On Friday, January 25th Forme d’Acqua participated to “Il Patentino dell’Ospitalità”, a training course organized by the Municipality of Cavallino Treporti – Venice, which aim to increase the quality of hospitality in the territory, mainly through the efficiency and effectiveness of human relationships, but also focusing on a broader vision, the economic and social development of an area particularly devoted to tourism, services and sustainability.
It was a great opportunity for us as, a good occasion to closely communicate to our territory who we are and what we do, as we were born and raised in Cavallino Treporti. We talked about our method and our marketing tools, as the project of innovation of our business, that we started two years ago, today is giving important and tangible results, with a sales volume growth of + 35% in 2017 of and a prediction of + 50% in 2018.
Another significant element is represented by the hiring of new employers, from 10 units in 2016 to a team of 18 people today, 13 of them with a fixed-term contract.
This is not being self referential, but it let us understand that we are running on the correct path, as the course participant Gianni Bozzato said.
With a storytelling, we shared the tools we used to let the position and identity of Forme d’Acqua grow on a international level, then we analysed our strengths and weaknesses (SWOT Analysis), our business model and business plan, paying great attention to the importance of the analysis, because you cannot create value if the combined result of these instruments gives you a red light.
To carry out the idea of business only moved by affection or conviction, leads to failure most of the times. The data of the Chambers of Commerce prove it: the difference between the business activities opened and closed in Veneto between 2011 and 2016, has a negative trend of -1%, i.e. on 100 companies opened, 101 closed, while the national figure is + 7.8%.
The evidence is that Veneto certainly is one of the most capable regions in knowing how to realise things, but doing business is another matter. Training is definitely one of the most powerful tools to counterstrike these statistics.
With a hall full of people, since the beginning to the end of the evening, we also communicated the true values that make a difference in a company – that today are no longer made of single material goods, obtained by multiplying quantity by price – there also are those intangible values, technically called intangible assets, that are expressed by the intellectual capital and intellectual property. What we learned is that this part of “inventory” expresses a much higher value than the material one and that if you can make it emerge and express itself, the economic result grows exponentially.
It was a full two hour talk, full of contents, with the presentation of some videos available on Forme d’Acqua’s social media pages and YouTube channel, to explain how much work and how many different skills are needed to develop a new and highly technological product as Le Sirene by Forme d’ Acqua.
Through a new model of product planning, called design thinking, we created a new line of indoor, luxury, Italian, sustainable smart fountains. Highly technological and interactive, they perceive people approaching and react with light pulsations and changes in the flow of water. They also interact with room light and allow you to listen to music directly from your smartphone, through Wi-Fi.
Such an interesting product that University of La Sapienza in Rome wanted us by their side, in the ReStar4Smart project, coordinated by Prof. Marco Casini, to participate at the international Solar Decathlon Middle East competition in Dubai, during next November, where 21 Architecture universities they will compete by presenting the smart sustainable house of the future, developed on 65sqm, on a 1: 1 scale.
The product innovation has become for us the idea that make the difference into the market, placing the brand Forme d’Acqua on a high level.
But we needed more, we had to communicate our work in many directions, in many countries to many people. While searching the right way to do it, we first created an internal press office, but it was thanks a financed training course that we met with Francesca Anzalone. She enriched ourselves with awareness, taught us how a press office works; how, where, how much and what to communicate, the function of the digital PR and then more, as she unexpectedly carried us on a profound and introspective journey, to re-emerge sure of our individual and then collective identities.
To close the evening’s program, we spoke about sharing, an often difficult topic to handle, but that it has become fundamental to draw experiences, contacts and knowledge, making someone’s available.
Sharing has to be cultivated on multiple levels, with suppliers that later become strategic partners and with companies with a similar vision and synergistic strategies. On this matter, since the end of 2017 we have worked on the creation of a network devoted to the design and construction of outdoor spaces, with some companies from Lombardia in complementary sectors. This will be set up in February, while two other international network projects are now in progress but it is still on a preliminary phase.
It was the mayor Roberta Nesto to close the evening, first by renewing the importance of training on the territory, then with a message dedicated to those with an entrepreneurial idea, the creation of a series of meetings to evaluate co-working and start-up projects in the available spaces for this purpose of the town council. No better way to give sense to an evening entitled: “The introduction of an innovative product to develop your business”, by Gianluca Orazio and Otello Brait.
A big thank to those who dedicated two hours of their time to listen to such demanding and technical topics, I really hope it was useful and it met your expectations, but also thanks to the local administration and to Otello Brait, for trusting a person and a company of their territory that every day puts passion in to its work, creating value.
