Carlo Miotto

Imesa celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The company was formed by technical and sales teams from the two leaders in the horeca market, which worked together to establish a company to manufacture washers for hotels.

Carlo Miotto’s father was an Imesa supplier in the early days. Some years later he joined the company’s management team and eventually, the family acquired the business as the sole owner.

At that time Italy was enjoying an “economic miracle” as the country became popular with holiday makers and hotels started to set up their own laundries. So the company began to work to establish itself as Italy’s leading laundry equipment manufacturer.

“We analysed the market,” says Carlo Miotto and found that the company’s location, near the big international drycleaning machine and finishing equipment manufacturers, was in the centre of region with a large number of horeca producers

Imesa noticed however that there was no laundry equipment supplier and decided to fill this gap by diversifying to supply a complete laundry range with washers, dryers and ironers.

Several factors have contributed to Imesa’s successful development over the years.

Miotto continues: “First, we had to had to have trust in our management and employees and in their skills. As the company’s owners, we believed in the value of the company we had created and therefore knew we had to invest in it and be ambitious for its success.”

The company decided to produce the full range of equipment itself and therefore needed to invest in technology and equipment.

While other Italian equipment manufacturers moved their factories abroad where labour costs were low and therefore the profit was higher, Imesa chose to remain in Italy and in the region where the horeca companies were developing. It did this because it believed in the benefits of collaborating with other Italian businesses.

Time showed Imesa that it had made the right decision. It developed commercial relationships with companies in the horeca, ironer and other related markets and these became closer and closer.

As a result, Imesa could tell its own customers that it could provide a full range of Italian-made equipment and therefore a home-based solution for customers wanting Italian quality.

The company’s ability to research and develop technology that results in equipment that is both high quality and competitive is another strength.

Imesa always believed in its products and has developed the range so that it has more than fulfilled its mid-way target of having a complete portfolio of washing, drying and ironing machines to meet the all the daily requirements of a laundry with machines from 5 – 85kg.

Imesa has now expanded beyond its home market to gain an international customer base.

In 2006, it introduced its certified partner project. This is intended to build exclusive relationships with the company’s most important distributors and so provide interesting opportunities for both parties, says Carlo Miotto.

“We aim to reach distributors that are modern in outlook and want not only to increase revenue, but also to develop with our company to reach common goals,” he says.

Imesa already has operating partners in Austria, France and Portugal, and these partners are helping the company expand and improve its service in their countries. It is signing more certified partner dealers all over Europe.

Producing a complete range of machines has not satisfied Imesa. It is aware that customer requirements are changing and so are those of the distributors selling laundry equipment.

The laundry market is no longer simple and technologically unsophisticated.

Nowadays it is essential to offer a high level of service as well as reliable products.?Most customers will examine the service and support on offer when they choose a supplier. They look beyond price and want suppliers that provide training and product information at different levels.

Imesa has therefore developed services such as the GSM system and the So.Laundry software.

The GSM system is installed as standard on machines and it allows Imesa to control machines in real time. If a problem occurs, the GSM immediately sends the details to Imesa.

A precise diagnosis is then promptly sent to the area service company so that it can solve the problem quickly, saving costs for both the user and the distributor and minimising downtime.

So.Laundry is a software program that helps distributors to choose the right size of machine for each customer’s business.

The program can also calculate the full costs of the machine including depreciation and other costs. This will help a business such as a hotel to compare the cost of investing in its own laundry with the yearly charge for outsourcing the laundry service.

The comparison will illustrate the OPL’s convenience and in most cases businesses will decide in favour of an on-site laundry after seeing the So.Laundry analysis.

Looking at how the market has developed, Carlo Miotto says that globalisation has brought a lot of changes. Machine performance has improved, chemical specialists have developed better and wider ranges of detergents and chemicals, and improvements in machine electronics have introduced functions that were not thought possible a few years ago, such as the ability to control residual humidity in dryers.

As the world is changing so rapidly, distributors need to change their approach, says Miotto. Price is no longer the most important factor in a sale. They need to have a thorough knowledge not only of the product and the broad market but also a good understanding of the local cultures in their markets.

In Europe, there are two types of laundry distributor, he adds. Multi-brand distributors tend to be more concerned with price and their relationship with the manufacturer is governed by the price and the quantity sold. A sole distributor and his supplier build a partnership with a common aim and work much more closely together.

Multi-brand distributors tend to be the norm in the new European countries and in emerging markets.

Sole distributors are more usual in the mature consolidated markets.

Imesa is working to create a solid and reliable distribution network to avoid unfair competition among distributors, Miotto explains.

However emerging markets such as Eastern Europe and Russia are also proving of great interest for Imesa and its future development.