Spanish manufacturer of DIY with more than 30 years international experience
How do you get to be part of the select group of the best?
By starting off from the starting line with the necessary energy and power, and adjusting your speed and race during the long business life which you aspire to and hope lies ahead. And beyond that, of course. Either you shape up and train or you’re lost.
And you can’t run alone if you aspire to a place on a list of the best and most renowned decorative hardware companies in the world. When the decision is made to go for it, your team is essential. And not just any old team.
Reunión Industrial, REI, the Spanish manufacturer of DIY with more than 30 years international experience which is constantly changing and growing, is the perfect example to illustrate the theory.
Reunión Industrial has been designing, producing and marketing accessories for the DIY, decoration and furniture sectors since 1986, from which point, it has grown and widened its horizons both in creative and geographical terms, thus becoming one of the most important companies within its speciality. That’s the theory anyway, and besides, a theory with these results, who can say no to it in practice?
How has REI become a national and international reference in the sale of decorative fittings? How has it achieved export growth that has led, from 1996, to its significant presence in more than 45 countries and to having more than 5,000 customers worldwide?
Investing in people, adjusting growth, taking risks and implementing the necessary technology. So far, so good, those with mildly enquiring minds already have an answer, but perhaps not a full one. Let information flow in abundance and let everyone’s curiosity be satisfied! That means putting on our diving suits because we’re going deep.
REI has built up a professionally trained, dynamic and proactive staff team from scratch, and has prepared it to take on and meet challenges that, as a decorative fittings business, we have proposed to undertake. A team that comprises more than one hundred people distributed in different positions in its four production plants where everything is carried out from the design of items, their prototyping, mould making, casting and metal turning, to their packaging for the point of sale. REI monitors the process in full.
Life is in constant motion and successful business management has to be ahead of it, anticipating the technological, aesthetic and economic changes that occur or may occur. In order to achieve this level of what we could undoubtedly call “”business Nirvana””, in addition to solid and realistic short, medium and long-term planning, it is necessary to coordinate factors which it might be said are antagonistic, such as foresight and risk, indispensable factors which, if they do end up becoming allies, never disappoint.
For example, decisions such as those taken by a company like REI, which accepts the challenge of being a reference, of being established yet, at the same time, moving forward with a discordant motion such as the annual expansion of its catalogue, presenting 300 new items, beyond the canonical two-year rotation of decorative fittings in shopping centres. That’s anticipating the trend and becoming the trend, as simple as that.
REI has taken up the challenge, carried it out and gained a greater presence, more recognition and, of course, more profit. It is no surprise that REI has won prestigious international awards such as the German Design Award or the Good Design Award from the Chicago Museum of Architecture and Design.
These days, what other challenges is it necessary to take on in order to become a reference in the manufacture and sale of decorative fittings?
There is no need to speak in the plural, however, it is a challenge which includes others once it is taken up, we are talking about a technological challenge, that of digital transformation. It is impossible to be at the top of a business sector in the second decade of the 21st century and be on the side-lines in terms of digitalisation, however pure or classical this may seem and however fashionable bobbin lace, crochet or unfiltered beer may be.
REI knows this as do its customers. The Spanish company is an international reference in the manufacture of a wide range of decorative elements, from furniture handles, to door stops, to hangers and coat hangers, to table and furniture legs and small accessories for furniture and decoration. It has already crossed the border, as it were, to join the technological revolution, where it is working with the best technological resources in all its departments, and this can be seen in the management of customers, products and, finally, in the results.
It is a one-way street and leads to increased confidence and success. A path along which REI is taking steady steps forward at a time when sustainability has, at last, made its presence felt in all areas. In all areas, but not for everyone, because REI was already working on sustainability and environmental protection long before business in general became receptive to such ideas.
Also, in terms of environmental and civic responsibility, REI has always been at the forefront, distinguishing itself through its early adoption of waste recycling, of an ecological strategy for packaging, of constant control of air quality, of purification and reuse of industrial water and, also, of management to decrease soil pollution and noise pollution.
Those who reach the top have only really been successful when they consolidate, step by step, the advances made and, after reaching the top, discover other peaks and embark on the adventure of conquering them.
REI began on this road some time ago, anticipating the competition, and its milestones and brands now form part of the history of Spanish companies which are the most internationally recognised: the cards it holds represent quality, professionalism, creativity, sustainability and the fascination for a job well done, with five of a kind, you can’t fail to win.
