Sixty years, in our sector, are a great goal, a business card that not many can boast. And if we add to this that this anniversary is only a part, however significant, of an even longer and more articulated story…
Perhaps not everyone knows that Cefla was founded in 1932, as a cooperative company specializing in electrical and thermo-hydraulic systems. Eighteen years later, in 1950, the division that deals with shop furnishings was added to the core business, and in 1964 it was the turn of painting technologies: “our” Cefla Finishing was born, exactly sixty years ago, the third of the Emilian company’s business areas. A portfolio that was completed in 1988, with the fourth business area, equipment and furnishings for the dental sector.
Piero Pracchi
“Today we are celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of our division,” said Piero Pracchi, managing director of Cefla Finishing since 2021, as we visited him at the Imola headquarters, “even if we are busier thinking about how to do even better in the next sixty! The first years, the first decades of life are good to learn: you begin to know, to refine your behavior, you improve and prepare for what you still have to do. Our first season was really exciting and saw us every day more and more protagonists of a market that we have strongly contributed to creating, thanks also to acquisitions – including Sorbini and Falcioni and, more recently, investments in digital printing – which have allowed us to gain knowledge and expand our offer.
Today we are focused on what needs to be done to stay at the top of the pyramid, being able to count on an absolute technological heritage and an increasingly strong and widespread presence on the markets. This is the real challenge: to move on markets all over the world, which are increasingly dynamic and peculiar, facing them with an “ad hoc” vision that allows us to propose what is most appropriate at that time and in that place.
We are probably writing the most engaging chapter of our long history, pages that talk about the need to make a great leap forward to go beyond presiding over a technology to be truly and consciously global. Unfortunately, being recognized internationally as a protagonist of technological leadership is no longer enough: it is necessary to be able to face a macroeconomic context inevitably influenced by the current political situations, consolidated markets in contraction that require sudden adjustments, of course.
Fortunately, the great heritage built up in these sixty years has provided us with skills, knowledge and abilities thanks to which we can face the “after”, maintaining our approach to change and the will to always want to guide it without being overwhelmed”.
“The cornerstone of our history, our present and our future is that we want to be a reliable partner in the finishing of everything that surrounds us“, Pracchi continued. “I think the concept of everything everywhere makes our vision even more defined; the mantra “everything everywhere” – i.e. dealing with finishing at 360 degrees globally – is and must be the lens through which we look at our future and the fact of doing it well allows us to make it profitable”.
Mr. Pracchi, in these sixty years there have undoubtedly been many changes…
“Change is the essence of life, of people, of businesses. Cefla has always researched and experimented with new technologies, combining them with what it knows to trigger new itineraries that open the doors to new markets or allow us to create new, more effective, faster and cheaper solutions.
I am thinking of our “multi-pass” digital printing, in which, for example, we have added to a “normal” printing bar a handling system that we have developed in the Pesaro headquarters, where we have been doing “transport systems” for years! By combining different know-how, we came up with a solution that allowed us to understand that we are on the right track, to propose solutions to our partners and customers both in the world of furniture and outside”.
Is wood always at the center of your thoughts?
“Absolutely, and we will defend it with the same determination with which the Praetorians defended Rome,” Pracchi told us with a smile. “Being a company also means looking in all directions, trying to understand how to fully exploit your skills. Every day we see first-hand how important it is to work on wood and wood-based materials, just as it is important to grow elsewhere, step by step”.
We talked about digital printing…
“I think I can say that in the sector we were the first to believe in it and to work to create precise standards of use. An important and long work, which allowed us to get in touch with different worlds from which to borrow ideas and experiences.
A work that has “matured” and has been consolidated thanks also to the continuous dialog with our customers, to the role of reliable partner that has been entrusted to us over time, collecting their feedback, treasuring their observations and suggestions that have been transformed sooner than we had expected into further trust and order entry.
This is the result of a drive towards innovation, a desire to always be at the forefront that has been in Cefla Finishing’s DNA for sixty years…”.
In a market that does not stop shuffling the cards on the table, as we said…
“Absolutely. And every day we have to take the deck and mix them so that the right mix is born from our mission, our technologies, the many partnerships, our strategy. Without neglecting the impact on trade dynamics, which have never been as precious as in these times in which – due to the conflicts in Ukraine and Palestine – we have to shift the focus to other geographies, conquering new destination markets.
Maintaining adequate “territorial coverage” is the most demanding challenge, although fortunately we can count on a very prepared team of which I am very proud, with a very strong commercial history, people who know this business so well that they almost make it a science and manage it with extraordinary results.
I would also like to add that the entry of Daniele Campetella – the new sales director of Cefla Finishing, with extensive experience in the woodworking technology sector and beyond – brings a precious breath of fresh air and his extensive knowledge of what is called the “Global South”, regions of the world where growth is at very attractive rates and from which we expect greater satisfaction than in the recent past”.
By the way: your presence in China?
“It continues to be a very important pawn on our chessboard, where we intend to increase the share of local production to better manage the product ranges to be offered and logistics costs, to the benefit of our local presence. Let me say that, at a time when certain investments should be downsized, we are instead keeping the “straight bar”. On the other hand, we are talking about a presence of almost twenty years, with a local team that has allowed us to build relationships and to look with optimism to the future of our presence not only in China but also in neighboring markets, despite the obvious – but, we believe, temporary – difficulties.
We will also have to deal with the increasingly significant role that Chinese manufacturers will have outside the borders of their vast country: we are already seeing something and it is easy to imagine what scope this novelty could have, although our long history is undoubtedly a strength that no one can boast”.
Is the season of acquisitions, of “growth by incorporation” over or is Cefla imagining new contexts in which to engage?
“The desire to maintain one’s role in the world of wood, looking with the same “intensity” to other sectors, requires us to think about some solutions that we could put in place. Sanding is an absolutely interesting field, where we have important and excellent collaborations. A process for which we have the utmost respect, which requires a very high level of specialization and in which “made in Italy” is unrivalled, but it is not a priority on our agenda, although Cefla Finishing has a series of solutions for brushing and mechanical surface finishing, such as the rustication process, in its catalog.
There is no doubt that this is an era in which large organizations, in which “narrow” productions can be merged, have greater opportunities. We have no intention of entering the “sphere of influence” of other realities, but rather being on the side of those who want to increase their size, a strategy that requires us to have very clear ideas. Don’t forget that a more articulated proposal also means having to manage greater complexity, especially if you move away from your core business. Perhaps it would be easier to reflect on the issue of handling, which in many cases represents up 50 percent of the value of a line, and think of some form of “evolved coexistence”…
2025 could perhaps bring some innovations, but without ever thinking about ideas of exclusivity: whatever choice should eventually take shape, we at Cefla will continue to work with everyone, from chemistry, to handling, to packaging”.
And tomorrow?
“Being a leader is not only a “well-deserved honor”, but also a responsibility: I would not mind obtaining profitability indexes such as to be able to do even more research towards advanced solutions, also managing to anticipate what will be asked of us tomorrow and comparing ourselves with those competitors who, like us, will not focus only on price, but on precise benefits and value offers.
Anyway, I am optimistic: there will still be room to do and to do well. As far as I am concerned, I would like to make my contribution so that the next sixty years will be extraordinary, just like the first sixty were!”
