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BUSINESS

26/04/2017

Once upon a time there was Russia? No! How we overcame the crisis of the Rouble and how our development is continuing.

“The worst collapse of the financial crisis of 2014”. “Queues in the shopping centres to spend the last Roubles”. Let’s try to be honest and direct like we always try to be in Teddy. In December 2014, like so many others who were facing the Rouble which had lost 50% of its value in a year, we thought the worst.

Russia is unsteady, for Teddy it is one of the most important markets, and it wasn’t easy to foresee what its fate might be. The fate of the stores, the fate of the entrepreneurs who through affiliation had been doing business with us for years, and the fate of the thousands of Terranova and Calliope customers.

It’s almost Christmas, we come back from the holidays to make the right decisions in the face of an unprecedented crisis, and it is in these situations that we see if the principles of our company culture are really suitable to face the challenges of the market.

The big issue of the prices

What should we do with the prices? This was the big question. What should we favour? The momentary profit or making sacrifices, for many months even, penalising profitability? On the other hand, two large criteria. The first is that it always takes two to do business, otherwise it doesn’t last long. The second: treat others as you would like to be treated. The final decision?

We are told by Alessandro Mauro, director of Russiatex, master franchising for the Terranova and Calliope brands in Russia. “To face the situation as best as possible in accordance with the companies and affiliates we decided to contain prices, and not raise them. ?While with the crisis many brands raised their prices, we contained them, sacrificing the production cycle profit and that of Russiatex in the name of our relationship with the affiliates and customers, helping them to involve the shopping centres themselves in this project, asking for instance for lower rent, and explaining that the containment of prices would be paid back in the long run by the customers themselves, who understood that their favourite brands were facing the crisis with them. And that is exactly how it went”.

The Terranova and Calliope consumers appreciated this, and the brands gained even more loyalty from their customers, and more besides… “That’s exactly so, because once 2015 was over, in 2016 we began opening new stores again, something which was unthinkable at the end of 2014”, says Alessandro.

 

 

“Eight new stores in 2016 – says Ina Danu, contact person for development in the Russian Federation – and we will continue to open other stores in 2017 and 2018”. Ina, together with Alessandro, was one of the protagonists who faced the crisis of the Rouble and the development of the Terranova and Calliope brands in Russia: “I came to Teddy as an interpreter, she tells us, I was looking for work after my maternity leave. I still remember when I was offered the chance to take care of the negotiations with the shopping centres. At first it wasn’t easy, but I soon learnt, and today I also take care of the sales network and the development of new sales points. I can’t imagine doing any other job. My greatest satisfaction comes from the daily negotiations with our partners, which are difficult at times and very direct, but which always have the objective of finding an agreement that satisfies both sides, and many people now in Russia recognize and appreciate the style of our group”.

Another protagonist of the Rouble crisis challenge was Giovanni Bellini, from the Tiberius company, which ensures commercial assistance to the stores in Russia and more besides.

 

Giovanni is one of the people who during the Christmas of 2014 abandoned his family and holidays due to the Rouble crisis: “I started working with Teddy 18 years ago, in 1998. I began working for the client who was affiliated in Poland. Today, with my team, I take care of the commercial side in this country as well as that of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. About twenty collaborators work with me. When I watch them and I see the passion of these guys who spend so many days and nights away, I feel moved. You can see that the Teddy values are not just confined to Italy, because they reach abroad, too, all the way to the people who are part of the group

 

The first store in Russia in 2003, today there are 52 stores

If we take a step back, we’ll see that the beginning of the Teddy brands in Russia was not easy either: “It was not easy to get established on these markets. We worked a lot, gaining the “trust” of the affiliates and creating a big team with them. We found some great partners who proved to be true professionals with whom we undertook a path of growth together”.

The first Terranova store was opened in 2003, when the Russiatex company did not yet exist. Then Russiatex came along, the first case of master franchising in Russia linked to Italian brands, with which there was a strong momentum in the development of this market.

To date there are 52 stores in Russia (50 affiliates and 2 that are managed directly by Russiatex), the brands have grown and they are sought after by the shopping centres. Moreover, as Mauro explains, “an ever growing number of affiliates ask to open new stores with us”. For instance? An entrepreneur who already has 6 stores all over Russia and who continues to ask us to open new sales points.

Among the most interesting openings in 2016 the one in “Blagoveshchenskl, 8 time zones inside Russia on the border with Japan and China, thanks to one of our oldest affiliates who already has 5 stores. For me this is a great result, which, we hope will open up new frontiers”.

There is a secret: people who are building a dream

“The company has changed my life – says Giovanni – my dreams go hand in hand with the needs of the Group, and it continues to be a great and wonderful adventure. The market changes fast, we grow, and we want to be among the leaders. We have the skills and the desire to make it”.

“In Russia, as in many other places, sometimes it is not easy, there are difficulties, but I work with some great people – says Alessandro – 40 people work for Russiatex: a team that comprises Russians, Bulgarians, Slovaks, and Italians who have shared in difficult times, too, this great entrepreneurial project, contributing to the Teddy Dream. So I owe, and we owe, all the success we have here to them, by dressing people, we are building a dream”.

 

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