Givenchy – Woodbury Common Premium Outlets
Companies that build and provide custom millwork for retail stores and hospitality venues, need to satisfy their clients with high-quality, cost-effective manufacturing, reliable delivery and attentive service.
Today we talk about Bussola & Ralph International and we sit down with the CEO Roberto Pozzebon to learn more about the Company.
Industry: Retail, Hospitality, Residential (specializing in high-end interiors)
Location: New York City, USA; Shanghai, China; Treviso, Italy
Completed Projects: More than 250 annually; well over 7,000 in total.
Employees: 200
4URSPACE Member since: 2015
Tell us about your company. What kind of product or service do you provide?
Bussola & Ralph (B&R) creates high-end interior spaces for retail stores, hospitality venues, offices and luxury residences. We build custom millwork, fixtures, facades and furnishings, and provide turnkey services—from design and engineering to logistics, installation and project management. We complete more than 250 projects around the world every year, satisfying our clients with bespoke designs, high-quality and cost-effective manufacturing, reliable delivery and attentive service. We really serve as a partner, not just a vendor. And our client list is like an encyclopedia of the world’s finest brands, from Armani to Vacheron Constantin.
How many employees does your company currently have? Do you have offices in different States?
B&R has almost 200 employees around the world. We have three primary locations: Treviso, Italy; Shanghai, China; and New York City. Each office provides account services and project management in its respective region. Our design, engineering and manufacturing operations are shared by Italy and China.
JIMMY CHOO – 699 Madison Av. New York, NY
What inspired the business and where is your company today?
I love art, architecture and design. My partners and I founded B&R over 30 years ago with a mission to craft unique, beautiful, modern interiors. By using the best materials, focusing on every detail and collaborating with world-class talent, like the great Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, we were able to build a successful business. Today, we have grown to be a multinational company with a leading reputation for creative design, quality, value and service. Our global presence lets us provide clients with a unique blend of Italian craftsmanship, cost-effective manufacturing, end-to-end quality control, and full-service support around the world.
In which geographic area did you complete the majority of your projects?
With many multinational clients, we complete more than 250 projects annually, all over the world. Our work is spread fairly evenly across Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America.
Is your company specialized in completing projects in a specific industry, e.g. Food & Beverage?
Our largest clients are in the retail sector—primarily fashion and jewelry—but we have done many other kinds of commercial and residential projects, including offices, restaurants, bars and private homes.
Tell us about one specific project you worked on and which challenges you solved?
The Giorgio Armani store on Madison Avenue in New York City, with four levels covering 10,000 square feet of retail space, was complex from the start. The size of the project, the intricate design details and the precise timing required for opening all contributed to the challenge. And just before the opening, it went from complex to crisis. The ship carrying our last container of store furnishings broke down in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. At that point, some companies might have invoked the standard “Act of God” clause in their contract to avoid responsibility—and delay the store opening. But for us, with all the publicity around the new Armani store and hundreds of VIP guests scheduled to attend the opening, we could not consider that kind of response. So our production team worked literally night and day to reproduce the furnishings in record time, and we shipped all that product by air to get it to New York before the deadline. The store opened as scheduled, without a hitch. This is a great example of how we see ourselves in partnership with our clients—their priorities are our mission.
BERLUTI – The Shops At Crystals
Which milestones are you planning to achieve in the next 12 months?
One of our primary goals this year is to partner with more American brands to help them expand storefronts, not only in North America, but also in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In addition, we plan to be more aggressive in the luxury residential market worldwide, where we think our Italian design heritage is an advantage.
What is the one piece of business advice that you never got?
We have learned and applied many lessons to everything that goes into our projects—design, engineering, manufacturing, quality control, shipping, installation, project management and maintenance. We have adopted many best practices. And our results speak for themselves—we have been able to build our business with happy clients and a strong reputation. But we probably could have done more on the marketing and sales side of our business. So if I could go back in time and get one particular piece of advice, it might be how to build an outbound marketing organization. On the other hand, marketing has changed so much in the last five years, maybe we are better off taking that initiative now—which we plan to do.
What do you like most about 4URSPACE?
4URSPACE is an excellent platform to source partners, with so many different kinds of parties participating. It makes it easier to evaluate the capabilities and “fit” of potential partners.
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