clean sweep of all of SRA’s top awards, and the honour belongs to everyone here at Giordano Singapore,” remarked Ann Leong, General Manager of Giordano Singapore.  

Meanwhile, Giordano was awarded the Top Service Award in the Fashion & Accessories Chain Stores category by Next Magazine in Taiwan, and Giordano Ladies captured the Hong Kong Retail Management Association’s 2006 Service & Courtesy Award – Supervisory Level in the Fashion & Accessories category.

“We are very proud of Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan’s accomplishments.  Service excellence is one of the pillars of Giordano’s success, and the company has over the years invested heavily in employee service training to maintain our competitive edge and ensure that we continue to meet and exceed the high expectations that customers have of Giordano.  But service training alone is not enough.  We have to pay attention to the overall personal growth and career development of our people to allow them to fully realize their potential and perform to the highest possible standards.  As such, we decided to build on our existing programs to launch Giordano University,” remarked Ngan Lei Tjen, Group Human Resources Director.

 “The Giordano University curriculum is designed to augment and enrich our existing training programs and consists of a series of comprehensive learning programs including advanced sales training, basic and advanced management training, leadership seminars etc.  The centre itself is located in Dongguan, China, where we have taken part of our existing premises and refurbished it to become a training centre with classrooms and conference facilities.  When it opens at the end of the year, Giordano University will focus initially on training our staff from Hong Kong and Mainland China, but will eventually include staff from our overseas markets and business partners.  We are especially keen to extend the program to our franchisees and authorized dealers in China, as this would help us build a strong base to pursue faster expansion in this important growth market,” continued Ms Ngan.

 Giordano International Limited is a leading international retailer of men’s, women’s and children’s apparel under the brand names “Giordano”, “Giordano Ladies”, “Giordano Concepts”, “Giordano Junior” and “Bluestar Exchange”. Established in 1981, Giordano International now operates over 1,700 stores and counters in Greater China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, India and the Middle East.