The surprising renaissance of Bohin

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Didier VRAC

Former president, Bohin

Seminar Industrial adventures | Thursday February 21, 2019 - 8h30 - 10h30

In 1990, Didier Vrac was hired as head of purchasing for Bohin, a company which manufactured needles and which had been managed by the same family for six generations.  The company’s director considered pessimistically that economic decline was inevitable, and allowed the company to go into liquidation. Didier Vrac refused to face unemployment, and instead decided to buy the company. He relocated its costly head offices from Paris to the factory’s premises in Normandy, and developed the company internationally. In the United States, he discovered a flourishing niche in the market, patchwork : a form of sewing practised by a wealthy and sophisticated clientele. He rented stands at professional fairs as well as at fairs for the general public in order to publicise the company, and in so doing, enabled Bohin to gain an excellent reputation in the United States, which then boosted the recognition and success of the brand in France. He further strengthened this reputation by opening a museum on the factory’s premises in 2014 with financial help from the local authorities, before selling the company to one of his employees in 2017.

The entire article was written by:

Élisabeth BOURGUINAT

This session was published in issue n°139 of the Journal de l'École de Paris du management, entitled Ce cher et fragile bon sens.

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