After the opening remarks by David Pambianco, CEO of Pambianco, and Raffaele Jerusalmi, CEO Borsa Italiana, the morning session moderated by the journalist Nicola Porro continued with a talk by Gilda Bojardi, editor of Interni: “For Italian companies the contract sector represents a channel with great potential that has yet to be developed. The B2C points of sale are important as a showcase, a place for final consumers to have an experience, but the decisive client is the so-called intermediate consumer, the designer, the person who chooses and specifies, who uses products on a large scale, often in tailor-made versions. Here there are potentialities that have yet to be explored, because contract products do not enter only the traditional areas (large buildings and hotels) but also – as many of the projects published by Interni show – villas, boutique hotels, yachts, restaurants. All these types of projects fully belong to the sector we call contract.”
Next, Alessio Candi, consulting and M&A director of Pambianco, presented the research The design industry across consumer and contract channels. The project shows that in a sector which has grown by 25.3% over the last ten years, reaching an overall turnover in 2018 of about 553 billion US dollars, the main market is now Asia Pacific, for a value of 237 billion US$, recording growth of 108% over the last 10 years, accounting for 43% of the worldwide market. The channels through which products are distributed are wholesale, contract, e-commerce and DOS (directly operated stores).
These channels are the points of direct or indirect contact between companies and consumers, and they are in rapid evolution. In this context the companies have to be able to also govern key dynamics in their relationship with end consumers.
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