BIKEBIZ AWARDS
BikeBiz Awards 2021: Bike Brand of the Year
Rebecca Morley catches up with Damian Hackett, Orbea country manager, to find out how it adapted to 2021’s challenges and what it means to be crowned Bike Brand of the Year at last year’s BikeBiz Awards
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t was an immensely challenging 2021 for businesses across the cycling industry, and it was no different for the Bike Brand of the Year winner, Orbea. “The biggest issue centred around supply chain problems and trying to keep our retailers supplied in such a challenging environment,” explained Damian Hackett, Orbea’s country manage for the UK and Ireland. “We have possibly adapted better to this new scenario than many brands, as our business model has been developed around the idea of agility in everything. On that topic, what may not have been fully appreciated by the wider industry was that Orbea has been on a dramatic evolution curve for several years prior to any Covid outbreak.” Since it brought all its production back to Europe in the middle of the last decade, Orbea had already begun the
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transformation of its facilities and its internal structures, Hackett continued. “Because of this, we were well positioned to accelerate these factory developments that were already part of that evolution. This helped us to cope a little better with the enormous challenges that were the result of the recent upsurge in demand. We had already been examining and improving our business from every perspective long before the Covid crisis, with a view to setting really deep foundations for the future growth of the brand. “Many of the markets we have been operating in have seen high double-digit growth since the middle of the last decade – not just since 2020, with internal structures changing as fast as possible to support that growth. So it’s a bit like the duck on the pond. On the surface it seems like it’s quite placid and still, but under the surface it’s working like crazy.”
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