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"At Mondo Convenienza we don’t talk about transition, we talk about collaboration: a father and son who work together to improve a company that, for us, is a family."

Telos: The transition from one generation to another is one of the most critical and delicate times in a company’s life. Especially in Italy, where only 30% of companies survive their founder and only 13% last until the third generation. This doesn’t seem to apply to Mondo Convenienza, though. Can you tell us how you are handling this transition?

Dario Carosi: At Mondo Convenienza, we don’t talk about transition, we talk about collaboration: a father and son who work together to improve a company that, for us, is a family. Our mission hasn’t changed since 1985, the year my father Giovan Battista founded Mondo Convenienza: making furnishing a home affordable for everyone by offering furniture and home accessories with the best value for money on the market.
Over the years, the tools we’ve used to pursue our vision have changed and are evolving progressively with society. My father is a brilliant businessman and has a nose for what people want, before they even know they want it. I’m committed to advancing the family business through innovation, which means taking on the challenge of progress by introducing new technologies and new professional roles. This is why in 2017 we created a “Digital Factory” within Mondo Convenienza: something young, made up of professionals under 40 with strong digital skills, capable of imagining the future of retail and the home furnishings sector. That year, back when no one would have imagined, we made the digital leap, a process of digitalisation that is now taking over every business sector, with the aim of offering clients an omni-channel, personalised buying experience.

Internationalisation is another important growth phase for companies. How are things going in that area?

Since 2019 we’ve been looking into the Spanish furniture market and have found a chain already present in Spain. We inaugurated our first retail store in Barcelona in June, the second – again in Barcelona – in August, while the third – located in Madrid – began operating in late September. We also added two logistical hubs. The previous management had roughly 10 million in turnover when fully operational. Our first financial year (which isn’t complete like the calendar year) yielded 6 million more in revenues compared to the past. In 2020 (even with the COVID restrictions) we closed the year with a growth of 50% compared to the previous management. We have an ambitious goal, the market shares we want to obtain are similar to the ones we have in Italy, but it’s a very encouraging start. We are still in the phase where we’re studying the habits of Spanish and Catalan society and how these impact the product structure. Based on the data we’ve collected so far, we’ve already started changing some structures and adding new ones, also to test and develop the product offering based on localisation and transmit those results to the greater public.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the litmus test of the soundness and reactivity of many companies. How have you been coping, now and in the past, with the challenges to your business model caused by isolation, closings and so on?

The future we were already building quickly manifested itself during the pandemic, and grew considerably month after month: today, digital marketing is more effective than printed catalogues; in-store sales have become more efficient with the use of tablets, allowing people to skip the queue at the cashier and the risk of creating gatherings of people; live chats resolve problems and offer advice without having to go to bricks-and-mortar shops. Our virtual channels (e-commerce, TV sales, live chats, social media, video calls) have been a strategic solution to the closing of the majority of retails stores following the Prime Minister’s Decrees imposing restrictions starting last October, both in terms of customer service and the management of our internal resources. For example, the high demand for video call appointments to discuss interior design has allowed us to re-introduce 500 salespeople from stores in red zones who had been temporarily laid off. Another example, on the customer side this time, was the 2020 Black Friday, a mirror of the social changes triggered by the pandemic: over 81% of Italians made online purchases. As a consequence, our Black Friday was more digital, more planned and had more offers to choose from. A multi-channel, customer-centred strategy based on more discounts, spread out over more days, accessible on many different channels, with a greater focus on digital services and, like in the last 35 years, packaged to meet the needs of each individual customer. What I’ve explained so far is just the start: we are trying to come up with new solutions, new professional roles and new investments to adapt our products and services to the future society, the post-COVID society.

When we think of furniture that is affordable for everyone, the first name that comes to mind is IKEA. Yet in Italy, Mondo Convenienza has proven not only that it can compete with this Swedish giant, it can even beat its revenues. Why is this and how are your customers different from those of IKEA?

The differences in the business model of Mondo Convenienza and IKEA are clear, so clear that we can both share the same market pool without too much interference. Usually, customers who prefer specific products from IKEA don’t consider Mondo Convenienza and vice versa. The main difference lies in our service models: IKEA is very similar to the DIY model, whereas Mondo Convenienza has a traditional approach and a team specialised in assembling our products that delivers the product and installs it at the customer’s home. This means that these two realities are very different, even in economic terms. Another thing that is different is the style of furniture offered. As I said before, IKEA is mainly in line with the DIY approach, for customers who enjoy combining products that are not necessarily related, mixing styles and changing combinations. Even here, Mondo Convenienza has a more traditional approach based on creating a complete environment and matching products. This is why one of our strong points is complete sets of furnishings, a package of products for one environment at low prices with an identifiable, uniform style that is made in Italy.

Marco Sonsini