Staples Argentina

Staples Argentina

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Office supplies
Founded	1997
Number of locations	2 stores, 4 warehouses (2010)[1]
Key people	Santiago Bilinkis, Founder Leo Piccioli, General Manager, Argentina]
Owner(s)	Staples Inc.
Employees	170 (2011)
Website	www.staples.com.ar

Staples Argentina is the subsidiary of the American office supply chain Staples in Argentina and Brazil, headquartered in Buenos Aires.

Staples Argentina is the largest office supply company in Argentina and one of the top three in Brazil.

The company gained international relevance after Harvard Business School Professor Walter Kuemmerle wrote two cases for the International Entrepreneurship course [1] [2].

History

• 1997 Officenet was founded by Andy Freire and Santiago Bilinkis, with seed capital from four angel investors from Argentina.
• 1998 Officenet was selected as an Endeavor (non-profit) Entrepreneur.
• 1999 Submarino, Inc. starts acquisition of Officenet, later finished on February 29, 2000.
• 2000 With the help of Submarino, Officenet expands into Brazil, setting its office and warehouse in Sao Paulo. By the end of 2000, new investors into Officenet force a de-merge between the two companies
• 2004 Staples acquires both Officenet Argentina and Officenet Brazil
• 2006 Officenet Argentina starts one of the first corporate blogs in the country (as reviewed by newspapers La Nación [3], Clarín [4] and Infobae [5])
• 2007 Officenet is ranked #30 in Great Places to Work list [6] in Argentina
• 2008 Officenet opens the first Staples store in Argentina on May 13, and the second on November 14
• 2008 The US Embassy in Argentina acknowledged Officenet Staples' corporate social responsibility efforts [7]
• 2009 Officenet appears as case study in Social Networking on Intranets [8] by usability consultant Jakob Nielsen
• 2009 The US Department of State selects Officenet Staples Argentina as a finalist for the Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) [9]
• 2009 Officenet is ranked #33 in Great Places to Work list [10] in Argentina
• 2010 Santiago Bilinkis, founder, leaves the company [11]
• 2011 Company in Argentina drops the original "Officenet" brand and is renamed as Staples Argentina [12]
• 2011 Staples Argentina launches a Virtual Store concept[13], with QR_code technology, copying Tesco subisdiary in Korea.

References

1. ^ Staples Inc. 2010 Annual Report