PUIG: From a small family-owned company to a world leader in the fragrance and cosmetic industries.

Do you think that Prada produces its own fragrances ? Well, the answer is no!

A family-owned company called PUIG, whose headquarters are located in the surroundings of Barcelona,is in charge of producing perfumes and cosmetics for many famous brands. They might even produce the fragrance you are wearing but you did not know about it! http://www.puig.com/en/ While studying in Barcelona, I had the chance to visit the headquarters of this company who has come a long way since its creation, and managed to become a leader in the fragrance and cosmetics industry.

PUIG was founded in 1914 by Antonio Puig who started to work in the cosmetics and perfumes sector. The third generation of the family now runs the company. PUIG started expanding in 1955 with its first subsidiary in the USA. Since then, the company has constantly grown, building and acquiring new brands with the goal of transferring fashion concepts into fragrances and cosmetics.

PUIG values are focused on people, passion and performance. The human capital is a very important asset for the company who works with the best perfumers, always supporting the founder’s passion for fragrances and being very competitive on the global market thanks to wise strategic decisions.

The company’s portfolio is composed of their own brands such as Paco Rabbane, as well as partnerships with celebrities like Shakira or Antonio Banderas, and also licenses to produce big brands’ fragrances such as Prada. In the last 20 years, PUIG portfolio increased by four times.

PUIG created a categorization of their fragrances composed of premium, prestige, international, regional and Spanish fragrances to efficiently address different markets. However, PUIG has a unique focus amongst all its categories: the high quality of their products. The perfumers generally take from a year to two years to create a new fragrance. They travel regularly and meet with well-known perfumers and experts in order to find inspiration and offer creative and original fragrances.

Europe being a mature market for fragrances and cosmetics, PUIG saw the opportunity to develop its business abroad. In order to be competitive on an international scale, PUIG has now implemented five factories to answer the demand for each brand, they have 22 subsidiaries in strategic countries and have 170 distributors in more than 140 countries. Most of their brands are very famous all around the world and their fragrance 1Million for the brand Paco Rabbane is an exceptional success with a bottle sold every five seconds in the world. 86% of their sales in 2014 were out of Spain with 46% coming from emerging markets.

Thanks to its business abroad, the company managed to grow throughout the years even when the financial crisis hit Europe. In order, to meet the growing demand, PUIG made strategic decisions to improve their production and be more efficient. Therefore from 2012 to 2013 their net revenues and profitability kept increasing. For the future, PUIG predicts to achieve net revenues of €2000million in 2017 so 33% more than in 2014. PUIG should be able to reach its goal thanks to the recent acquisition of the fashion house Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Furthermore, PUIG is committed to achieving a sustainability plan by 2020 with a respect of the environment in their processes. In addition, PUIG is also involved in corporate social responsibility through its own foundation and is now launching a new social action called “Invisible Beauty” aiming at supporting personal growth and self-esteem of young people.