A team
made up almost entirely of women averaging under thirty years of age for a
turnover exceeding €230 million. “For a company like ours that works in
fashion, the pandemic was the perfect storm. But the periods of crisis,
although difficult to face, enable us to take brave decisions quicker”. For FARE Insieme, Giampaolo Colletti interviews Alessando Varisco, CEO at Twinset
di Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
There is a basketball hoop in the office
of Alessandro Varisco who, since 2015, has been the CEO of the Emilian women’s
fashion giant Twinset. There is also a leather ball that is sometimes thrown up
into the air, hitting the rim of the hoop. After all, to describe this brand
you can start from that hoop and from a match that is currently played on the
global market and, most of all, on the digital and interconnected markets,
whose outcome is far from predictable. Because it all depends on teamwork,
genial intuition and, most of all, training. The company was set up in the
1980s and the team is currently made up of 850 people, 92% of which are women
mostly between 28 and 30. A hundred people work in Russia, Belgium, France,
Spain and in retail. Most of the c-levels are also women, seven out of eleven.
The turnover is of around €235 million, but the women's prêt-à-porter brand is
an increasingly complex business, which was halted last year by the virus,
between the lockdown and restrictions, and which has now restarted. After all,
the health emergency caused by the pandemic,
which turned into an economic and systemic crisis that has become a syndemic, mainly hit the fashion sector,
forcing a redefinition of processes, languages and client relations. In this
case too, the ball hits the basket. It's a question of strategy, vision and
lucid folly. “I have played basketball for thirty-two years, I live and work in
an area where this sport is a cult. I also have two children who play
basketball of their own choice. It’s a relaxing sport, people like it because
it strengthens relationships but it's also packed with adrenalin. You have
twenty-four seconds to throw the ball, and you don’t know if you've won or how
it will finish until the end. You can be ten points behind and can still make
it. But I am used to being a forward and giving all I’ve got,” explains
Varisco. In our metaphor, the uncertainty is represented by our time. “For a
company like ours that works in fashion, the pandemic was the perfect storm
because it resulted in a lack of occasions for wearing garments. But the periods
of crisis, although difficult to face, enable us to take brave decisions
quicker. I believe the pandemic has caught us unprepared, but we are committed
to surviving this ‘black swan’ while taking care of each other. As I often say
to my collaborators: let’s react to this emergency as if it were a new
opportunity,” stresses Varisco, who illustrates the company from Carpi, in a
futuristic facility that boasts headquarters and factory, while the show rooms
are located all over Italy.
A kind
spirit. “We were born as a knitwear factory, and
everything was focused on wool, colours and warmth. Here, I have found a
welcoming company with romantic, sweet and determined women in mind. This
company was established by two enlightened founders, it is characterized by a
family environment and we stand out for our kindness, both between ourselves
and towards final clients. In my view, kindness means taking care of yourself
in order to take care of others. Kindness is not just business for the sake of
business, there is a world to be discovered behind every number or person.
Kindness is what makes teams close as it implies listening and respect. It's as
if there was an invisible woollen thread that joins us all,” explains Varisco.
Kindness also means intercepting the final clients, listening to them and
pampering them. “We know that they have become more aware and it’s therefore
essential to understand today what their identity will be tomorrow. When the
shops opened after the closures of the first and second waves of the pandemic,
customer turnout was 40% less than in pre-Covid times. As a provocation to
stimulate it, I said: “if clients won’t come to us, we’ll go to them. It’s a
concept that goes beyond slogans because, having an evolved CRM, it’s easier to
understand the purchasing behaviour of consumers and track them,” said Varisco.
This is how our kind boxes were born, containing eight pieces and an
accompanying letter. The message is clear: we don't want you to purchase these
items, but we want you to see them. The operation was hugely successful: on
average, the company sold over half of the garments sent, also receiving
letters of thanks.
Glocal
vision. Rethinking the relationship with the
clientèle, promoting the territory, the history and the journey. “Compared with
the beginning, we have maintained our DNA and critical success factors. This
way, we produced lovely and cosy jumpsuits to maintain the romantic mood but
also to explain the forced home environment. We projected our vision into an
increased contemporaneity. Digitalization has made clients more aware but has
also flattened supply. Today, there is a level of contamination between the
various brands that leads to homogeneity. This is why we cleaned up the
collection, adopting a more international language. We bet on a new English
creative director to conquer the markets, and by maintaining our codes we
became more international and implemented an universal approach in a global
world,” illustrates Varisco. The winning recipe is remaining local yet
international at the same time. “After all, this has always been a great
fashion district. That is why we continued to invest in our territory: we
currently have sixty high-tech fabric machines. Here there is also a
state-of-the-art knitwear school, we have culture: we need to pay more
attention to skills and to educate and get young people passionate about these
crafts.” Being pioneers, arriving before the others, but being understood by
clients: this is how the renting operation was born, meeting the demand for
market personalisation. “We created a group made up of 25 to 30 year-olds. It
led to two amazing effects: we improved ourselves by working with the younger
generation, and we also understood the importance of use rather than
possession. This enables an almost sartorial work. After all, customers want
something unique.”
There is always a plan B. Listening and, most of all, challenging ourselves. “The pandemic has
created a radical change in companies that needs to be understood. It doesn't
mean that what we have done so far will do for the future as well, as consumers
change swiftly. Today, there is a surplus in supply, but consumers tend to show
a preference for sustainability.
This is plan B, i.e. understanding our impact on the environment. There is also
social sustainability, i.e. setting an objective to improve a little at a time
in order to reach the finishing line together,” stresses Varisco. Teams are the
way to go. After all, for this top manager, the best is not what has always
been done, but changing and innovating. Take risks and be passionate, come to
work with a smile and with the sun in your pocket. Here comes the basketball
metaphor once again, where you win together. “It’s the golden rule of this
sport and of many others. But talents alone are not enough without a team that
enables them to score”.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
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