A new management team, a new location in the heart of Paris, close to the Place de l’Opéra and the Place Vendôme, and plenty new projects! After a full restructuration, Manifesto unveiled last week its new business goals within the Superga group. While the creative and technical teams remained unchanged, the specialist of beauty cases, bags and textile accessories for the cosmetics industry now has a new sales team and a new Executive Director: Nathalie Duvoisin.
To double net sales
"The first step was to strengthen the company’s technical capacity and to consolidate its sourcing capacity. We have therefore settled two technical teams in China, one in Hong Kong and the other in Shenzhen," said Alain Bréau, president of Manifesto and of the Superga group. The aim is to perfectly control the quality of the production but also the commitments on environmental and social responsibility, which have become a prerequisite for most customers.
The second step is to beef up the company’s international business, including the opening - by the month of January 2015 - of a sales subsidiary in the United States, in addition to the one opened in China in conjunction with the technical activities. These investments should support Alain Bréau’s goal to double the turnover of the company and to reach a turnover of 15 million euros by the next 18 months.
New products
The implementation of the new strategy has been entrusted to Nathalie Duvoisin who intends to rely on her knowledge of Asian sourcing to provide more innovation and expand the company’s range of products. "Manifesto should be at the state of the art of manufacturing techniques, to master new materials for the cases and bags - which form the heart of company’s offer – thanks to materials markets now well developed in Asia," she said.
Regarding the extension of its offer, Manifesto might be interested in scented products (candles, scents, fragrance diffusers), textiles (t-shirts, sponges) and hard goods (jewellery and fancy containers). "One of Manifesto’s weaknesses was precisely to be too focused on a single product category, to be locked in its specialty, we needed new products, innovation, and new ideas."
Full-service offer
Together with Beauty Packaging Services (BPS), a co-packing company for cosmetics, Manifesto now forms the new Beauty division of the Superga group. By continuing to diversify its activities from the luxury sector to the beauty, Superga has created a platform of services offering its customers the possibility to couple sourcing, filling and logistics. "We evaluate the gain to about one month during the development process," concludes Alain Bréau.
