Foreign clients are increasingly looking for Bovi’s skills and competences in the art of well finishing the fabric and the company, to respond accordingly to demands, spares no efforts and pulls out all the stops. «We are going to build a new pavilion to improve the finishing layout, because we were with lack of space», unveils Amélia Marques, in an article published in February’s issue of Jornal Têxtil.
The new space, with an area of 2,300 square meters, will also improve «loading and unloading, which today are done through the same space», adds the administrator of Bovi, who employs 160 people. With a capacity of 100 thousand meters a day, the finishing area, grouped under the seal Vaz da Costa, must also receive new equipment. «We have some machines that have to be replaced, like the dryer and the calender machine, but it is small investments. In 2017 or 2018 we are definitely to change the bleaching machine. That represents a larger investment, of about a million euros», says Amélia Marques.
The other business area of the company, embroidery, where it works with its own brand, besides private label, received new technological assets in the last couple of years, which turn it more capable to deal the cards in the market. «To be more profitable we had to buy more productive machines. Of course that, doing it, we increased the installed capacity, which now we must work so it might be completely leveraged», explains Bovi’s administrator. «Nowadays we are working with only two shifts, but we are producing more that when he had three shifts. We now need to find more clients to have a third shift, but that demands time and work», she says.
But those ingredients are already the recipe with which it has cooked good results year after year. Bovi had two double-digits consecutive increases, 15% in 2014 and 10% last year, to a revenue over 16 million euros. «2014 and 2015 were excellent years. And 2016 we’ll see… I think there is a political instability that, definitely, affects business. Today, business is very dependent on that», recognizes Amélia Marques. «See, for instance, the good relation and business that we had with Russia. From a moment to another were affected by whose fault? It’s not company’s fault not partner’s fault – it is due to contingencies that we do not control at all», she states.
Therefore, Bovi is searching for clients in other regions, namely the American and Asian continents. «We are growing in South Korea. It’s difficult to gain the trust of the Eastern, but we are getting it», says Bovi’s administrator, adding yet that «a new bet is the US market, where we have a partnership with a distributor to distribute our brand», that she hopes might have a huge success with the new deal Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
