Edoardo Elmi from Guandong, Fulvio Rohrer of 3M Italia and Dario Morelli, HP Italiana, used the recent Viscom event to present a seminar on ‘Growing in a stagnating economy’ and how to exploit the opportunities of “weak signals from the market”.
“In the 90s the market has witnessed boom in digital world, with double-digit annual increase. The situation has been registering extraordinary changes starting from 2008, with a constant but poor growth and a market characterised by a daily struggle for survival,” started off Elmi. “Within this context, the secret of success is the specialisation in your own business. You must be able to identify and foresee the weak signals from the market, they are the most difficult to grasp, the most exacting to follow, but they will surely lead you far away”.
Rohrer added: “We live in an embarrassing economic period but, at the same time, in an extremely dynamic world. It is important to be able to anticipate the needs of decorators and interior décor operators. Customers have changed: they now require a better product’s custom tailoring, they pay more attention to the relationship between price and product quality and they are more sensitive to design. At the same time, the request of end users has changed: it is now focused on an increased interest in environmental sustainability and, therefore, in alternative materials to PVC. This tendency cannot be disregarded and it needs constant R&D investment.”
Morelli shared his ‘five steps to success’. Phase 0 is “knowing yourself”, that is to decide your position and role and your mission in the market. “Only if you know yourself very well and if you constantly pique your curiosity, you can offer customers innovative solutions”, he said. You go from phase 1 “looking around”, characterised by the analysis of market, competitors and customers, to phase 2 “being curious”, consisting in the creation of synergies and partnerships. You continue with phase 3 “communicating your value”, in order to prevail on competitors. After that, you need to measure results (phase 4) and always remember to learn from experience (phase 5).