Interview with Mr Hans Zöbisch

TEXTILE COLOR, unlike the factories of my ancestors, is not a producer of textiles, but supplies them with textile auxiliaries, dyes and optical brighteners. Thus, the properties of the resulting textiles are influenced decisively, vice versa, the requirements of the textile industry also influence the development of our products. These requirements are subject to a constant change and the associated demands have risen strongly in the past and will continue to rise. We consider it our task, not only to observe the current trends and respond to it early, but also to help to shape them with innovative products within our possibilities. Thus we want to enable our customers to differentiate themselves in the market and to position themselves firmly. At the same time we want to differentiate ourselves from our competitors with typically Swiss highest quality and best possible environmental compatibility.

The Swiss textile industry nowadays is only very small. Therefore, we export far more than 95 % of our products and try to follow the production sites of the textile industry. At the same time the pressure on our products in those respective countries increases by competing local producers, as they usually can produce cheaper and do not have to face long transport routes. This is a challenge for us to particularly place emphasis on innovation, quality, environmental compatibility and service.

A company has to make profits in order to exist and to be able to invest. Rising raw material prices burn profits and consequently will have an impact on the prices of our products because we have to pay wages, maintenance costs, energy, water and further fixed costs. In extreme situations like the current price explosion austerity measures in all areas have to act and alternative raw materials or alternative suppliers with favorable price and satisfactory quality have to be found. Our commitment to quality must not suffer from this situation as our competitiveness is decisively depending on this. We must try to expand our sales to get into the position to negotiate prices due to larger purchasing quantities. At the same time we have to minimize the amount of work where possible and optimize processes for the production. Mankind needs textiles and therefore the textile industry needs textile auxiliaries - we just have to ensure that our products will be preferred.

Still our main market is in Europe, but in recent years, a shift to the east is clearly visible. The textile processing industry has changed over the last decade dramatically triggered by the general transformation of consumer awareness. The textile industry is going green and nowadays environmental topics like Green chemistry, sustainability, saving of resources (time, water, energy) and cradle-to-cradle are hot topics. Besides following this ecological trend our customers demand top quality and productivity.

In order to produce high quality products, it does require a well-functioning quality control besides first and foremost a development which is developing a high quality product. Such an imaginative team already includes in the various stages of development the use of environmentally compatible raw materials and a solid assessment of the environmental impact of emerging compounds. Absolute priority is always the quality of the resulting product for the benefit for our customers. For the development of processes, both for our own production or for the use of our products, exactly the same is valid, so our customers will also benefit by saving energy and water where possible.

We work closely together with research institutions and textile institutes in different countries and we support new projects there, so that we have our ears always at the pulse of the times. Also seemingly attractive ideas of our development team in-house itself or in cooperation with external institutions will be pursued. Of course, it is essential to observe trends in this case also and to find best possible timing for new features. Furthermore, not each innovation is solely positive, especially if the consequences are not sufficiently explored, as the nanotechnology exemplifies. The applications must be selected well in order to utilize the benefits and avoid disadvantages.

The demands of the consumers of textiles for each application range are constantly changing. That means for our customers, that they are involved in a constant change and they must adapt to market needs. It does not matter whether our customer is a supplier of houses of fashionable clothing, convertor of technical textiles or provider of decoration material, the demand for high quality textile with pleasant comfort, special robustness, fire protection up to self-extinguishing, special appearence or fully degradability – which demands ever the material has to satisfy – these claims are rising. To meet the needs of tomorrow, we need a good development and an access to sound research results. The one who does not always keep an eye on the future will fall behind in today's competition and will be among the losers very quickly. Therefore, it is obviously important to develop new products and to ensure that the “pipeline never blocks”.

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