Guest Columnist
Jonathan Grassi is the overseas manager at Italian balloon company Grabo International.
The Word Otn ee r t s e th
The latest in PPE’s series of guest columnists, Jonathan Grassi is the overseas manager at Italian balloon company Grabo International, which has been making high-quality foil balloons for the last 37 years. Taking an overview of the industry at large, here’s Jonathan’s take on how the internet has bought the world closer together and the effect it has had on the import and export market in recent years.
Going For Globalisation
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I’m just stating the obvious really: the 21st century has tied us all closer together, made our connections quicker, our conversations easier, our range of choice wider. Important business meeting in another country? Skype them. Can’t stand being separated from your loved one? Just hop on a low-cost flight, catch up for the weekend and be back at your desk by Monday 9am. Of course, as we say in Italy, ‘not all that is shiny is gold’ (which means that not everything that looks good is always going to be good), but this is still a time of great change in which the positive points outweigh the negative ones. In a fast-paced and infinitely interconnected world, the role of exports is certainly crucial. Not only you can find a whole new world of products completely different to those offered in your local area, but you can also source better products, more products, better prices... The Facebook and Instagram generation requires instant availability: everything must be accessible to anyone – anything one might find in a screenshot – and it must be there tomorrow, or sooner. And of course, as suppliers and manufacturers have to face fierce competition and battle to do better than
opening it to many people, on the other hand they diminish the appeal and uniqueness of the artwork and product design. In doing this, they often end up killing off the added value of expertise and passion behind the efforts of many suppliers. Unfortunately, even if the balloon and party business is protected by artists, passionate decorators and farsighted entrepreneurs, some
the next company, this widens the selection for the consumers, who are spoilt for choice and can finally find their needs and desires more than amply suited. Of course, there are downsides to this type of cannibalistic globalisation and gut-driven exporting and importing. The cross-border reliability of business partners isn’t always solid: it often occurs that importers, when not affiliated, use imported products at their own end. On the other hand, exporters can – and, sadly, often do – sell low-quality product over and over again to different customers before the end user realises the product is no good. These practices are all aided by new technologies such as eShops, social media and online shopping. If, on the one side, lowquality and low-priced products serve to increase the size of the market
Left: Grabo distributes popular US brand Betallic balloons all over Europe and the UK. Below: The export market has helped make the world a smaller place for party buyers and suppliers
business-wrecking dumping is still being perpetrated by external agents and non-professionals. In a culturally blended and intertwined world, exports have definitely empowered the strength of our joy-filling job. But let’s not forget that work – especially when its final goal is to create beauty and passion – is stuff for human beings. Let’s not forget to balance the added value exports give with the love that people put into the development of this great business. It is the stuff dreams are made of.”
Exporting Excellence As both supplier and wholesaler, Grabo operates globally on a number of different levels. Across most of the world, Grabo only works with distributors and wholesalers, with whom it has established firm friendship bonds over the years. “Our wide and varied portfolio allows us to operate easily and effectively across the markets in Europe, South America, the Middle-East, Northern and Eastern Africa, Taiwan and Russia,” said Jonathan. “In Europe you can find our products in all the main distributing houses in all the countries, from the bigger ones right though to the smaller ones.” He continues, “The Betallic line, which we took on last year, has now been uniquely distributed all over continental Europe and the United Kingdom.”
MAY/JUNE 2018 PROGRESSIVE PARTY EUROPE
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11/06/2018 16:06