Respectively appointed as sales manager and foreign sales account at the Catania-based Lr Composizioni Profumanti Srl, Valeria Di Mauro and Olivia Calà describe Kosworld the strategies they chose to keep their brand successful in Italy and poised to strengthen its global export share. Member of a number of global industry unions ranging from the International fragrances association or Ifra to the IFEAT the Sicilian firm L.R. Composizioni Profumanti was established in 1998 in Belpasso, near Catania, where the company is still headquartered today. L.R. Composizioni Profumanti’s portfolio includes a wide range of essential oils, fragrances and aromas and through the years has gained a remarkable customers base both in Italy and abroad. To push its business forward and in order to increase its market share worldwide the Sicilian-based producer keeps its eyes wide open on innovation with a strong focus on human resources. Continuous training is one of L.R. Composizioni Profumanti’s keys to global success and this is one of the reasons the firm strives to provide its personnel with updated skills about the global regulatory landscape, for instance, in an attempt to anticipate the market’s requests and looking forward to always fulfilling the customers’ needs by understanding the ever-changing trends in fashion and purchasing dynamics. It is not always simple, especially for a small producer, to keep up with such challenging markets as today’s, but L.R.’s sales manager and foreign sales account Valeria Di Mauro and Olivia Calà described Kosworld their idea of a winning strategy.What’s your main areas of activity and business segments?
Established in 1998 in Belpasso (Catania), L.R. Composizioni Profumanti is focused on the one hand on the creation and production of a wide variety of fragrances destined to a number of different segments. Those industries include the cosmetics business, first of all, followed by the pharmaceutical and detergency arenas. But on the other hand our company has also developed with time an expertise and reputation as a distributor and trader in the fields of essential oils and chemical aromatic products. In order to fulfill both markets’ demand we always try to keep our offer and our skills updated, by anticipating customers’ needs and new emerging trends in fashion.
Are you already competing in the global arena or are you planning to do so in the near future? And what is your present market share out of Italy?
L.R. Composizioni Profumanti’s more remarkable revenues come from Italian customers, since Italy is the place where we started our business. But we do not deny at all our commitment to global scenarios and to give Kosworld an idea of how important it is for us to compete on the international market we could say that 30% at least of our revenues come from export. A further development of our global business is nonetheless under way and we already identified some possible future targets.
What strategies are You planning to adopt in order to increase your global market share?
We see a wide number of attractive markets and thus a variety of different opportunities. Today we carefully looking at such macro-regions as Middle East or Northern Africa, focusing on the nations of Maghreb. But this does not mean we are not interested in the European market, which instead can still offer great chances to such firms as L.R. Composizioni Profumanti. Our strategy leverages on our portfolio’s excellent overall quality, being it based on 100% made in Italy top-class solutions.
What’s in your opinion the major driver for succeeding or competing in the cosmetics arena?
To succeed in the cosmetics industry a specific and updated know how is certainly one of the major drivers. We live today in a media-driven society but we do also know that new fashions and styles have a very short life and won’t last too long. This is why a company like ours must always develop new and successful ideas the fastest way possible. Our clients would always require us immediate results and excellent standards of quality. L.R. Composizioni Profumanti always concentrated on research and development activities and our laboratories are today equipped with innovative, if not revolutionary, technologies, such as a new gas-chromatograph and a mass spectrometer whilst our staff is constantly updated and informed about such issues as new regulatory guidelines from Institutes like RIFM or IFRA; and/or from the European community (Reach and Clp, among others). A valuable help also comes from our participation to organizations by the names of Federchimica (the Italian chemical industry institutional representative federation, ndr) and IFEAT. But our strength is also given by a deep knowledge of the raw materials market worldwide. We only import our commodities from carefully selected international producers and we do carefully evaluate any possible usage of chemical agents in order to create original formulations or composition. But they have to be environmentally safe and easy to apply, harmless to mankind and to the eco-system.
What are the most critical issues you have to face to compete both in Italy and abroad?
Fortunately the Italian market does not display at the moment any remarkable hindrance but when it comes to facing other markets abroad the most critical and challenging parts of the business are represented by regulatory issues, which sometimes are so complicated that to build up a coherent and successful business relation with any customer or provider shows sometimes rather difficult.
What kind of strategies are you planning to implement to consolidate Your revenues?
The target we are now aiming at is that of consolidating and improving our modus operandi. Our intention is to implement a new quality management system to monitor a product’s overall lifecycle, from its creation to the delivery and from the raw materials selection to the finished products quality control; and last but not least from documents and orders management to sales. The final result of the entire operation should be an increased quality of service to assist and support our partners, whatever should their needs and projects be, the most effective way possible. We believe that the most successful products spring up from a synergic cooperation between producers and customers and from a constant exchange of skills and experiences between industry and markets.
You underlined the importance of training your employees everyday duty, in order to constantly improve their competences: what is your workforce real added value?
A professional approach and the top-class highly specialized skills are some of our employees most important prerogatives and also the elements that assure our customers a complete satisfaction. A young and dynamic team that cooperating with customers worldwide can transform their business ideas into reality and products is probably one of the most relevant reasons for our success.
Is the made in Italy brand still appreciated worldwide, according to your experience?
Made in Italy is also a quality warrant. It is the quid, the X-factor that makes our production and creativity famous worldwide and distinguishes our articles from all our international competitors.
Committed to innovation
To ensure customers the maximum conformity to top-class quality standard and an excellent level of performance and reliability L.R. Composizioni Profumanti has heavily invested on technology and innovation, thus equipping its laboratories with such solutions as a new gas-chromatograph and a new generation mass spectrometer, whilst a constant research is carried on in order to develop new formulations or to add new chemical agents to bring the market new and original compositions. Also, each and every one of its products comes with a technical documentation including an analysis certification and a technical dossier. This latter one is made up of a safety chart in order to fulfill the Reach-Clp regulatory requirements; technical charts and an information chart regarding the fragrance’s characteristics and the related, possible IFRA restrictions.
More than 15 years in business
Since 1998, L.R. Composizioni Profumanti S.r.l. operates in the field of creation and production of fragrances (cosmetics, alcoholic perfumery, detergents, ecc.) and trades natural essential oils and chemical compounds. This company is organized with a management system certified according to the law ISO 9001:2008, it is associated with Confindustria Federchimica AISPEC and is an IFEAT member. With a wide range of fragrances – complied with the most stringent quality standards and with the disposition of the European Community law – L.R. Composizioni Profumanti S.r.l is a valuable partner for the realization of any type of project. The raw materials used in their chemical formulations are of high quality. The company has an efficient and advanced R&D department and is equipped with advanced productive technologies used by a highly qualified staff.
By R.Carminati