Tabacchi: research, labels and outsourcing for growth

According to Vittorio Tabacchi, president of Safilo, 'research and innovation are the trump cards for growth': this is what he said to Il Sole 24 Ore when explaining that his group's strategy takes three directions.

Research, to constantly increase product levels and beat the competition. Labels and fashion for acquiring new markets. Outsourcing to reduce costs. 'We've been pushing these three factors since the end of the Seventies and we have also set up an ad hoc company with 35 employees, all of them engineers, chemists and experts in industry' he added.

On competition from the Far East and on forgeries, Tabacchi underscored that: 'The Italian eyewear sector is the only one in Europe to have survived. And this is a positive sign. To date, the strength of Made in Italy and the Italian brand has beaten the competition. [...] My company has focused a great deal on research applied to products: our researchers are not shut up in their laboratories, they are in contact with the market. The market tells me what the problem is, the technicians solve it. We also sponsor a large number of sportspeople: often the world of sport has come to us to seek highly specialized products. The latest new idea is contact lenses.'

To keep costs down, Tabacchi talked about his choice of 'using outsourcing for the lower line of products: I buy what I need where I can get the best prices. Producing in other countries is a difficult decision, you come up against worlds and rules that are different to ours. I prefer to pursue much stronger commercial expansion: we are present in 120 countries and we have just opened a subsidiary in Shanghai. We're counting a lot on China: because of their morphology, Chinese wear more glasses than anyone else. I think that in three years exports currently at 15% in terms of billings will rise to 20%. There will be a slight shortfall in the Eu, now at 45%, whereas the Us represents around 40% and should maintain this figure.'

Lastly, according to Tabacchi the government should 'focus the public research system on industry by having applied research. It is important to increase the number of patents: there's a scarcity in Italy, but it's possible to find patents that already exist or have expired and have never been used. For example, for one production I used a Us patent of the Fifties-Sixties.'

'And of course it would be a good idea if the Ecb cut the cost of money: euro and dollar values are penalizing European industry' he concluded.