Delta Studio is a Romanian interior design company with 20 years of experience in the private, office and residential sectors. They offer dedicated solutions and have showrooms in all the major cities of Romania, such as Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, Brasov or Timisoara.
Tell us more about Delta Studio - how did the business take off and what is your footprint nowadays?
We have been on the market for 25 years and we have a store in every important city (Bucharest, Cluj, Brasov, Constanta, Iasi, etc). In Bucharest we have a considerable pool of residential clients, in fact over 60% of all projects developed here use our products. As we kept growing so did our ambitions, to the point where we are now able to offer complete services, including architectural ones through our new studio (Delta Studio Design).
It's maybe interesting to note that we work with both developers and private clients. Big picture the share would be 50-50 but it can differ from one year to another. In 2020, we worked more with developers, for instance we partnered up with important developers as One United Properties, Granvia, Point Development, Cordia, London Partners and the list can continue.
You are coming out of a prosperous 2020, what do you credit for these good results?
Indeed, after the initial hesitation we all had in March 2020, starting with June we continued our hiring process and expanded our firm. Even though the retail sector stagnated, the residential projects increased by 20% which led to a two digit increase in our company's turnover. Our bet is that 2021 will also bring growth, maybe more so than last year.
The hospitality industry and the office sector did see some losses, we were exposed to them slightly because of our most recent non-residential project (Autograph by Marriott hotel in Bucharest Old Town), but nothing to be concerned about given the good returns we got from our residential clients.
The products you make available are sourced from an array of international suppliers - did the pandemic affect your workflow in any way?
We usually keep a generous stock but working with such diverse clients we also need to buy supplies from all over the World. The trick during this period was to continually adapt our strategy to the problems that were coming our way, buying from Spain and Russia when there was a problem in Italy and vice versa. We have our own furniture factory that builds bathroom and kitchen furniture in Piatra Neamț and with its help we managed to balance the need for products. The latter was a particularly good solution because lately developers have become more fond of products that are made in Romania.
Why do you think developers have a soft spot for products that are made in Romania?
This trend started with food products and successfully migrated towards the real estate sector, an opportunity we were lucky to seize.. What's even more exciting to note is that we managed to export these "made in Romania" products in competitive markets like Germany, the UK or the Netherlands.
Speaking about trends, they actually changed a great deal since I joined the company 15 years ago. Allow me to provide some examples: the standard size of ceramic tiles increased from 30x30cm to a minimum standard size of 60x60cm (up to 120x360cm), bathroom faucets and sanitary ware are more colorful as examples the DALET Color sanitary ware collection from Delta Studio’s portfolio signed by Designer Karim Rashid. And thanks to technological advancements, replicating natural materials like marble or hardwood became the new norm in tiles.
10 or 15 years ago people didn't necessarily hire an interior designer, are things different nowadays? If so, is this what motivated your expansion into architectural services?
Yes, there is surely a higher appetite for this type of services, one that we have been witnessing for a few good years now. It has to do with the general economic growth of our country, people are more comfortable spending money on architects and interior designers to create a welcoming environment for themselves. And yes, this is part of what motivated our expansion. We came up with a"ready to buy" concept which offers pre-made home designs to clients that want an alternative to hiring interior design companies, while preserving the aesthetic advantages these services provide.
Let's shift our focus towards the future for a moment, what are Delta Studio's main plans for the next two to three years?
The plan is to increase our turnover from EUR 20 million to EUR 100 million in the next 5 years. Strategy wise, we are betting on the concept of "design & build" through our architectural studio Delta Studio Design, as well as into the "ready to buy" idea that we were talking about earlier. When it comes to residential projects, we want to consolidate the Delta Studio Inside concept that guarantees a unique design with high quality products. You can tell that we are optimistic for the period to come, things are moving at a fast pace in Romania and there are plenty of opportunities to pursue.
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