Premium Beauty News - A year of consolidation with the aim finally, to specialize by product segments?
Guillaume de Demandolx - To give you a clear picture of the Cosmetic Rigid Packaging activity within the Albéa Group, you must remember that we are present in Asia (China, Indonesia and India), the United States, Mexico, Brazil and in Western and Eastern Europe... And that we employ some 9000 people on our sixteen production sites.
We are operating in a very competitive market marked by a steady pace of launches, especially concerning make-up. In a volatile economic environment, our customers more than ever need to rely on suppliers capable of developing quickly and reliably their new products, to provide competitive technical solutions, and to guarantee a flexible and responsive supply chain.
This is what we strive to offer them through our global manufacturing base and our networks of technical experts, and this in each of the segments we operate.
And there are many of them! Because we are leaders in the lipstick segment, which represents about one fourth of our division’s income and which is manufactured in France, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil. We are also leaders in mascara, which accounts for another big fourth of CRP’s activity and for which we can boast a recognized expertise not only in vials but also for all kinds of brushes, be they in plastic or fibre-based, with production units in Italy, the USA, Mexico, China and Brazil. The third "quarter" concerns closures and caps for fragrances and skincare products. Finally, the last "quarter", with compacts, jars and bottles, not forgetting "metal" processing with units located in China and the USA.
Premium Beauty News - For each unit in the world one specialization … or nearly! You mentioned the setting up of a real network of technical expertise!
Guillaume de Demandolx - It’s a fact! Production sites that are specialized around an expertise, – whether a market or a technology –, enable to strengthen the industrial performance and to focus investments on the equipment the best suited to the needs of our customers. And I must say that this strategy of industrial specialization, we are now accelerating the pace of, is bearing fruits since our clients seem to recognize the performance and competitiveness of our already specialized sites. There is no lack of examples, like our sites in Bottanuco and Matamoros in Mexico for mascaras, those in Parigné and Bernaville in France specialized in perfume caps and galvanizing or our Indonesian site in Semarang dedicated to high-end make-up cases. Not to mention the site in Shanghai, with its integrated workshop for moulds and metal processing and a cutting edge tool for the production of lipsticks. In this area, we also want to offer our European customers a next-generation tool in the French site of Plouhinec, which will specialise in these products and for which we plan to invest nearly 10 million euros over three years.
Premium Beauty News - Investments that focus mainly on what?
Guillaume de Demandolx - As always, the idea is to improve efficiency, flexibility and agility. For this, it is essential to step up operational performance while ensuring competitiveness and quality. To achieve this, there is no secret recipe, it requires more automation, more robotization and more control systems, but also capacity investments and the renewal of our product range to best meet the requirements of our customers. Not forgetting training, to further strengthen the skills of our teams. Don’t forget that Albéa, overall, invests annually approximately $ 100 million per year and represent about one third of this envelope.
You know, I already had the opportunity to talk about that a year ago, "Quality" and "Time to market" are permanent objectives for us. We have implemented an entire process to accelerate the development of new products and make their development more reliable. We want to reduce or eliminate risks associated with sometimes complex... and very common projects, since as you know, almost a third of our portfolio is renewed every year!
Premium Beauty News - A word on the latest product launches?
Guillaume de Demandolx - We launched last year the Albéa Tips Studio programme, through which we invent, develop and manufacture high-performance and innovative application systems, ranging from the fibre or plastic mascara brush to tips for lipgloss applicators via eyebrow and eyeliner solutions. Like every year, our experts come up with new products: a plastic mini-brush, La Petite for short eyelashes or Cashmere for a super-gentle application, the Trilogy case with a specific applicator integrated and the brush Magnify for eyebrows - to name a few. For the lips, we launched a fun to use packaging around a new gesture, the LipKiss. A word also about CoolSpin, a ceramic applicator for the eye contour that enables to apply and massage accurately a refreshing formula.
And of course, we are always exited to contribute to the development of outstanding products with our customers, such as the new mascaras MAC, Nars or Rimmel, the lipstick by Carlsan, Chinese are mad about, the latest Paco Rabanne perfume, the sumptuous prize-winning Guerlain case, and many others!
