GENERAL NEWS / 10-06-2024
Question. Escalating inflation, international instability, competition from countries in Asia… How does this situation affect AR Shelving?
Answer. We are in volatile, changing times, and this forces organisations to strive to adapt quickly to change. I can see the positive side of this situation: what is fascinating about these times is that they force us to heighten our ingenuity and, in some ways, enable us to see the world in terms of opportunity. In the unstable circumstances we are experiencing, if you want to see problems, you will see problems, and if you want to see opportunities, you will see opportunities. At AR Shelving we want to be the latter.
“In the unstable circumstances we are experiencing, if you want to see problems, you will see problems, and if you want to see opportunities, you will see opportunities. At AR Shelving we want to be the latter”
Q. Internationalisation is one of the hallmarks of Grupo Arania, but is it also one of AR Shelving's goals? Where is its principal market?
A. AR Shelving's vision is to improve people's lives by helping them create ordered spaces. This concept can easily be exported to any part of the world, so I believe it is relatively straightforward to grow internationally. Our products are distributed by DIY superstores, which are international: groups such as Adeo and Kingfisher have retail outlets in Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Romania, etc. These are big chains that are fully internationalised and, if suppliers want to play a representative role in these superstores, we need to be big enough to guarantee an international supply capacity.
“I see AR Shelving more as a leading partner to our customers than as a mere supplier of products; while our competition is more focused on offering cheap products”
Q. Within the international market, where is AR Shelving compared to its competitors?
A Distributors value us today because they see us as a partner, or rather, as someone that, in addition to supplying products, helps them design a joint strategy, someone from whom they can expect innovation, proper price positioning…. A partner is someone with whom to establish a long-term relationship. We help our distributors focus on how to approach the market through a very global vision and knowledge. I see AR Shelving more as a leading partner to our customers than as a mere supplier of products; while our competition is more focused on offering cheap products.
Q. What role does innovation play in the metal shelving sector?
A. I always use an example for this: if I offer you two bottles of water that are exactly the same, which one would you buy? The cheapest. In the world of functional shelving, which is in concealed areas or places that are not on view in the home, the same thing happens. That is why we have to make a difference in the user's perception of one shelf over another. It is essential to provide the user with something that enables them to differentiate them and encourages them to pay a higher price than they would for the other shelf with lesser attributes.
“What we have to do today is think about what the next business will be that will give AR Shelving its billing in the next 10 or 15 years”
Q. How do they do it? Where is AR Shelving aiming this commitment to innovation?
A. We structure our innovation projects on three horizons: horizon 1 is the closest to the current situation, to the current client, to the current distributor, to the current type of manufacture… To develop horizon 1, knowing the client has a lot of weight, both the end user and the distributor, in other words, knowing what both need. To be able to develop on horizon 3, in other words, the furthest from our current reality, for example, a shelf that integrates technology and that tells us the inventory in real time, it is more important to know the trends and even needs that are not yet evident to the user today. We are trying to balance what provides short-term profitability with the solutions of the future. We have to sow the seeds of what will be AR Shelving's billing in 15 years; and that is why we have to be able to identify these trends, and move quickly from that identification to making it reality in new solutions. To give us an idea of the possibilities of creating new business, AR Racking, focused on industrial storage, was endorsed by AR Shelving and today is a much bigger company, a leading company in its sector and one of the mainstays of Grupo Arania. That is why what we have to do today is think about what the next business will be that will give AR Shelving its billing in 10 or 15 years.
Q. That horizon 3 you refer to, will that be what lights up the capacity for charge in the future?
A. Yes, absolutely.
“People are the driving force needed to grow and create, and we need to be ‘hungry’, to be nonconformists, to be bold…”
Q. And what role will people play in this in this striving to grow?
A. People are the driving force needed to grow and create, and we need to be hungry, to be nonconformists, to be bold… If our teams do not have that hunger, the leaders must give them that restlessness because, in the end, the nonconformists and the need for survival are what make us heighten our ingenuity and create new things.
Q. The technology goes hand in hand with innovation. What level of integration and importance do process automation and digitisation have?
A. I see technology through two prisms: on one hand, focusing on the product, which would be that horizon 3 we were talking about, based on how to use technology to design solutions that do not exist today and, on the other, aimed at generating opportunities to do things differently. The focus that we are giving technology, in this regard, at AR Shelving is aimed at gradually eliminating jobs with little added value and concentrating people in work that contributes more to the company. Our aim is to ensure the eternal employability of all of our people and, to do this, people must be committed to continuous training and to continue providing value with the passage of time.
Q. Sustainability is no longer a mere trend and has become a social and market requirement. How is AR Shelving facing this challenge?
A. This has always been one of the traditional strategic axes in the growth of AR Shelving; it has always been there. People's development and concern for the environment are fundamental, and although they always have been, we now say so, we say it out loud and that makes us committed to our team, to the environment and to society. When we talk about sustainability, we start with an internal scope, but then we transfer it to the external: it is a commitment we have as an organisation.
“Challenges? Growing in the American market, opening new channels, developing new solutions in the world of organisation and reinforcing a culture focused on people and aiming to create something new”
Q. What are your company's main challenges in the short and medium term?
A. We have strategic challenges related to the market, the main one being growth in the American market; we have the challenge of opening up new channels, alongside the development of new products. We have challenges in the development of our teams, giving them that hunger we talked about before, long-term employability, flexibility, guidance in their professional and even personal development, and above all we maintain the challenge of reinforcing a culture focused on people and aiming to create something new.
Q. How does belonging to a large industrial group like Arania affect AR Shelving?
A. It makes us bigger, it enables us see the world from a higher point of view than if we were alone. It helps us access resources that otherwise would be more limited… it gives us a huge amount. I cannot imagine we would be able to have the vision we have if we were not part of Grupo Arania.
Q. And within the group, what role does AR Shelving play?
A. At AR Shelving we are committed to the growth of Grupo Arania through the launch of new business initiatives. In B2B business, industry with industry, growth and innovation they are not as evident. We are the only company in the group that is in contact with the end client, we sell to end users and that gives us a much wider range of possibilities. We can give the users as much as our imagination allows us. Therefore, I believe within the Grupo Arania we are ready to be the driving force for that creation of initiatives that could provide new business in the long-term.
Q. And is this also transferable to the area of business growth?
A. Yes, it was like I said before: AR Racking, a leading company in its sector ad one of the pillars of Grupo Arania was endorsed by AR Shelving. We have to have that desire to be a driving force in the creation of new initiatives. We have the need to grow because, on one hand, our distributors grow and this forces suppliers to grow with them. A few years ago, Leroy Merlin España had a purchasing centre that was independent of their French or Polish centres. Today they try to group them with the premise that if they purchase a greater amount, they will get better conditions, and when the demand is grouped like this, the supplier has to be big enough to be able to supply the product. Moreover, we have to offer people the possibility of development. In the human aspect, I see three reasons for growth. On one hand, because the larger the company is, the greater its ability to attract talent. On the other, because as the company grows, it is able to generate more opportunities for growth and people stay with the project for longer. And, finally, because belonging to a company experiencing growth motivates people. For all these reasons, I believe striving to grow is important.
Q. You have set a scene in constant transformation. Do you see this transformation continuing in the future?
A. I believe continuous transformation is inevitable and that it is something positive. Regarding our product, I believe we will always need a home, a sanctuary, and we would like that place to transmit calm through order. What will vary will be the way we acquire these products. When I started at Grupo Arania a significant proportion of products for organisation were distributed by hardware stores; they evolved into DIY superstores with physical stores, and these have evolved into online stores, both existing retailers and new faces, for example, Amazon. I don't know what sales will be like in the future, if we will use computer vision goggles or if artificial intelligence will directly suggest to the user what they need. But what I am sure of is that the need for the product will continue, because the need to create ordered spaces will still exist, and what evolves will be the way the user acquires the product.
