TRENDSPOTTING: FIRST PERSON

5 Questions for…

Safilo CEO Henri Blomqvist

Henri Blomqvist

A highly experienced, global leader, Henri Blomqvist has been named as the new CEO of Safilo North America and is a member of the Safilo Group executive committee. Born in Finland, Blomqvist has been chief commercial officer of Safilo Group for the past three years and, prior to that, he had a 10-year career at Procter & Gamble.

Here, Blomqvist sits down with Eyecare Business to share more details on his new position plus his thoughts on how eyecare professionals can remain competitive today.

What are the new goals for Safilo NA moving forward?

We have stated very publicly that we would like to be the leading eyewear creator in the world. This starts from the product—that is at the heart of everything. We’ve invested tremendously in our product creation capabilities over the past two years.

We also have a very strong brand portfolio across all segments. We are not a fashion or a luxury company, we are an eyewear company with a five-segment portfolio: Atelier, Fashion Luxury, Contemporary, Mass Cool, and Sports + Outdoor.

How will Safilo increase its position in North America?

We feel there are a lot under- and unserved customer groups.

My key mission is to make sure that we take our partnerships with our customers to a completely different level.

We also have currently 25% of sales in our core-owned brands [Polaroid, Carrera, Smith, and Safilo] and 75% in licensed brands. This is a mix we want to change. By 2020, we want to be at around 45% of core brands. It sounds very ambitious but we have big markets in the world that are there today.

How will Safilo handle the Gucci eyewear transition?

At the end of year, we will stop selling Gucci. We will continue to manufacture Gucci for the Kering fashion house for at least another four years. There will be no impact from a manufacturing standpoint and, as we anticipated the end of the license together with Kering by two years, they paid us €90 million, which is a sizable amount of money.

We are not looking to replace Gucci with another brand. Instead, we will be offering our customers the right mix of brands from our vast portfolio to replace their current Gucci business as of January 2017. Gucci covers a wide consumer universe in a range of price points and we have a well-developed strategy in place to cover that with existing as well as new brands.

What is your view of how ECPs can best compete today?

The U.S. market is the only market where independents are gaining market share—eyecare professionals are well positioned here. The three Os are able to offer an incredibly high level of knowledge whether it comes to eye care or product—about the right style, the right materials, the best construction, etc. This level of service (and the comfort the end user feels) is their biggest strength.

What kind of assortment benefits eyecare professionals most today?

You need to be able to differentiate yourself enough. The most successful businesses are the ones who have found their segment. Many opticians go high end, but I don’t think it should be only high end. Find your right segment and be very, very strong on that.