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PAOLO BOFFI: "WE ARE THE STANDARD BEARERS OF ITALIAN STYLE KITCHENS"
Rome (Ign) - "Rather than an industry, mine is mass produced craftsmanship". This is how Paolo Boffi, Chairman of Boffi spa (www.boffi.com), defines his company, established as a craftsman's workshop in 1934, and which is now a leader in the furnishing sector.
Your family has been in the furniture business for 70 years. What major innovations have you brought to the field?
Since the 1960s we have focused everything on innovation, to distinguish ourselves in a sector, which is highly competitive. At the time we were the first to launch facings in laminated wood, coloured panels and polyesters, in environments that at the time were considered dull and boring. We have initiated extremely productive collaboration projects, such as with the chef Gualtiero Marchesi, and introduced Italy to coloured refrigerators, which then became highly fashionable. After long experience in the kitchen sector, in the 1980s we also moved into bathrooms. Today the company has a turnover of around €50 million per year, 60% of which is accounted for by foreign markets. Our leading clients are the USA, France, the EU and Southeast Asia.
And what sector of the business do you think shows greatest potential for future development?
In the future, we will be focusing on excellence and the top end of the market. We are trying to cut out a space for ourselves and compete in various niche markets that we feel we can satisfy, also thanks to a marketing strategy that has led us to open showrooms in major cities in Europe and the rest of the world, such as in Boulevard St. Germain in Paris, in Soho in New York, in Via Solferino in Milan and in Piazza Barberini in Rome. In such a competitive sector, our goal is to distinguish ourselves, and to satisfy the tastes and demands of new market sectors, which are developing above all in Eastern Europe and Asia. To do this, we have to focus above all on design.
You often talk of the need for Italian furniture and furnishings to unite the supply chains of production and distribution. Why?
Because we need to work with a single supply chain: I'm convinced that retailers should be one-brand, also for pricing reasons. Exclusive retailers have a series of competitive advantages and above all can help businesses face the challenges of the market and the toughest and most aggressive competition with confidence. Managing to draw up a model contract means finally laying the grounds for a new relationship between production and distribution.
As a businessman, what steps do you think the Italian furniture and furnishings sector has to take to keep its leading position on top international markets?
It has to do what we have been saying for years. Furniture is a product with a low technological content and precisely for this reason can easily be copied. The only way of fighting off the competition is to be innovative, both in materials and functions. This means focusing attention on design and, at least within reasonable limits, delocalising the production of lower quality and less technological items. This is why our motto is no longer Made in Italy, but Italian Style. Moreover, our business world needs to abandon its tendency towards dwarfism: joint supply chains, mergers and holdings could lead to significant synergies and scale economies, allowing us to invest more in strategic sectors.
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