Promotion, sparkle and the EUTR

16 July 2014


Vandecasteele export manager Geneviève Standaert says the timber industry needs more promotion, more women and less complex regulation, but she loves the business. She spoke to Mike Jeffree.

Genevieve Standaert is passionate about her company, Belgium-based international importer Vandecasteele, her role as export manager, and chiefly about the timber industry. Don't get her started on the EU Timber Regulation either. Or rather do, it's instructive.

She must also be among the best-known figures in the European trade. Spend time on Vandecasteele's stand at the Carrefour International du Bois in France and there's a constant exchange of greetings with passersby, as she switches between five languages.

So it comes as a surprise that not only did she never plan a career in the industry, she only intended to stay at Vandecasteele a few months. That was 25 years ago.

Geneviève grew up in Zeebrugge in a family with no links to timber.

"My father was a civil engineer, my mother a housewife, and my earliest memory is wanting to be a country doctor!" she said.

By the end of school, however, her ambition had turned to business and she studied applied economics at UFSIA, the University of Antwerp. This led to a management traineeship with a concrete tiles business.

"That was a formative experience," she said. "It was my first taste of sales and we had constant training. It also brought my first contact with timber's key market, construction. One challenge was to interview 100 architects on what they were looking for in a product. This brought home that they specify what they're familiar and confident with. Most won't risk trying something new.

And architects broadly are still unfamiliar with timber. Their exposure to it in training is minimal and, with a few exceptions, like the American Hardwood Export Council, which has a fantastic, innovative approach showcasing timber to the profession, our industry hasn't done a good job filling the knowledge gap. We need to."

While it had its moments, however, a year in concrete tiles was enough and 23-year-old Geneviève started looking elsewhere.

"The first opportunity was a 'filler' role at Vandecasteele covering for a maternity leave," she said. "I never looked for a job in timber, and had no perception of the industry. I just planned to stay until the person came back."

The company, she acknowledged, was then a conservative family concern, with a small team. But this meant she was expected to multi-task and that kept her interested.

"I was answering phones, greeting visitors, doing the marketing and put in charge of IT!" she said. "When our UK representative left, I was the only one familiar with the market so I got 'pushed' into that too, although I've enjoyed it tremendously!"

It was a huge learning curve getting to know customers, supply chains, the industry's idiosyncratic logistics, and the respective markets and applications for the company's timber offer. It has since expanded significantly, but back then Vandecasteele still supplied a wide range of hardwoods and clear softwoods from around the world.

A Man's World
Touching on another issue which arouses the Standaert passions, she's frank about the process not being made easier by being a woman.

"Timber was a man's world, and while I had opportunities at Vandecasteele, it was tough finding my place in the industry," she said. "The role for women was mainly making the coffee and taking phone calls. It was lonely in 1989!"

The situation has changed, she said, but there's still room for improvement and the industry is missing out on its potential as a result.

"More women are in senior roles, notably sales and buying. But, although we're no longer extra-terrestrials, it's still a male industry." She's not in favour of positive discrimination, but urges the sector to make itself a more attractive proposition for women.

"Women offer a different perspective and are perhaps more thorough in some respects.

They also bring more sparkle and glamour, which every business needs, especially when your product ultimately has to appeal to creative industries."

Vandecasteele itself has transformed over the years, first under owner-managing director Urbain Vandecasteele, then, from 2000, son Stefan. In 1989 it had a 6ha site at Aalbeke and four delivery vehicles. Today it has 12ha under cover, 4ha external storage and a fleet of 16 trucks.

Geneviève attributes its success to a range of factors.

"We work as a close team in an openplan office and also place huge emphasis on service. Small or large, customers get the same respect and hospitality. And, while most business is done by email rather than phone today, we still value face-to-face contact, and have just recruited more sales staff, taking the team to 48, to get out and meet customers. We work closely with suppliers too and we've made ourselves a very attractive partner for them. Rather than importing for specific national markets, we import for Europe. For the supplier that has great appeal as we'll take everything; a wide range of species in all dimensions."

Changing Business
The company has also taken on more markets, species and sources of supply.

"We used to sell principally to France, Belgium, Holland, the UK and Germany, but now it's worldwide. And we offer at least 60 more species, taking us to around 180. We used to buy very little African, now it's one of our strengths, and we also started buying from Brazil in 1992. It wasn't popular at the outset and people just wouldn't touch jatoba.

Today, it's also one of our main sources, supplying everything from guariuba to red grandis. Our range also includes softwoods, clears and American hardwoods, plus laminated products and decking."

Another transformation has come in environmental policy, which has moved from the fringes to become a business-shaping issue.

"At the outset it was a fight. There was a lot of scepticism about certification and talking to the NGOs, but I knew we had to hold the green hand, go for FSC and step out of that grey zone where we could be associated with deforestation."

She's also, broadly, in favour of the EU Timber Regulation, but not the way it's been implemented.

"Reliance on due diligence by individual 'operators' results in huge bureaucracy and difficulties for suppliers meeting different demands from different EU countries. Current Greenpeace allegations that companies' due diligence hasn't been good enough to spot problems with Brazilian legality documents highlights the difficulties, as did questioning of CITES certification on Belgian afrormosia imports. We need a simpler process. For the EU to say 'this is what you need from this country to comply with the EUTR'."

Current complexities also led to EU companies axing suppliers when putting them through due diligence looked too difficult.

"That's potentially bad for the environment as they'll just turn to other markets, notably China, which buys everything, no questions asked."

Vandecasteele has itself had to drop suppliers.

"But we support them and promise we'll deal with them again when they get everything right. The whole industry and the EU should do this. We can't just abandon suppliers if they're not holier than the pope right away."

Geneviève insists she doesn't have favourite markets, but clearly enjoys doing business with the UK.

"Unlike some countries, which have very specific requirements, the UK is always open to something new. We liaise closely with customers and the wider industry, attending a lot of functions, which are great for networking, and we've just recruited another sales person to work with me there."

Recently, all Vandecasteele's markets have been through lean times, but now business is on the upturn. "Some markets are better than others, including the UK, but we're seeing improvement generally," said Geneviève.

And, she insisted, the industry could bolster its recovery if only it stepped up promotion, another passionately held view.

"It's an area of weakness - we need to get together internationally and deliver a single strong message. Timber's performance and environmental benefits give us huge potential today and, if we all contributed a few Euros to a central campaign, we'd have a huge impact."

Despite this deficiency, however, Geneviève is hugely positive about timber's and Vandecasteele's prospects and has no regrets about her accidental career choice.

"I still enjoy this industry and my job, which is forever changing. I'm carrying on."

Geneviève Standaert: "Architects are still unfamiliar with timber… our industry hasn't done a good job filling the knowledge gap"