Involvement and Italian tinplate packaging manufacturer Metalscatola Spa have created a joint venture company called Invo Metal. Arjen reflects on a decades-long relationship that has finally resulted in a marriage of minds and means.
We just tied the knot with someone in Italy we’ve been seeing for 30 years.
There’s always been a lot of affection and goodwill. But now it’s serious.
Italy is well known in the industrial packaging market for expertise in tinplate manufacturing and Metalscatola Spa is one of its leading names.
They were an important supplier to a company in the North West UK that my father acquired in the 1990s. We’d developed as a business by distributing plastic packaging and this got us into metal for the first time. It was a win for them too, hugely expanding their reach in the UK.
We hit it off immediately. We are both around 60 years old and both family businesses.
We’re well run, well organised, well financed, with good reputations in the market.
They did actually consider setting up a UK factory about 10 years ago. We helped them look for premises. But starting from scratch here was too much at the time.
Becoming a manufacturer as well as a distributor had been a long-held ambition of ours, as a way to open up avenues with different types of customers we couldn’t reach before. Big step though.
Now, finally, the stars have aligned.
Essentially we both dearly wanted something it would be too hard to do on our own. Our offspring is called Invo Metal.
So, JVs. Should you go all-in with your partner? Or keep it friendly and mutually rewarding, but nice and casual?
It’s easy for an SME to be tempted by the JV route, as a shortcut strategic move to open up new avenues for growth.
The thing is, you might fancy the look of each other, you might tell each other all the right things. But that’s not the same as intimately sharing your purpose and vision. Especially, if you’ve put all your energy into building your brand and nurturing your way of working.
Like any marriage, if it goes wrong it can reflect badly on both parties. And hurt financially.
It should be reasonably straightforward to identify if you are a basic fit for what you both want. Do your audits and due diligence on each other’s set-ups and capabilities.
But, are you really going to be able to blend your different ways of working together?
The key for me is alignment on the cultural side, the people side. The team. You’ve got to know who you’re getting into bed with.
Talk to each other about your views and practices on relationships, trust, integration of different people and different norms. How you behave when unexpected events make things difficult. Maybe act out some scenarios.
Don’t underestimate how much time you need to spend on this.
The full 30 years hopefully not necessary!
You can read more about Invo Metal here.
