What a busy day we had today. The morning started with a hearty breakfast in Verona and our first stop was the Logistics Center called Grouppo Sinergia.
Here, we learned about the services that this company supplies. Basically this company is in the digital supply chain industry and they rival with Amazon. Once the presentation was over, we had a look at one of the 54 warehouses located around Italy. It was pretty impressive to learn that this company can compete with Amazon because Amazon only has 3 major warehouses in Italy.
Immediately following the Logistics Center, we headed to Sartoria Cavour, which is a tailoring shop. This company is a client of the Consortium and it produces suits and also fits them. Since quality is a major concern, they only make 60 pieces of clothing per day. Since my dad wears dress clothes everyday, it was fascinating to see what different fabrics and styles there are. It was also interesting to learn that this company makes jackets for Ralph Lauren. I also picked up on a very common theme among Italian companies, they are all organized chaos. Just by looking at the office space, it may seem that they are unorganized with all the clutter, but that is not the case. These companies operate very smoothly and they have a system that works, their successes speak for themselves.
Following the tour, we headed on the Verona Soccer Team’s bus to lunch. We arrived at this beautiful restaurant on the water for a group lunch. Lunch consisted of a meat and cheese plate, tortellini, tiramisu, and espresso.
After lunch we got on the bus to go to MF1. Upon arrival, you could tell how impressive this place would be. Mario Foroni is a huge player in the knitwear industry. They make garments for brands such as Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Givenchy, and Dolce and Gabbana. We got a look around the facility and even got a sneak peak of their new school. In addition we also saw this cool new brand that they are designing called Male to Female. All of the clothes in this line are reversible and are unisex. This was particularly interesting because this is something that has never been done before and is incredibly innovative. Meeting Mario Foroni, the legend, was another highlight of the day.
Once the three site visits were done, we boarded the bus to head back to Milan for our final leg of our trip. I can’t believe how fast the trip is going!