Comfort, quality and style

LIFESTYLE: ECCO will never be the world’s most inexpensive shoes. But they are the world’s best, if you listen to the millions of people around the world who swear by the footwear from this Danish company. Once you have tried on ECCO shoes, you won’t want to wear anything else. It is a lifestyle that signals comfort, quality and style.

Not necessarily the biggest – but absolutely the best. That is the objective of the ECCO company, which produces footwear for over 10 million people annually. People who have learnt to value something close to perfection in the synthesis of comfort, quality and fashion. People who wouldn’t think of wearing anything else once they have tried on a pair of ECCO shoes. That is one of the reasons why ECCO, from being a relatively small, local shoe factory in the southern part of Jutland 40 years ago, has now spread worldwide and is among the most respected companies in the industry.

ECCO was founded in 1963 by the charismatic entrepreneur Karl Toosbuy. Right from the start, his vision was not just to make shoes, but to make shoes with a perfect fit. And to make them in a way which not only gave the wearer an experience of comfort and quality, but also gave the factory staff pride and satisfaction in their work. It was a refreshingly new approach to running a company which was quite unique at the time. The rumour that ECCO’s shoe factories were not just a place of work, but also a second home to the staff, spread quickly. To walk in ECCO shoes became the wearers’ signal to the world around them that they walked well. And with a touch of political correctness, too. ECCO had become a lifestyle.

When only the best is good enough

ECCO and sport are inextricably linked –at least for sports where footwear helps to decide the result.

That is one of the reasons why ECCO’s golf shoes were judged the world’s best by the American Rankmark magazine in 2003. In 2004, the success in golf shoes has been followed up with comprehensive development work around running shoes. This takes place for instance in collaboration with the triathlon world champion Torbjørn Sindballe, who is aiming to win the world’s most prestigious triathlon competition, the Hawaii Iron Man. In 2006, the competition will be held on Torbjørn Sindballe’s 30th birthday. The Iron Man consists of three disciplines, 3.8 kilometers swimming, 180 kilometers cycling and a 42 kilometer marathon. The sport is considered to be the toughest and most complete among athletes and makes amazing demands not just on the athlete, but also on equipment and clothing.

“ECCO’s huge expertise in terms of material and high-tech production provides a platform for making world class shoes,” Torbjørn Sindballe says. “Right from the beginning they found the right balance between stability and flexibility due to the flex system in the forefoot. The unique external shank also gives you a fantastic feeling when you run.”

When Karl Toosbuy passed away in 2004, aged 76 years, he left behind him a prosperous company with its own tanneries in Holland, Indonesia and Thailand, and factories in Portugal, Thailand, Indo-nesia, Slovakia and Denmark. This year, ECCO will open a new factory in Xiamen in China, which will become the group’s largest.

“ECCO continues in the same spirit as when Karl Toosbuy headed the company,” says COO and Deputy Managing Director Mikael Thinghuus. “He shaped the entire management group, and his legacy and values will live on in ECCO in the future. Naturally change will occur, just as it has done over the last 40 years. But it is evolution we are talking about, not revolution. ECCO will still not be a high-fashion product, but shoes where timelessness, comfort and brand-recognition are the aim.” Timelessness and brand-recognition are keywords which are taken seriously at the group headquarters. It is also a challenge which created recent turnover troubles, not least on two of ECCO’s important markets – Germany and the US – where sales some years ago dived. Not dramatically, but enough to force ECCO to make a number of important decisions.

“We had to acknowledge that we had problems bringing the younger generation onboard. In addition, we had too large stocks. In Germany we had too wide a range, and in the US we had focused on men’s shoes and not utilized our women’s potential optimally. This has now been adjusted in the US, and that has rectified the sales problem to the point where we now see record sales.” In their efforts to develop a shoe design which appeals to both young and more mature people, ECCO has scored a success with its Shark model in the last couple of years. Shark is a combination of outstanding design and technological superiority, and technological competencies are some of ECCO’s key characteristics. Not only to be at the forefront from a financial perspective, but just as much out of consideration for the environment and workplace.

Mikael Thinghuus:

“To us craftsmanship and technology are two sides of the same coin. These must form a synthesis in combination with design. Technological breakthroughs often help to decide a new design – and design ideas create technological breakthroughs. Precisely the Shark shoe is an example of how the design led our developers to test new techniques for fusing natural and synthetic plastic materials. Using advanced lasers, we managed to prepare natural hide so that sole and uppers form a symbiosis which melts the two materials into an unbreakable unit. The technology creates undreamed-of design opportunities, while at the same time the quality is unsurpassed.” Because of the quality and craftsmanship involved in making the shoes – all work with the uppers is done by hand – ECCO shoes will never be inexpensive. The company describes its shoes as priced in the upper mid-range.

“Naturally we are an industry, but the core of our company is our insistence on having hands-on production,” says Thinghuus. “Outsourcing is not for us. We are currently building a factory in China, but it is an ECCO factory with everything that this implies for staff care, social obligations, quality control and the like. We do that because the quality and experience of wearing an ECCO shoe must be unique. In that area we will always be loyal to the principles on which Karl Toosbuy started the company.”