THE KBBREVIEW INTERVIEW | Levent Giray


‘It’s our duty to help retailers stay relevant’


As VitrA gets ready for the next chapter of its story in the UK under a new leader, we speak to outgoing managing director Levent Giray – the man that brought the brand to the UK 30 years ago – about the company’s success story and why retailers are a key part of its future…


s he prepares for retire- ment, Levent Giray is leaving behind a legacy that any business leader would be proud of.


A


He started with the VitrA brand – part of the Eczacıbaşı Group, one of Turkey’s most prominent industrial groups – as export manager in 1988. Four years later, he was tasked with setting up the UK sales office, operating from a modest warehouse and office in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. During his 30-year tenure, the brand has built up an enviable reputation for


design, quality and


innovation and has become a popular choice among independent retailers across the UK. To cap it all off, last year he managed the opening of the brand’s first showroom in the UK, at the heart of London’s design community in Clerkenwell. A resource designed to build the brand’s profile and drive footfall through to its independent retail network. Before handing over the reins to


his replacement, Steve Breen, Giray reflects on his career and why he feels strongly that independent retailers will always be the backbone of the UK bathroom industry.


Q & A


Q: You’ve built VitrA UK from scratch and the business is now worth £28 million. What do you attribute that growth to? A: There’s no one magic answer to that. There have been a number of contributing factors over the years, but I can probably boil it down to the people, the product and being in the right place at the right time. I’ve been extremely lucky to have worked with lots of very talented people here. In the UK market, our focus has always been on bathroom retailers. We chose to work with


26


Levent Giray at the brand’s flagship


showroom in Clerkenwell


independents to build a brand, rather than just go for volume, which we could have done easily with our production capabilities. But I’ve always believed that building a brand should come before everything else and that’s what we’ve done here with the help of bathroom retailers. One of the other factors is being in the market at the right time. When we brought VitrA to the UK, the economy was just coming out of a recession. It was a time when many European brands were targeting the UK, but most of those brands decided to break into the market with their existing designs. We approached it differently.


From the start we chose to adapt our products to UK-specific requirements and launched with a portfolio that combined European design with UK plumbing specifications. That was


one of the key factors to our success from early on. The market was hungry for a brand like VitrA with the vision to design specifically for the UK market’s needs. We’ve always been at the forefront of bathroom design and technology and that is largely down to the fact that we have our own central manufacturing base. We have always been able to transfer ideas to new markets fast and efficiently, which has given us a great advantage.


Q: How key are independents to the future of brands like VitrA and the wider bathroom market? A: For brands like us that pre - dominantly work in the design-led domain, independents are indis- pensable and play a huge role in bringing us together with the consumer. We need showroom


Any consumer enquiries that come through the Clerkenwell showroom are passed on to VitrA’s independent retail partners


retailers to display our products and explain the brand and the products to the consumer. As more technology comes through into the bathroom, this need for showroom partners will only increase as consumers will need their knowledge and expertise. They will continue to play an essential role in the future of the industry. We will continue to support independent retailers and physical displays. We are turning our attention to this more than ever – to make sure the


sale happens where the


consumer actually sees the product and where the consumer gets the service from. We need to work with retailers – it’s to our benefit and therefore independents are, and will always be, an essential part of our strategy.


Q: What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the UK industry during your career? A: Thirty years is a long time and obviously


there have been huge


changes along the way, both on the product side and in the industry. We’ve seen a big wave of con - solidations sweeping through the industry. A lot of smaller brands have been acquired by larger groups, but we’ve also seen a number of brands disappear from the UK bathroom scene. Technology and product capa- bilities across the industry have changed immensely over the past 30 years


too, which has created


The opening of VitrA UK’s warehouse and office in Didcot in 1992


significant change to demand. What we’ve seen on the demand side is that the prominence and importance of bathrooms have increased, and


· August 2022


The start of VitrA’s


Showrooms of Excellence programme


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