At 16 he was a tennis monitor, at 18, a theater and dance photographer - he married a dancer - at 20 he packed sweaters, at 21 he designed lace curtains, and while he studied law. Later, Xavier Martín (Barcelona, 1965) began working at an insurance company in La Caixa, later switching to Plus Ultra, where he was director of the eastern part of Spain, an occupation he left to start a business with which he failed . He created an insurance software company and from there he entered the industrial cleaning business, in a company that sold the ISS group, a project he abandoned to continue undertaking.
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But it was at the funeral of a close friend, former director of Faro Barcelona, where he met the president of the firm, Carlos López, son of the founder, who summoned him for a meeting in which he was offered the position of his deceased colleague . Thus, in 2005, he began working as a deputy director in the aforementioned lighting and fan company, founded in 1945, in which two years later he was a partner with 8% of the capital. It now has 5.7%, after Faro sold 30% to Landon Investments, owned by the Gallardo family, of Almirall laboratories. The brand, which in 2011 bought Biosca Botey, has just opened a showroom store, 890 meters, in the El Born neighborhood in Barcelona, where this interview is conducted. It employs 117 people, is present in 114 markets and in 2019 it invoiced 32 million, of which 43% corresponds to Spain and 30% already comes from online sales.
Despite the rise of the internet, they open a large store.
Retail is losing and online is winning, but we come to the conviction that it is time for brands. When it is the algorithms that will decide what is going to be consumed, because it will be Amazon and Alibaba that will determine what the customer has to consume, the only defense against that power is to make a mark, have proximity, be more empathetic, and That is what will make us survive in a marketplace, which already knows what to consume. It is necessary to obtain that, at that moment, the consumer says that he knows that he wants a Lighthouse.
And how do you get the attention of the customer to the excessive offer you have at your disposal?
Being authentic, honest, conscious, sustainable and circular. It is not trivial, companies that have no values in their mission will not survive. Therefore, the management of companies must be increasingly holistic, attentive, listening to what is happening, creating value. Here come the decorators, the customers, they tell you their needs and you have the obligation to understand them. And then there are signs that the market throws at you. My daughters do not want a car, one is vegan and the other vegetarian. There is concern for the planet, and that gives you an idea of all the cardboard and plastic we generate. And so we will collect in a sustainable way the packaging that our products generate, because recycling is very complicated. They are brushstrokes of what we have to consider. You have to worry about the present, the road, and not the budget.
Are the results not important?
A budget is made, but it is a mirror of frustration. There has to be a solid base behind. Our growth is sustainable, in the last five years we have grown by 17%. In 2016 we invoiced 17 million. You have to focus on the road, be curious, self-critical, circular and sustainable. If the teams work happily and do their best, the results will come.
Why does a family business decide to enter an investment partner?
This responds to two situations, at the vital moment of the president, who is 68 years old, as the company grows, continues to internationalize and the partner that enters is very powerful, especially in financial analysis. It is a source of investment and tranquility, although the company is well capitalized. I do not know here a negative exercise.
80% of its products are manufactured in China, how is the coronavirus crisis affecting you?
It worries us and can affect us. We just saw what happened with the Mobile. I wish we knew if production could be resumed. Foshán's office is closed, and we don't know what will happen, but this is not paralyzing, it is a threat to everyone. We are in China because it is the most competitive, and we know that we are agile moving.
With the process they have moved their fiscal headquarters to Madrid [the company continues in Castellbisbal].
Money does not want uncertainty, and with it we have lived it very hard. When we saw that the companies were leaving, we also did not want to put the company at risk. This is not a matter of banners, but of business, and we have to ensure the operation of the company.
Innovation is key to the success of a company like Faro.
As for the number of collections, the company is getting more and more news, we never go below 300 references. But we conceive the innovation immediately, also in the medium term and in the long term. The present, the trend and the mega-trend. This is how cars, which now focus on connectivity services, in the medium term look at the electric car, and mega-trend is the autonomous vehicle. Therefore, the short term requires active listening, focused on solutions with mobile and portable chargers. The trend would be the internet of things, in fan devices that can be connected to devices such as Alexa, with which you can talk. And the long term is 3D, being able to print your own lamp with a printer. Megatrends are the most complex, the most difficult to imagine, to intuit what society needs. Everything is directed to use, not to property, to enjoy things, not to have them.
What are your objectives in the medium term?
We are focused on the path, in which our teams work comfortably, and the results will come later. We have to be more self-critical, more curious to improve, be circular and sustainable. And we are focused on providing solutions to everything that customers ask us, for this we have to be close to the market, be able to see the problems and anticipate what they demand.
