Inflight Magazine of Brussels Airlines

Business trends

Text Boyd Farrow

Our round-up of what’s happening in the business world across Europe

BUZZING ABOUT…

Brussels’ hot new clothes

This beautifully
designed waistcoat is
by Nathalie Bouhana
for Chauncey Most Belgian fashion success stories tend to centre around Antwerp, but it is a new Brussels-based menswear label that has been getting the industry hot under the collar. In fact, the company, Chauncey, hopes to get ‘the aesthetically minded globetrotter’ hot all over with its debut winter collection of knitwear, hats and gloves.

Nathalie Bouhana, who designed knitwear for menswear collections at Hermès, Salvatore Ferragamo and Dunhill, and photographer David Sidka have teamed up to produce ‘timeless pieces’. The designers say they will carry “one total look” throughout each season “to avoid an over-abundance of garments by reincorporating each season’s look into future lines”.

Using only fine Italian yarns, this season’s look comprises a cashmere and cotton jacket and a waistcoat knit with six- and eight-ply gauges to combat even the most biting winds.

At press time, the fledgling label was still developing its price points but from October its website should be up and running. The first Chauncey shop is planned for Brussels in early 2009. In the meantime, stores across Europe, the US and Japan are clamouring to stock the line, while fashion journalists are falling over themselves to snag samples. www.chauncey.be

RADAR

BEAR NECESSITIES

Germany’s athletes might have been disappointed with their performances in Beijing, but their captains of industry are pretty disenchanted with China. Citing labour costs up 20% – driven by 8% inflation – and poor production quality, a growing number of German companies are pulling their manufacturing operations out of the country. Many are rebuilding their operations where wages are now lower, like Vietnam, Bangladesh, India or Kazakhstan. Others are returning production to Germany. The Association of German Engineers estimates that one in five of the approximately 1,600 German firms with presences in China is planning to pull out of the country completely.

One outfit which recently decided to return its production to Germany is Steiff, world-famous for its high-quality teddy bears. It took six months to train workers to produce the teddy bears’ complicated stitching to a standard that satisfied the company, Steiff chief executive Martin Frenchen growled to the Stuttgarter Nachrichten, “But by then you might have already lost them to an automobile factory next door that pays more”.

Steiff also moaned about delivery times, claiming ships of stuffed animals sometimes took more than three months to make their way to Germany. For the company’s stuffed Knut polar bear, of which 80,000 were sold, that waiting period was just too long. On the plus side, though, German kids loved their new stuffed pandas.

Why are we here?

IN A BRUSSELS ESTATE AGENT’S OFFICE

According to HSBC Bank International, Brussels is the best city in Europe to be an expatriate. Chewing gum-averse Singapore is the best place overall, with the United Arab Emirates and the US equal second. The rankings are based on a survey of 2,155 expats around the world. The responses were used to determine each country’s ranking according to several criteria, including how long the respondents stayed; their ability to command high earnings; and decent, affordable accommodation. Brussels, home of the European Union headquarters, tends to attract expats for long periods, and has good accommodation close to the city centre. That’s one reason the UK, where most expats are based around London, comes in at the bottom of the list. The world’s third most expensive city, according to Mercer Consulting, takes its toll on even highly paid executives: A luxurious but unfurnished two-bedroom apartment costs around €3,315 a month.

RADAR

DRIVING A BARGAIN

Seven separate Dutch pension funds, frankly way too tedious to name, have all taken shares in Maastricht-based Q-Park, which describes itself as “one of the three leading providers of parking facilities in Europe” and boasts 800,000 parking spaces and office accommodation in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, the UK, France, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. Apparently, Q-Park recently took over French car park operator Epolia and is planning future acquisitions throughout Europe. Surely the fact that seven pension funds, which are hardly known for being reckless when it comes to investing their members’ life savings, are putting money into car parks suggests that we will be driving more, and not less, in future. We’d always suspected that the canny Dutch’s enthusiasm for cycling was simply a ruse.

DRAWING BOARD SERIOUSLY, WATCH THIS SPACE…

While many companies are trying to make money out of online advertising, one Berlin-based start-up has created a successful business model selling adspace on the computers themselves. Since March, Smaboo – a combination of ‘smart’ and ‘notebook’ – has been paying students to place ads for various companies on the lids of their laptops, the idea being that they get their products in front of caffeine-alert consumers in coffee bars throughout 30 German and Swiss cities. Smaboo founder Christoph Magnussen, 26, who recently finished a business degree, refers to the premise as ‘embedded branding,’ the idea being that a company gets people precisely in its target group to do their advertising for them. Debitel, for example, one of Germany’s largest mobile service providers, has signed on with Smaboo to sell subscriptions to university students.

Students who stick an ad on the back of their laptop can earn up to €150 in a few months. The company has been using agents at German universities to recruit potential human billboards. Now potential advertisers are starting to be matched up with agents entirely through the company’s website and Smaboo hopes to expand through Europe. So far Smaboo has only used students. Nevertheless, the recession can only help the company recruit human billboards as more jobseekers begin updating their CVs in Starbucks.

Upgrade your trip

HOME SHOPPING NETWORK

British luxury label Alfred Dunhill has just opened a new London store inside Bourdon House which it describes as ‘an oasis of calm and relaxation amidst the hustle and bustle of Mayfair’. Hustle and bustle? It’s Mayfair, not Mumbai, you big girl. But this isn’t just a posh address for people who like their suits and luggage to sport the same logo as their cigarettes. This concept, branded ‘The London Home of Alfred Dunhill’ features a spa with two treatment rooms, a barber and a private cinema. The store will keep two Bentleys purring to transport VIP customers to their next appointment. Furthermore, Dunhill will invite a select group of customers to become members of a private club, where they will have access to a dining room, a games room and four bedrooms, including a suite that re-creates the sleeping quarters of

Bourdon’s illustrious resident, the Duke of Westminster. (Four bedrooms? Just how long will this suit fitting take?) ‘Guests’ can also keep their own wine in the original Bourdon House cellars.
Dunhill, owned by Richemont, launched the ‘Home’ concept in Tokyo where its store includes The Aquarium, a bar modelled on a Mayfair club.
Shanghai is next.

NOT REALLY…

Staggeringly, Sweden’s most loved brand is not Ikea, or even Volvo or Saab. It’s a brand of washing-up liquid called ‘Yes’. In the country’s annual Isi Wissing poll of 468 Swedish brands – a sort of Eurovision Song Contest but without the awful music – 43% of Swedish adults said they either “love” or like the Proctor & Gamble dishwashing liquid “very much”. The state-owned pharmacy chain Apoteket came second with 31%, and Ikea third place with 29%. Cleaning products as a whole seem to capture Swedish hearts. Ajax and Svinto proved to be other popular brands.

Peter Wissing, chief executive of Isi Wissing, says he was surprised by the results. “Even if Yes is a widespread brand I’m surprised that a washing-up liquid and other cleaning products should be so loved by Swedes.” However, he pointed out that Yes’s success was down to the company’s excellent PR and marketing skills over a long period of time. “Advertising is incredibly important but you cannot simply buy people’s affection or respect.”

Although Ikea didn’t come first in any category, the brand was the second favourite in both the “most liked” and “most happy customers” categories. Conspiratorially, though, Wissing noted that supporting Ikea is practically a patriotic duty for every Swede: “It is a Swedish institution and Ingvar Kamprad is a Swedish figurehead.”

GROWING GAINS Cash cow

With the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN having declared 2009 to be International Natural Fibre Year – come on, you knew that – the company Maclodio, in Brescia, near Milan, can barely contain its joy. Having ceded that it can’t compete with China in terms of cost and bulk, Maclodio has created an industry spinning yarns from sustainable, not to mention totally unexpected, fibres.

Among Maclodio’s successes are the yarns spun from cultivated wood fibre, which it has trademarked as Lenpur. The wood is harvested environmentally and the yarn is said to have the feel of cashmere and the freshness of linen. Lenpur also absorbs water readily and then releases dampness into the air, so Maclodio has also invented a new type of towel.

Maize is the source of another fibre being woven for fabric. Minnesota-based Cargill Dow has registered its process and is using the Maclodio-supplied yarn for its silken-draped jersey fabric.

Other unlikely fabrics are being made from Spanish broom, a yellow-flowering shrub common in southern Europe, and fibres obtained from casein, the white, odourless protein found in milk. Apparently the milk fibres that are used in Milkofil are soft, anti-bacterial, absorbent and humectant – in other words, the milk protein contains a natural lubricant that keeps the skin moisturised, and the absorbing power of the yarn draws dampness away from the body, stabilising body temperature. Maclodio reports that a major European producer of babywear plans to use the yarn in future collections.

Traffic report

Brands of opportunity

Illustration Mat Bartlett Bulgaria’s capital Sofia could become one of the new wave of ‘magnetic’ European cities, along with Lithuania’s Vilnius and Poland’s Krakow. Together with Lisbon and Antwerp, these ‘hidden gems’ have the qualities to attract trade, investment and tourism but are underselling their potential. This is according to the City Brand Barometer, created by global consultancy Saffron, which ranked 72 of Europe’s largest cities based on a comparison of their assets (such as restaurants, culture or ease of getting around) and attractions against the strength of their brands. Unsurprisingly Paris and London emerged as the cities with the best assets and the strongest brands to match. Berlin and the UK’s Liverpool have brands significantly stronger than its assets. On the other hand, Rome has more of what people want but it is not as effective at communicating this. Vienna was the only city whose brand was judged to be fully consistent with what the city has to offer.

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