Les cahiers de Intima - Milavitsa - (Page 10)

Focus on Milavitsa It was the time of the retail and conscious of the risks this bubble with skyrocket prices might involve. Of course, for commercial spaces and we sometimes you make had to rent locations at very mistakes, but, if you do admit high prices, no matter where, it, you certainly go further. as long as available in order to meet our targeted openings. You also have a subcontracting When in 2008 the global finanactivity, what are your main cial crises came, we decided competitive advantages comto sell Russian shops to our pared to other countries? franchising partners to Milavitsa is traditionally improve operation efficiency. focused on construction fitting, This allowed us to raise signifengineering and technology. icantly the efficiency of the We know how to make quality stores, launch franchising pro- THE MILAVITSA GRAND FASHION SHOW bras, at international stangrams and upgrade the level of cooperation with existing trading dards, in a wide range of shapes and sizes; we have been subpartners. As a result there are over 350 Milavitsa branded contracting production for major European and American brands stores in our major markets including 40 shops directly for a long time. Furthermore, we have an internal design office operated by the company in Belarus. with long term expertise in designing for a targeted Eastern European consumer. We will not try to compete with the Chinese A year after your arrival you also decided to launch two new in CMT (cut manufacture and trim) for low cost massive producbrands, can you tell us more? tions but we do believe there is still room for a reliable, European It is true we did a fundamental repositioning and upgrading of our quality supplier for major retail chains in Europe and America. main brand Milavitsa, then, in 2003, we introduced our premium brand, Alisee, and, three years later, our value brand Aveline in What are your future steps? order to provide a wide and clear offer to the market. Aveline, in We do realize we have a lot of things to develop and improve to particular, also allowed us to withdraw Milavitsa from unsuitable become the N° 1 vertical integrated lingerie company in Europe. locations, like kiosks and hypermarkets, without loosing market Our major focus is investing in logistics, brand promotion and shares. retail development with strengthening design and marketing competence and maintaining flexible production What would you consider as being your company’s values today? capacities. Having all key value-added operations geographically Our main values are consistency, reliability and open-mindedness. close to our target markets in Europe we do possess a Everyone in the company is very much involved in their jobs with competitive advantage of providing optimal lead time to the mara high degree of integrity. We have a very high percentage of ket. Local knowledge and market expertise give us the ability to women working with us, they are loyal, organized and bring necessary products in due time to required locations. All responsible and their attitude reflects in day to day operations. this gives us a great chance to become an ultimate lingerie desOur company’s values correspond to our people’s values: proud tination for European markets. This is the target we are aiming of being pioneers, eager to experiment with new opportunities at. My company has been co-operating with Milavitsa for more than 14 years. It has been a difficult but very interesting time, a time of big changes in the economy, policy and social life. I witnessed the transformation of Milavitsa to embrace this new reality. My company followed the Milavitsa route in many instances, actually our companies grew up together. I value Milavitsa as an exceptionally respectable, competent and reliable ally in the business, producing a high quality and modern product which is in high demand on the market. A vivid evidence of this is a successful chain of more than 20 Milavitsa branded stores in my area opened in the last 8 years. Michail Savluchinsky, strategic partner of Milavitsa in N.Novgorod and Tatarstan (Russia) The EBRD became a shareholder of Milavitsa in 2001. It was the EBRD's first equity investment in a Belarus industrial company. The Bank sold its stake in the company in 2006 and this investment remains one of the most successfully completed transactions to date, both commercially and in terms of transition impact, not only in Belarus, but also in the broader region. We were proud to contribute to the development of the business processes and corporate governance in the company and understand that nowadays Milavitsa is one of the best companies in the sector in terms of management and business perspectives. Valdas Vitkauskas, Regional Director, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 8

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Les cahiers de Intima - Milavitsa