SICAM: the reasons for an ongoing success

Format, internationality, involvement of the world furniture community

Over the years, SICAM has continued to register a gradual and constant growth, in terms of numbers, but also in terms of quality and wide-ranging offer of accessories, components and materials: a growth due to the fact that the companies of the sector have understood the role SICAM plays on the world stage of trade shows. SICAM is not in fact seen as a traditional fair but rather as a coming together of all the players involved in the furniture production chain, a fundamental occasion for developing new business deals, a yearly appointment to power relations towards ever more and diverse markets.
“Every year a number of new companies join SICAM,” observes Carlo Giobbi, organizer of the event, “often they are small and medium-sized companies but there are also multinational groups: on average, 90% of SICAM exhibitors reconfirm their yearly presence, therefore we can consider that new companies or reconfirmed companies for each edition make up the remaining 10%, to which we can add the growing number of new exhibitors that we register every year and that this year has led to SICAM’s enlargement to include all the available pavilions”.
Today’s truly successful trade shows, in Italy as well as abroad, are those that over the last years have become more than simple exhibition spaces, becoming partners through which the exhibitors can develop their business. Italian trade shows, and particularly the highly international ones like SICAM, produce a roughly estimated 60 billion euros every year for the companies, making up the 50% export figures for national companies: for 75% of these companies the exhibition-tool represents the fundamental means of promotion and development on foreign markets. The priority for organizers is therefore to obtain the greatest possible participation of the international community furniture sector: an objective that can only be achieved by means of a constant updating of services and formats, renewing contents and solutions providing new experiences to the participating international operators. This, in brief, is the operative philosophy SICAM has embraced since its first edition and that has led its constant growth up to today’s level.
In the furniture components and accessories sector, it is the world market itself that clearly defines the role and placement of each trade show: decision-makers from leading international companies attend only top exhibitions, while there is still a number of operators that choose to attend specific shows based on precise commercial company choices or on the performance of specific international markets. “I believe that on this subject” – Carlo Giobbi observes – “this can be said: the innovation-factor in finished furniture design mainly resides in its components and external accessories, and SICAM counts several small and medium-sized Italian companies that here find suitable space and visibility. These are companies that do not participate in other top international exhibitions but whose production and creativity every year bring forward solutions and innovations that can make the difference in next year’s production. This is what the international furniture industry is always more often looking for and that today can be found at SICAM, Pordenone”.