Better Silver: Vocation for Genius
The closure of a complicated year and future challenges. A conversation with Paolo Bettinardi, CEO at Better Silver, to discover the strategies of one of the silver jewelry sector’s top manufacturing partners
Famous for its vast assortment of chains, Better Silver is the partner of leading silver jewelry brands. We spoke of technology and communication with Paolo Bettinardi who, together with siblings Anna and Andrea, is now at the helm of a company devoted to ingenuity and innovation.
Let’s start by speaking about mission and values… How has the company changed during its 40 years in business?
The values are the same as when we started. My father, Romano, who is now the President having left the managerial tasks to me and my siblings, has handed down the company’s DNA to us. Our three mainstays are family, ingenuity and courage. The concept of family is seen in the broad sense and embraces a working spirit that always involves competence and has nothing to do with nepotism. Genius is an extremely important principle because, with that alone, you can delve into the theme of innovation which would otherwise be sterile. Technological tools should be made to be productive and applied to a company’s needs. This is where the genius of the people using them emerges, that human factor that always makes the difference. Lastly, courage is the driving force behind many decisions: the ability to risk, the audacity to “give it everything you have”, to reinvent and invest in new challenges.
The greatest successes in the last 5 years…
What is now creating value in the company, at both a product and market level, is totally different to five years ago. That says a lot about our willingness to change our skin. We have implemented a massive investment campaign in digital and technological innovation and our product vision is in constant evolution.
How important is creativity then?
There is certainly a significant dose of creativity but we have an industrial soul.
Every product must be replicable in large numbers, otherwise we would not be able to meet our clients’ productive capacity. The concept, therefore, must always be supported by technology.
Let’s talk about digitization…
It is a macro-objective that we already set ourselves in the 2018-2019 two-year period and which is now being achieved in full. The pandemic has only contributed to speeding up the transition. It is a process that we are taking forward from every possible aspect: from production, which is supported by digital tools, to management, which, being digitized, also means we use less paper, and to marketing. For example, we have just launched a new website, which guarantees state-of-the-art on-line purchasing, for our house brand Roma 1947, created in 2014 in order to also have a window onto the final consumer.
And then there’s the Virtual Room. How has this digital investment helped you tackle a difficult year and how is it going?
Working with 80 countries worldwide, we needed a platform that would make communication and dialog with our external collaborators and our clients easier. We have installed a set and advanced technology in a room at our head offices so that we can give highly dynamic presentations and hold one-to-one meetings with our clients.
An overview for 2020?
It has been an extremely complicated year, not just for us but for everybody. It started well in the first two months but then stopped completely in March and April to then recover a little between May and June with previous re-confirmed orders. Obviously, everything was highly uncertain: there was concern about whether the system would survive. In April, thoughts on the future were enormously gloomy. The second part of the year took a similar track to 2019 performances. I don’t think anyone managed to recoup what had been lost during the lockdown months but, despite the negative performances, the company structure withstood well. No jobs were lost, something that we were really anxious about ensuring. The balance is not as negative as forecast back in spring. We have taken advantage of this period to work on our organization and market analysis and have also renewed part of the management. From an organizational and strategic point of view, we have emerged stronger, just a little afflicted by the numbers, given the situation.
A challenge yet to win…
The challenges that we have set ourselves are ambitious. We are aiming at consolidating relations with our top players and we will need to expand our production areas. We are preparing to work alongside our current and future clients as well as to become the main partner for production, industrial and technological support in the silver jewelry sector.
Let’s start by speaking about mission and values… How has the company changed during its 40 years in business?
The values are the same as when we started. My father, Romano, who is now the President having left the managerial tasks to me and my siblings, has handed down the company’s DNA to us. Our three mainstays are family, ingenuity and courage. The concept of family is seen in the broad sense and embraces a working spirit that always involves competence and has nothing to do with nepotism. Genius is an extremely important principle because, with that alone, you can delve into the theme of innovation which would otherwise be sterile. Technological tools should be made to be productive and applied to a company’s needs. This is where the genius of the people using them emerges, that human factor that always makes the difference. Lastly, courage is the driving force behind many decisions: the ability to risk, the audacity to “give it everything you have”, to reinvent and invest in new challenges.
The greatest successes in the last 5 years…
What is now creating value in the company, at both a product and market level, is totally different to five years ago. That says a lot about our willingness to change our skin. We have implemented a massive investment campaign in digital and technological innovation and our product vision is in constant evolution.
How important is creativity then?
There is certainly a significant dose of creativity but we have an industrial soul.
Every product must be replicable in large numbers, otherwise we would not be able to meet our clients’ productive capacity. The concept, therefore, must always be supported by technology.
Let’s talk about digitization…
It is a macro-objective that we already set ourselves in the 2018-2019 two-year period and which is now being achieved in full. The pandemic has only contributed to speeding up the transition. It is a process that we are taking forward from every possible aspect: from production, which is supported by digital tools, to management, which, being digitized, also means we use less paper, and to marketing. For example, we have just launched a new website, which guarantees state-of-the-art on-line purchasing, for our house brand Roma 1947, created in 2014 in order to also have a window onto the final consumer.
And then there’s the Virtual Room. How has this digital investment helped you tackle a difficult year and how is it going?
Working with 80 countries worldwide, we needed a platform that would make communication and dialog with our external collaborators and our clients easier. We have installed a set and advanced technology in a room at our head offices so that we can give highly dynamic presentations and hold one-to-one meetings with our clients.
An overview for 2020?
It has been an extremely complicated year, not just for us but for everybody. It started well in the first two months but then stopped completely in March and April to then recover a little between May and June with previous re-confirmed orders. Obviously, everything was highly uncertain: there was concern about whether the system would survive. In April, thoughts on the future were enormously gloomy. The second part of the year took a similar track to 2019 performances. I don’t think anyone managed to recoup what had been lost during the lockdown months but, despite the negative performances, the company structure withstood well. No jobs were lost, something that we were really anxious about ensuring. The balance is not as negative as forecast back in spring. We have taken advantage of this period to work on our organization and market analysis and have also renewed part of the management. From an organizational and strategic point of view, we have emerged stronger, just a little afflicted by the numbers, given the situation.
A challenge yet to win…
The challenges that we have set ourselves are ambitious. We are aiming at consolidating relations with our top players and we will need to expand our production areas. We are preparing to work alongside our current and future clients as well as to become the main partner for production, industrial and technological support in the silver jewelry sector.
