In the 1980s, Visionlab's promise to deliver to customers an hour revolutionized the optical sector. «We continue to have this service because it is something historical, and we continue to propose, but it is no longer our differentiation,» explains Anne Delmas, its executive director. The company today makes the internal manufacturing of lenses and its commitment to technology and innovation. With 110 stores in Spain and Portugal and still in the hands of the founding family, Visionlab blows the 40 candles this year immersed in a renewal process to focus the brand's future. «In 40 years you can imagine that a company goes through many phases,» says Delmas, at the head of the brand since January 2022. Following the pandemic, for example, a moment of reflection was opened. «With all the new chains that had arrived in the previous decade, many of them international, sales were not growing. If your sales do not grow, it means that your value proposal, which you offer to the final customer, is no longer so attractive, which had to change the way of addressing the customer experience and the proposal to maintain the business,» he says. After the death of the founder, José María Ferri, in 2021, and the arrival of a new management team, Visionlab began working on his road map: «We have once again raised how to be innovative, different, and grow again in all areas, both at the level of customer experience and business organization and business structure.» The company is reserved when talking about numbers, but its executive director says that they have grown double digit for the last three years. «That is something that encourages us a lot,» he says. For Delmas, it is still a sign that the strategy deployed is paying off. This year, however, they plan to close around 8% by noticing a certain slowdown in consumption. «But it is still a high growth, especially since it is mostly organic,» says the executive, which considers a good indicator to place a couple of points above the market. Its approximate billing is around 60 million euros and, as a good family business, it is also cautious when it comes to borrowing. «We have to be prudent, we cannot do everything at once,» says the directive on the balance between the plans and the necessary investments to carry them out. At the moment, its territory is the Iberian Peninsula, where they want to strengthen their position in the next decade: «And if this works well, we can explore other adventures.»
Origins
Visionlab, who opened its doors on Madrid's street in 1985, was not the first optics of its founder. At that time, Ferri already had others under his name and was tired of the delivery times of the time. So when a supplier told him about a store in the United States that he had managed to reduce them by having a built -in lens laboratory went to see it. Convinced of the model, he looked for an adequate place to replicate it. Today the crystals are no longer prepared in each store, but at the company's manufacturing and logistics center in Madrid, with a production capacity of 2,500 lenses per day. «We have nothing to envy to great laboratories in terms of quality, and for us it is a force,» says Delmas. «I would also say that a certain pride of being able to say 'We are a Spanish family business, we manufacture our crystals in Spain.' It is something that can be very relevant to numerous consumers today.» With internal manufacturing, the company ensures control of the entire value chain, one of the reasons why they have also decided that all brand stores are their own. They had proposed to add five new annual points of sale as of this year, but other spotlights that needed investment, such as the renewal process of existing ones or technological transformation, have emerged, and have stepped on the brake. A minimum of inaugurations have not been set because they want to make sure they really contribute to the chain and, says Delmas, the goal is not to open to gain quota. «In the first place, because we think we still have a lot of potential to grow organically, and secondly because within our ambition we do not intend to be the greatest,» he says. Most citizens do not see well: 6 out of 10 people over 15 needed graduated glasses in 2020, according to INE data. And the lifestyle, the use of the screens and the increase of the aging population, in which there is usually a greater incidence of vision problems, among other aspects, do not bring very flattering forecasts. There is demand, but also supply. In Spain, almost 10,000 optics operate, according to the Spanish Federation of Optical Sector Associations. «What makes us a ratio per inhabitant of the highest in Europe,» says Delmas. In this fertile field, but also competitive, Visionlab works with its own and third parties. «We, in units, sell almost 70% of our brands,» he said behind his glasses from his wide and red pasta collection. They also have an online sales channel, currently reserved only to replacement lenses and sunglasses. In its commitment to technology, the chain introduced telegraduation and last year they presented lenses manufactured with the help of artificial intelligence, with an algorithm capable of predicting the capacity to accommodate the eyes for a more precise approach. «Since the beginning of Visionlab, innovation and technology have always been DNA,» says Delmas, who also speaks of the brand's echo. The company, he says, fell among the users thanks, among other aspects, to advertisements such as the one who turned a man into Pierce Brosnan just by putting some glasses or the one who announced the gratuity of the crystals to the rhythm of a version of Chinese Superdisco, of Enrique and Ana. digital, but to meet their own needs and codes.
