Warehouse management, Elpe pushes revenues thanks to certifications and technology

Elpe is a Piedmontese company that operates in logistics and warehouse management and is growing in an industry actually dominated by large multinationals. It employs 1,700 people in Italy and its customers include players such as Fiorentini or Piume, and fast fashion brands. Elpe deals mainly with handling and warehouse processing, with a business model based on a policy that pays attention to certifications and quality of work, alongside a presence in different sectors, from large-scale distribution to luxury.

'Covid has given an incredible boost to e-commerce,' explains President Giuseppe Gibin, who founded the company in which his son Mattia also works. 'This is a business that is very present in Europe, much less so in Italy. Let's say we are talking about an increase of at least 30% for this channel in the domestic market'. Italy was more accustomed to a logic of proximity, explains Gibin, 'but with the advent of Covid many realities, even SMEs, which are then the heart and soul of the country, have thought of introducing the reality of e-commerce'.

This process has pushed the group's revenues to 80 million, with business accelerating strongly. 'In the last three years,' Gibin adds, 'we have grown more than the market. But the main economic indicator is actually not so much turnover as profit. 'In the last three years we have grown mainly in terms of marginality,' Gibin explains.

The credit for this goes to technology, which has enabled a high degree of automation and efficiency for warehouse activities. "We are moving from a manual phase to a much more technological phase in our industry. We have hubs that are fully automated, technology will be the master in our sector for the next 10 to 20 years, not only for artificial intelligence, which in any case allows us to optimise our flows, but also for the machinery that we put inside our sites,' Gibin explains.

Technology and safety are the drivers of the business plan and investments of Elpe, which is looking with interest at a consolidation in the South of the country and which to date is one of the few companies in the logistics sector to have completed the Ethical Certification of Social Responsibility (SA 8000). A distinctive feature of Elpe's business model in an often complex sector in terms of transparency, trade union rights and legality. "Today Elpe has only direct employees, so we do not subcontract anything, all the people who work for us are employees, technology helps us to improve the use of resources and support a competitive model," concludes the president.