Despite almost three years of the pandemic and almost three years of managing an unforeseeable crisis, everything at Faber-Castell is pointing towards continual growth. In this interview, CEO Stefan Leitz takes stock of the company’s new corporate strategy, which is already showing initial success and looks set to continue on this course.

That’s true, Corona dramatically accelerated existing trends in every sense – such as the way consumers shop, the way they behave, and what is really important to them. The pandemic has changed us, too: we are now collaborating more globally, which best utilises the know-how within the company. This is the basis from which we move into the future. We have used the time to set our strategic course – and we are back on a path of growth.

In the 2022/23 financial year, we generated the second-highest turnover in the company's history. Markets are generally recovering with the end of the Covid-19 restrictions, so we’ve seen a strong increase in turnover. Assuming exchange rates are stable, this marks a currency-adjusted increase of 19.9%. Our Writing & Drawing, and Cosmetics business contributed equally to this growth. The Latin American and Asia/Pacific regions, in particular, were markered drivers of that growth.

Now we can see that our new global corporate strategy is working very well, despite a taut situation in the procurement market and a decrease in consumer purchasing power. We’re expecting this path of growth to continue this year, even with the challenge of rising costs. We have set ourselves ambitious goals: In the next five years, we want to grow faster than the market and further expand our position as market leaders in many areas. At the same time, we want to see a continual steady increase in our profitability.

We have the enormous advantage that there is a worldwide awareness of our brand, and we have a global brand presence. We will make the most of the global synergies within the group and tap into new potential. These are important building blocks in our global company strategy.

Our strategy, ‘ONE Faber-Castell – creating a colorful future’, is the starting signal with which we embark into the next five years. This is based on seven strategic pillars. We developed this global strategy with experts in all areas of our company from all the continents in which we operate – from Faber Castell for Faber Castell, so to speak. That’s our new style.

These are our pillars of success; People & Culture, Sustainability, Sales & Channels, Brand & Innovation, Internal Digitalization, Global Supply Chain and New Business. This is where our potential lies. As I mentioned at the beginning, being a globally active company gives us numerous advantages over the competition. We will combine regional forces to tap new potential in focus markets in Asia and Latin America, for example, to harmonise and better market our product ranges. We will use our combined international knowledge to bring innovations and services to market more quickly and better utilise our production capacities. A fundamental part of all strategic fields with be consumer orientation: in the future, we will be asking ourselves: “What does the customer really want?” rather than simply focusing on what we can sell them.

Of course, our Cosmetics business is a part of ONE Faber-Castell. In the area of People & Culture, we are aiming for identical approaches such as feedback and performance culture. We’re also looking into synergies between Writing & Drawing and Cosmetics – whereby all of our company parts have a role to play in our sustainability goals. At the same time, we take certain differences in the cosmetics business and between countries into account. Faber-Castell Cosmetics has incorporated these elements into its cosmetics strategy, which is similarly based on our global corporate strategy.

Just like all successful international companies, we have to have a consolidated home market. In our German home market, this is working really well, and in Europe generally, we are doing well and should see further growth. Latin America is the largest region for our group and is extremely important. We see the most potential for growth in Asia, in particular the highly populated countries like China and India. This is where we are putting considerable focus. We have to find new ways to open up different markets and channels. This is supported by the optimisation of our global product range and the acceleration of our innovation processes. We have to grow more strongly in modern trade, as well as in e-commerce. Tailwinds here will be coming from our global leadership in sustainability.

Definitely not yet, but we’re on an excellent path. We’re also gathering force on this front. The way we source wood and conduct sustainable forestry, for example. The thousands of hectares of regenerative forestry plantations in Brazil really provide us with a competitive edge in this regard. There is more to do in terms of creating a completely circular economy. This must be the goal of all production industries, and that, of course, includes Faber-Castell.

We are putting ongoing focus on the analysis and development of recycled plastic. The challenge here is the (in)consistent quality of recycling raw materials, which is limited and subject to enormous price fluctuations . Even so, we’ve still been able to make considerable progress in that a number of our text markers, such as the Textliner Pastell, as well as particular hobby artists’ products, such as the Goldfaber Aqua Dual Marker, are now primarily made from recycled plastics.

We’re doing really well in these areas, but we’re not about to rest on our laurels. The portion of renewable energy we use globally at our production locations is already at 87 per cent and rising. We’ve managed this through the amount of energy we produce ourselves, using solar energy with photovoltaic installations, energy from wood waste products and hydroelectric energy, but also through purchasing renewable energy that’s externally produced.

Our FSC-certified forestry operations in Brazil make an important contribution to the local environment and biodiversity. We will increasingly focus on unique selling points, such as regenerative forestry and biodiversity. We communicate our successes and goals to our stakeholders, for example, in our global awareness campaign “Change needs creativity”.

And yes, we are completely rethinking our packaging. A lot is changing in this sense, such as completely changing our packaging systems in Peru from plastic to cardboard and paper. The new, more sustainable packaging has been met with very positive resonance from our customers. This example will inform our approach to all of our markets.

Yes, well, we have certainly taken the first very decisive steps. We’ve also made great progress with new approaches to brand awareness. We’re investing much more in social media than we did before Corona, not only on Facebook but also on Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube. We were the first brand in the industry to use TikTok with fairly sensational results: in a very short time, we were able to gain 150,000 followers and garner up to six million views for some of our videos. We were rated in the top ten most innovative and sustainable family businesses worldwide by the German finance magazine WirschaftsWoche and the public opinion research institute Innofact, who placed us eighth out of 100 companies, showing just how much trust the Faber-Castell brand evokes in consumers. It seems we are like a trusted anchor in times of great insecurity and volatility. This is where we are stoking the fire with our program of growth, with ideas, with innovation. I’m confident that we’ll achieve the high goals we have set for ourselves. That is, and remains, our declared goal worldwide: Unleash your creativity! We’re inspiring more and more people to be creative!