Baxter, Tenn.—Portobello America officially brought its nearly 1 million-square-foot manufacturing facility, located here, online this month. The years-in-the-making milestone was celebrated with a grand opening event held at the facility, which drew the company’s Brazilian and U.S. customers and partners.
“It’s a dream for us to be here,” said Cesar Gomes, Portobello Group CEO. “Even though we have been here for a long time, working in the U.S., selling in the U.S., building a strong distribution channel here, we knew that to be an American company we needed to manufacture in the United States. We needed to have this facility here.”
The 44-year-old company, based in Brazil, is a leader in tile, exporting to more than 60 countries. The global powerhouse has had a presence in the U.S. as Portobello America for decades now; however, this is its first production facility in the United States.
“We are a tile manufacturer in Brazil with two production facilities, but Portobello reached a size where we decided the next investment should be outside the country to balance a little bit of the risk—because exporting means ering the domestic markets, exchange rates, who’s in charge of the country,” explained Luiz Felipe Brito, CEO, Portobello America. “And we have knowledge of the U.S.—we started exporting to the U.S. in the ‘90s. We had Portobello America in the ‘90s as a distributor. We built the market. The manufacturing part, at the end of the day, is the piece you can control. The part that is tough is building the market. And we’ve already done that. So, we are very glad that we decided to build here. We’re very glad that we found our place in Tennessee.”
One aspect of Portobello America that makes it unique is its go-to-market strategy. Without distribution in Brazil, Portobello’s business model in South America has meant the creation of 150 retail locations to service consumers b2c. In the U.S., that model will have to evolve. “Here in the U.S., it’s a little bit different,” Brito explained. “What we want to study here is how we can make this integrated model where we, as manufacturers, do what we do best and distribution does what it does best, and we streamline the process.”
Service comes first
Portobello America leadership put an emphasis on service at the grand opening, touting what it described as a one-stop-shop b2b solution for its partners. “We have built a factory here not for mass production,” Gomes explained. “We have built a factory for flexibility, to attain the market with the right service. Service is the key for success.”
Brito noted that means having a multitude of services and products available to its distribution and retail partners from the onset. “Service is our ability to understand the market and react fast. And we learned a lot in Brazil because of our stores. We have retail connections. We learned over the last 25 years why our retail operation grew. We have a team of people here whose knowledge is not logistical for manufacturing, it’s logistic for retail and distribution. They’re going to be here to attend the needs of any of our partners.”
That also means having a vast portfolio of product available without burdening its partners with vast amounts of inventory. “Having a complete portfolio, which most of the manufacturers in the United States don’t have it, is important,” Brito noted. “We are going to have product anywhere from the small formats that you can use on the wall to the largest sizes you can imagine. All of that we’re going to be able to offer while working to streamline the process; lower [our partners’] inventory levels. That’s our goal.”
And last but not least is the investment in its digital operations. “We are bringing to the United States what we call the Concierge Portal,” Brito explained. “It is 24-hour online customer service. So today, any distributor that wants to do business with us, they can do that 100% by themselves online—from purchasing, samples, inventory information, pricing, download of images, loading trucks, tracking their orders, all of that. If they want to.”
