ISO Incentive Tour, Sweden November 6-9.

 

The annual incentive tours are the contribution of ISO, International Shopfitting Organisation to the education and motivation of young people of the shopfitting industry. Unfortunately there were cancellations for health reasons, but 12 participants from the 3 Scandinavian countries and Switzerland, enjoyed an interesting study tour. The Swiss party was met Sunday morning in Copenhagen Airport for a quick sightseeing of Copenhagen. The Little Mermaid, Royal Castle, Opera House and of course, Field's, the largest Shopping Center in Scandinavia.

 

Malmö in Sweden was reached by the only 4 year old, 16 km. long Öresund tunnel/bridge connection, an attraction in itself. First stop was the Turning Torso, Scandinavia's tallest building, 190 m., 54 floors, just finished and a remarkable landmark, designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The teacher's university next to it, also just finished, was pointed out as well, due to it's beautiful Swiss architecture, covered by green, structured glass with "secret" words of wisdom from the whole world, printed on the back. Lunch was the incredible IKEA hotdogs – they serve about 10.000 a day at a price of ca. ½ Euro each – the volume creates the profit. As "typical Swedish" that meal became the joke of the tour. IKEA's headqurters and the founder Ingvar Kamprad's birthtown Älmhult is not far away and was passed nearby later on the tour. "IK" now live in Switzerland, as many other rich Scandinavians, that find the Swiss tax system more human!   

 

Overnight accommodation was a hostel in Jönköping, the heart of the Swedish furniture- and small-metal-Industry. Here we visited ITAB Shop Concept AB (publ.) the next day. ITAB gave a thorough tour of it's two main factories, not only showing how and what they do, but also offering a convincing demonstration of  why they are the largest company of the Scandinavian shopfitting industry today. The metal factory, headquarters and showroom covers 60 thousand sq.m. with only 80 workers in 3 shifts and a high degree of automation, that impressed us all. Metal sheet manufacturing and powder-coating dominated. ITAB's total production area is over 100 thousand sq.m's and still expanding. The turn over is ca. 140 mio. Euro in 2005 whereof  the 95 mio. are on the home market, the Nordic and Baltic countries. Other priority markets are Holland and Czeckia, with own manufacturing facilities. ISO Congress participants in Warsaw Poland next June, may be also be surprised to see ITAB fixtures in the local TESCO Hypermarkets there? ISO thanks ITAB for their openness and hospitality, not least for the lunch at the wood factory that was last stop on the ITAB Tour, the food quality being as high as that of the shopfixtures.

 

Next stop was Nässjö/Expedit, (related to Wanzl) that showed around in the large wood and assembly factory with 75 employees and a 6 mio. Euro turn-over. Most jobs are "local", including sales in Norway and Finland. The same evening, Gottlieb Stadelmann, the undisputed veteran of the company and Swedish shopfitting industry, at dinner, continued informing about technical challenges, and more important, their solutions to us from the ISO Tour party. The attention was only distracted by the quality of the peppersteak and the conference restaurants beautiful atmosphere, open fireplace, BIG Elk-head on the wall, the surrounding Swedish nature, lake and woods. Only too bad it is so dark in November!

 

On Tuesday we visited the ELMIA subcontractor fair on the opening day in Jönköping. It is the largest subcontractor exhibition in Scandinavia, and very technical. Among shopfitters can be mentioned "Samuelsons Production AB" (Same group as the present ISO president's), tube and laser-cutting suppliers of Scandinavia, raw material suppliers from Germany, Belgium as well, stand and other fixture suppliers from the new Baltic EU member countries, and much, much more. The majority of the party however being more design- than construction-oriented gave time for a brief tourist visit to "Gränna" – a famous old "candy-bar" city on the lake shore, plus more time for studying the leading shopping Center and retail-park of Mid-Sweden, the A6 Center. 80 specialty shops including the Wine-liquor monopoly, plus IKEA, COOP Hypermarket (with self-scanning option), Elgiganten (see it again in Poland) and another good 10 large unit brand stores. An example is Stadium Sport. IKEA Bank just invested in this extremely successful Scandinavian chain, fitted  by ITAB, maybe they will now go European? Maybe Global? What an exciting industry we are in! Tuesday night was the big "farewell" party, the last evening together, which was duly and with much enthusiasm celebrated at the Spanhult Mansion, near Jönköping. A traditional, Swedish wooden mansion with a lot of ambiance and good food. But the best was of course the ISO guests!

 

On Wednesday the tight program required an early rise, visit to a very technical, high quality Chrome Plant in Vaggeryd ½ hours drive away. On to Lammhult, known as the "Capital of the Furniture Country", where ABSTRACTA gave a convincing demonstration of it's conference room and –office solutions, whiteboards etc., as well as the original shopfitting system, that gave name to the company. A system that worldwide, not least in Switzerland has been successful in elegant fixtures, office furnitur etc. Today the rights and renaissance of the system and design is in USA, but the Danish designer, Paul Cadovius, 93, is still going strong, and developing new accessories.

There was time to study classic and contemporary furniture in a huge retail store and at the last stop, Lammhults Möbler chair museum. There the Scandinavians and Swiss participants parted, the latter going back to Copenhagen Airport in time for check-in and a tour in "The world's best Airport Shopping Center" and the evening flight to Zürich.

May this successful tour lead to many more participants in the future, maybe in East Europe next?

 

 

Preben Bailey, tour guide on behalf of the ISO Management Committee.