Vycom advances through economic uncertainties

Evertiq had a chat with Vycom General Manager, Paolo Facco; on the outcome of 2015 and where the company is heading in 2016. In the light of the economic uncertainties in recent years and the slow return back to normal, how was the 2015 for Vycom? “For Vycom, 2015 was an important year and we reached several of our planned targets. Even though we knew that the market could be unpredictable with its changes, we decided – as always – to invest in our structure.” But economic uncertainties are not the only obstacle for a company like Vycom. The PCB trader faced strong competition and had to navigate through issues of shorter planning windows in regards to order intake and volume. And of course, the ever present customer requests of continuous process improvement for the company. Recently Vycom initiated an expansion, this still under the economic recovery in the Euro area and the EU. What was the strategy behind it, and how is it going? “We decided to invest in our structure. Our expansion is based on upgrading both the skills and knowledge within Vycom. We also took the decision to invest in Europe as with every difficult moment, there are also good opportunities. We strongly believe that good companies can be found in Europe as well. And we are definitely seeing good results from this strategy, so I suppose we are doing something right.” The industry nowadays calls for companies to be diverse and very flexible in their services. How will Vycom focus its resources going into the new year? “What the industry is calling for, is exactly what we based our company on. We work hard to stay flexible and quick to react. The market is requesting quick responses and in order to provide that we need to have more high-level skills in our company. This means that we need to invest in this part of our business structure. And with that I am coming back to what I said earlier about investing in the level of knowledge and preparation of our teams around the world.” What specific sectors, regions or technologies will Vycom target? “Vycom has important customers in all sectors, but we're still working a lot within automotive, same with lighting and the white goods sector. Naturally, we're interested in new technologies and we love domotics as well. So there is not really any new sector in which we're not already in.” For the new year Mr Facco has a good feeling. He tells us that the order volume – with established customers planning longer ahead – also saw new customers requesting projects. In short, the end of 2015 gave the company a good feeling about 2016.