From Denmark To The Global Brand, To Create The Largest Vertical Integration Shoe Business.

In March this year, Forbes released a global list of personal wealth with a net value of more than $1 billion, and only 8 of the "millennial rich" under the age of 30. One of them is Anna Kasprzak. She is a Danish flower equestrian national team athlete, who has appeared on the 14 track of the 2016 Olympic Games. In 2017, she also won the second place of the FEI European Championships (IAA European Championship) with her teammates. She also runs a racecourse in Haderslev in Denmark. But the main source of her personal wealth is the family business behind her -- Danish comfort shoes and leather goods brand Ecco.
Together with brother Andr e Kasprzak and mother Hanni Toosbuy Kasprzak, Anna Kasprzak owns some share rights and inheritance rights of Ecco company.
In 1963, Anna Kasprzak's grandfather Karl Toosbuy founded Ecco in Denmark's Bredebro. Since its development, the brand has been sold in more than 90 countries and regions in the world, and has more than 2200 stores. It also has more than 1.4 sales outlets and employs 21 thousand and 300 employees. By 2017, the annual output of Ecco shoes will reach 20 million pairs.
Ecco's April 2019 fiscal year 2018 report showed that net sales rose 2.7% to 1 billion 310 million euros (about 10 billion yuan), and pre tax profits rose 9.2% to 201 million euros.
Brief history of entrepreneurship
The original name of Ecco was Venus, and it was renamed Ecco in 1978. In 2004, after the death of Karl Toosbuy, his daughter Hanni Toosbuy Kasprzak inherited the company.
When he was 17 years old as an apprentice, the shoemaker Karl Toosbuy's entrepreneurial mind had always been clear: Production fit, practical comfortable shoes. "People who care about the style will wear sharp or narrow shoes produced by or in other places. When I see it, I always think, "it must be very painful!"
At the age of 30, Karl Toosbuy was running a shoe factory at the time, but he wanted to have a company of his own. In 1962, Karl and his wife Birte put an advertisement in the Danish newspaper "Jyllands-Posten" (the Jyllands-Posten), "Who wants us?" To find business partners.
Karl Toosbuy's venture capital was hard won. They sold their houses and cars, and moved their 5 year old daughter, Hanni, to Denmark's countryside. He rented an idle factory in Bredebro. In 1963, the company was formally established, and in second years, they were able to hire 74 employees. At first, the company only produced shoes, then slowly extended to leather manufacturing, and gradually expanded accessories and small leather goods category.
Since 1980s, Ecco has launched the global expansion mode: the first retail store in Denmark in 1982, and sales of brand shoes reached 1 million pairs in the same year. In 1994, Ecco entered the US market and was named "Footwear Company of the Year" in that year.
In 1997, Ecco entered the Chinese market and began to become an earlier brand spokesperson in the industry in 2012. In 1998, the first flagship store was located in London street. In November 2011, Ecco's 1000th store was located in Mall of America, Minneapolis, USA. The brand has also launched an authorized business in Japan and Cyprus.
Global layout, full control of the entire supply chain.
According to Ecco, the company is currently the only large shoe company in the world that controls the flow from upstream to downstream. In 2000, all production and sales processes of Ecco were included, including leather production.
"Almost all of our production operations are self run," said Scott Phillips, director and director of Ecco shoes sourcing and purchasing at Singapore. We produce leather and make shoes. We have many warehouses. We also have proprietary retail outlets and e-commerce platforms. "
A few years ago, Ecco moved the operation center to Singapore. Scott Phillips said: "the purpose of (transfer) is to be closer to our factory. 70% of our production is in Asia, and the remaining 30% in Europe. If the daily operation is done in Denmark, it will be a bit troublesome to operate because there is a long way to go. This will also help attract talents from Asia. But because there is no labor intensive industry in Singapore, how to find talents for the supply chain of the brand has become a big problem. But opportunity is also a challenge.
All those who join the Ecco supply chain need to understand the brand's production technology for many years. That is to say, when you join the company, you will go to the factory and make a pair of shoes yourself. "We call this process" from cows to shoes ", which gives our employees many internal insights. In terms of staff's personal development, Ecco adopts the mode of "performance + employee participation". "Under normal circumstances, 70% of the people do manual work, 20% of them guide, and the remaining 10% are purely academic." Scott Phillips introduces.
In 1996, Ecco set up a research and design center in Denmark, Futura. Then in 2009, Portugal became the location of the brand research and development center.
At present, Ecco has tanneries in China, China, Indonesia and China. Its leather is also used in fashion, sports and automotive industries. More than 98% of the brand's shoes are produced in private factories in Portugal, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, and a few of them are produced in authorized factories.
Ecco also adjusted the entire supply chain in the case of complete staffing. It is estimated that from raw materials to factories, Ecco has 200 different supply chains. Scott Phillips said: "we have 5 factories that make shoes made of raw materials, and 70 shipping routes that send products to the market."
In 2016, Ecco spent a lot of money on new production equipment, so that more production links could be carried out within the company. In order to improve efficiency, the company hired a disruptive technology company to carry out data innovation. Scott Phillips said: "if we put data in the cloud, we can more flexibly respond to changes in the market and consumer demand, we do not need to spend thousands of people, thousands of hours to adjust the production module, only from the cloud to grab data, download, adjust and upload, and other operations can be maintained daily."
Create a new image of technological innovation and environmental pioneer
In recent years, Ecco has given more impression to people. It is also a company that integrates technology and environmental protection innovation. It is reported that it carried out a research project to reduce the environmental impact of leather processing.
In 2017, Sruli Recht, a fashion designer, joined hands with the Ecco Leather laboratory, combined with the tanning technology of Greece and Egypt for more modern processing methods. It took 3 years to develop a new translucent leather. Translucent leather itself is flexible, durable and waterproof, making it easy to make all kinds of fashionable products, including jackets, shirts, shoes and so on. Leather can also appear in different colors, natural amber, green, black, brown, orange and blood red, theoretically it can have any color. (see "ornate ambition": hand in hand with designer, ECCO took three years to develop the world's first translucent cowhide leather).
In addition, Ecco also has other leather "black technology", including light-emitting leather / heat sensitive leather, which changes color according to the body temperature changes. This leather is also used in the three party joint name of Ecco Leather, Dyneema and Stone Island.
At the end of 2017, Ecco also released a product line that lasted for 10 years: testing, experimentation and trial and error: shoes made of indigo dyed leather and bags. According to Ecco Shoes' Design Studio, the former design director (head of styling), now Head of POC and POC, "the company is revealed to be the common achievement of the brand and many excellent designers, creatives and developers all over the world. "We will invite top creators to go to our Open Circle Lab, which is located at the development facilities of the HSI, which will enable us to develop different kinds of leather."
According to Mark R o del, Ecco brand 97% leather is made of self produced Ecco Leather, and the remaining 3% is the outer suede and lacquer. What kind of fabric will be used will change with the trend of the season.
In March 2018, Ecco launched the pilot project QUANT-U, using 3D scanning and printing technology to achieve shoe customization. According to Ecco, QUANT-U produces a pair of 100% customized shoes for several hours. The whole customization process is divided into three steps: real-time analysis, data driven design and store 3D printing. The first step of 3D scanning and sensor data collection takes only 30 seconds. This technology is developed jointly by Ecco and design company.
In addition, Ecco also has integrated injection molding technology, which makes shoe soles of brand shoes less seamless or adhesive to form a more comfortable foot feel.
In September 2018, after five years of research, Ecco announced the introduction of a new environment-friendly and water-saving tanning technology DriTan. DriTan technology can achieve water-saving tanning, and plays an important role in saving water resources. The principle of the DriTan process is to dye it after wetting the cow skin. The printing and dyeing effect is not different from that produced by traditional tanning process in terms of quality, color, wear resistance and production time. After using DriTan technology, each cowhide can save an average of 20 liters of water and save 25 million liters of water throughout the year, which can meet the daily water demand of 9000 people. Besides saving water, this technology also greatly reduces the discharge of waste water and the use of chemical agents.