According to Janine Belmont, Yanbal’s Chief Executive Officer, who has been in the position for nine years, Colombia plays a leading role in the company’s new plan.
In addition, the second-generation manager aims to position independent entrepreneurship in Latin America by also supporting the growth of his collaborators and their openness to new ideas.
In an interview with El Tiempo, the board of directors evaluates 2023 and shows its expectations for 2024.
I think it was one of the best years we’ve had at Yanbal in terms of growth: Yanbal recorded 23 percent growth in sales in dollar terms. There is also growth compared to the previous year, we grew by 17 percent in 2022. Today’s Yanbal is not the same as the Yanbal before the pandemic, so it’s good to see strong growth numbers These things happen because we have a good plan.
It’s much bigger. The pandemic came and we went to a company that was hit hard and at that moment we said, “We need to rethink how we want to rebuild Yanbal” and we rebuilt the company from the brand we wanted to create. This was one of our cornerstones: what we wanted to say, who we wanted to target, what our target audience was, what the products would be like.
Another of our key pillars was defining what the operating model would be. We were nine countries within the company at the time and somehow had decentralized functions to a great extent, so we chose to re-centralize strategies and countries would be our weapons on how to implement those strategies. Although they are now done from the centre, they are created together with the countries: each does not have its own strategy, which makes it very inefficient, but rather decentralises them.
The third leg of the change was the operational part: reviewing the distribution of facilities, where to produce and the costs of seeking efficiency at the cost level.
We experienced many cost reductions, and from those savings came a fourth pillar that will strengthen our sales force: both consultants and managers. We enabled our consultants to sell more easily, worked on incentives and made the programs more attractive for them.
The fifth pillar was excellence in commercial strategy, where we redefined everything: we reviewed all the products, where we need to be competitive, what products we need, how we make the offer better, We explained how we improved our campaign value proposition in a catalog, a tool that helps consulting firms sell and reach customers.
‘Cruelty-free’ and the animal part were identified in the brand section, but are only one of the five pillars. So Yanbal’s big transformation was to touch every aspect of the company and rethink this new company we wanted to create.
I want to give all the credit to Colombia. Firstly, when we talk about Colombia we talk about its people, and the Yanbal Colombia team is an outstanding team that we respect very much. We respect their views, we respect everything they suggest to us, and these are, first of all, very important first and second lines when defining the central strategy.
Just like Colombia, the Peruvian and Ecuadorian teams played a very important role because they have a lot of experience and many years. So yes, we heard it, but what we all needed to understand was that there would be no Colombian strategy. An Ecuadorian strategy or a Peruvian strategy, but we were all going to work to come up with the Yanbal strategy, one strategy, so we had to agree.
You had to negotiate things and be disciplined because often you are told “my country is working and the other one is not.” There is no Yanbal Colombia here, no Yanbal Ecuador; There is only one Yanbal, one soul, and only one way of doing things.
We have three cosmetic factories: one in Peru, another in Ecuador and another in Colombia, so in a way we define where we need to produce on the cosmetics side.
The important change in these years was that we had two jewelry factories and we chose the one in Colombia.Thus, we gave all the power to the Facatativa factory in Colombia, which exports to all countries and has become the center for us.
Those produced in Colombia are used but also exported; Colombia exports but also imports from other countries, primarily Peru. The Ecuadorian facility is more autonomous, but the cross sections are from Colombia to Peru and from Peru to Colombia.
Yanbal estimates that 80 percent of what is produced in Colombia is for domestic production, while 20 percent is exported to other countries. 6 percent of Colombia’s total sales correspond to products imported from Peru, the only factory they import from. These are just a few references of care and makeup products that are produced exclusively in Peru due to their special machinery.
Everything is felt, but this is where the basics I said about business excellence come into play; which is to understand what is needed, what changes are happening in the market, what new portfolio Colombia and all other countries need, because what Colombia is experiencing in the Andes is what everyone is experiencing. We can repeat the history of Latin America in all its nuances in all countries, so we saw that there was a need for another portfolio in some way and to help the economic well-being of our ladies with more economical products that they could sell. , after all, that’s what we want.
We may love and be proud of all the products we put out and we look for quality, but what matters is that there is a consumer who wants to buy them, someone who wants and needs them. There have been outstanding launches and we see this from the addition of our new products to the portfolio, which are products that are better suited to the current economic situation.
A more affordable make-up line was a strong and important launch, as was the iconic and more expensive Yanbal line. To help and stay competitive, we launched a line of more affordable shampoos, conditioners and hair care products, as well as many more affordable fragrances that we were missing in the portfolio and treatment line.
We always talk about having two prices: One is more moderate and the other is more economical to help every pocket.
Products that do not have such rotation have emerged. We had some shampoo lines that were not working well and we replaced them with the new line; We did not change this in make-up, we strengthened it with new products and launched some unsold fragrances to attract the attention of the fragrance portfolio.
Essentially, it means that the value proposition does not lose its validity by strengthening and updating the same proposition. It’s about how we make it easier for the consulting firm to sell with Yanbal, and there’s a set of actions we need to take with that: portfolio, strategies to have prices that will help them go to the best level. They turn to a market where they feel profitable and where sales are easy.
The physical catalog remains a very powerful tool; TWe also have a digital catalog, but an impact catalog with images makes them feel good, so they are honored and proud of the catalog that is rated the best in the industry in our surveys. We bet they feel like they have tremendous support in the company and in everything we do in terms of innovation.
Another fundamental point in this sense is that they feel that it is easier to win when measuring ourselves against the competition with Yanbal; We believe that they can make the rankings, exceed their levels, the rewards they earn are better, and our offer of capitalizing them with products from sales helps them increase their profits.
Finally, the big difference is that it is easier to grow with Yanbal. We are one of the few solid multilevel offers of this kind in the Colombian market, because in general the competition is not multilevel and there is no possibility of growth and they remain sellers.
They have selling and winning roles, but not growth. Here you have a tremendous opportunity to grow up and become a director, travel, drive, and develop other women like you. Then you make profits and along the way you become stronger and become a businesswoman. That’s why we’re growing in Colombia, last year there was a 17 percent increase in the number of consultants and these figures are a result of the hard work done within a company.
There are two ways to approach someone who wants to be in sales: Approaching with a catalog and how to sell, but most of these are Our very strong leaders stop approaching you just for sales and talk to you about their entire career because this is the Yanbal difference.
At Yanbal, we are growing by training female directors, so you look for people who are not afraid to dream. You go from consultant to entrepreneur to senior entrepreneur to aspiring director to director to senior director (which is when they already train another director), then they train three directors and they become super senior and have their first car. This is a radical life change: most of our ladies and managers have never driven a car, they have never thought of having their own car, and of course most of the time the family says it’s a lie, it’s not true. Therefore, they also have family obstacles.
There are excursions on the road in front of the car: Every year we have a five-level program that we call stars, so depending on your progress you get bonuses, national trip, international trip, to another big international trip and finally to the mega trip. For example, it will be in Dubai this year.
Maintain double-digit growth, that is, 20 percent. Don’t get distracted by tactics that will take away our direction, I’m talking about the vision for both 2024 and 2025, which is that we want a community of strong women: How can we ensure that more of our consultants and executives can achieve this growth and that growth makes them stronger? First they sell beautiful products, then they look beautiful, get ready, put on make-up, wear jewelry and start feeling better and earning better.
SANTIAGO BOHÓRQUEZ GARROTT
School of Multimedia Journalism EL TIEMPO
Source: Exame