Founded in 2012, Illumilab is a young, dynamic and future-oriented company highly specialised in the production of crosses for Pharmacies and Parapharmacies and advertising displays that has established its leadership in a highly competitive market thanks to innovative, technologically advanced and high quality products. Domenico Labate, owner of this all-Italian excellence with a green heart, in this lengthy interview reveals the future challenges that the company from Paola (CS) is called upon to face in order to continue growing in hitherto unexplored markets.
by Roberta Imbimbo
Dr Labate, tell us a bit about the history of your company. When was it born and with what mission?
Illumilab was founded in 2012 to meet the demand of a very dynamic market, which had been affected by the bankruptcy of a large company in the sector for which I had worked as a sales agent. Thanks to the experience gained over many years in the business and nonetheless thanks to continuous investment in R&D, Illumilab presented itself as an innovative and future- oriented company capable of producing products that are more attractive than those of its competitors in terms of the materials used (strictly stainless steel and not aluminium or iron), visual impact, multimedia content, lighting effects, and the LED technology used, which enables intelligent performance and low energy consumption. Being extremely avant-garde products with an original and modern design, they immediately managed to intercept the needs of the most innovation- and sustainability-conscious pharmacies (which represent around 95% of our core business). And so in a short time Illumulab was able to conquer significant market shares, becoming an important reference point throughout the country and internationally (especially in the USA, Bulgaria and Ireland).
What kind of market is it in which you operate? And what are your strengths compared to your competitors?
Although it is a highly competitive market, we have managed to clearly differentiate ourselves from our numerous competitors by investing heavily in R&D to create sophisticated products that are increasingly innovative and long-lasting. Thanks to a strategic vision, highly specialised know-how and the need to continually raise the bar in terms of the quality of our solutions, we have been able to guarantee our customers the highest quality standards, which has enabled us to increase our brand reputation in a very short time. The key to our success – the company has grown exponentially in recent years both in terms of turnover and geographical expansion – has therefore been to create products that are technologically ahead of the competition, investing heavily in research to proactively anticipate the needs of an ever-changing market. Participating every year at the Cosmofarma Exhibition – a very important event for the pharmaceutical sector – we had the opportunity to display the very latest products that were systematically re-proposed by our direct competitors at the following edition, when for us they were already largely outdated. It is no coincidence that, three years ago, we received a prestigious award for Technological Innovation, as we were the first to implement the 4.0 crosses. (customised graphics with 256×256 pixels of definition per side, 20 different types of transition, frames and 3D effects, compatibility with any type of graphic file extension, single, animated and 3D texts with 4 billion colours and over 50 effects).
What are the future goals?
The extraordinary achievements of so many years must be the starting point to achieve even more ambitious goals. In what way? I always tell the guys who work for me and with me (who are without a shadow of a doubt my most important resource) that they must learn to reason with their hearts and only marginally with their brains in order to be able to create products that are unquestionable in terms of quality. That’s it, I firmly believe that passion makes us go beyond our limits, makes us overcome our limitations; and for those who aspire to overcome increasingly complex challenges, intelligence and wisdom of the heart are indispensable requirements that the intellect cannot match. Therefore, relying on our passion, determination and highly specialised skills, we will seek to expand into hitherto unexplored markets (especially those in Europe) that offer great growth prospects, always with a focus on maximising customer satisfaction and orientation towards technological innovation.
For more info (https://illumilab.it)
