Premium Beauty News - How would you describe your company’s contribution to the beauty industry?
Groupe Pochet - Groupe Pochet has played a pioneering role over the years, marking the history of perfume and beauty with multiple achievements and innovations. We endeavour to offer brands new creation prospects by constantly trying to push back the limits of technique. In 1853, we were the first industrial manufacturer of Eau de Cologne Impériale by Guerlain. Today, we are laying out the inner glass distribution of La Vie Est Belle by Lancôme, sculpting the interior of the bottle of Panthère by Cartier with our In’pressive technique, and designing the first fine glass bottle for Gabrielle by Chanel.
Our technologies go beyond the perfume industry. For example, the In’pressive technique can be used in skincare, as can be seen with Sisley’s Supreymia jar, or in makeup.
Groupe Pochet has this ability to work all materials, which provides endless creative possibilities: as an example, our design of the Louis Vuitton perfume comprises an invisible combination of materials that preserve functionality.
Over the past decades, we have built close relationships with our customers and acquired in-depth knowledge of their brands’ worlds as well as strong expertise, which makes it possible for us to support them, including with their creative strategies.
Premium Beauty News - What are the main transformations affecting your business today?
Groupe Pochet - Our working environment has got more restrictive over the past ten years. Even our customers operate in a more demanding context with strengthened purchase practices, fiercer and more globalized competition…
As a result, the pressure on market prices obviously increased. Meanwhile, quality requirements and product complexity are on the rise, because brands have this ever-growing need to stand out. Lastly, today, we are also facing more and more ephemeral demand with increasingly shorter time-to-market deadlines. All this requires new agility which we meet through adapted organization and a very offensive investment policy to be more competitive.
In addition, we are concerned about constantly innovating on our processes and products. The idea is to differentiate ourselves from our competitors to offer our customers more services, favouring partnership relationships with them. We join our efforts and skills as part of a real collaborative strategy to succeed together within this demanding context where everything changes extremely fast.
Premium Beauty News - What is your vision of beauty in 10 years? What will be your contribution to this beauty of the future?
Tristan Farabet (CEO) - Increased consumer environmental awareness is a strong trend that is most likely to be conveyed by the search for even more responsible beauty. We endeavour to contribute to it by developing eco-designed solutions, like our Epure jar, but also through actions we take on our sites to improve the environmental footprint of our productions (water, energy, etc.). The challenge for us is to combine excellence and responsibility: gradually reduce our environmental footprint without compromising on luxury’s tradition of excellence and the aesthetic requirements it involves. In practice, the recent renovation of one of our furnaces in Guimerville reduced our energy consumption by 40%, while preserving the quality and purity of our glass. In Aurillac, our new galvanoplasty line makes it possible to offer our customers more shades, while reducing the environmental footprint. We aim to become the reference player in terms of environmental and social responsibility.
Irène Gosset (President) - We have observed many changes in terms of uses, with an ever-more connected beauty and new application gestures, in particular on the makeup segment: consumers are more and more demanding as regards innovation.
To better decipher these trends, we have developed our marketing skills. Now, we can offer multiple solutions. We have also been developing an ecosystem-based innovation approach to meet these use changes, which involve a strong interaction between the pack and the formula.
In addition, personalization is a strong trend, as consumers want almost tailor-made products, both in the form and content. It represents substantial challenges for an industrial group like ours. We have always managed to adapt to technological disruptions: we take action on a daily basis to keep going the right way…