"From when I was a toddler,” says Sergio Gauci, managing director of Ideacasa, “my destiny was written. My father, grandfather and great grandfather were all in the retail industry. After school I would get on my bicycle and go to see my father at his shop.” Sergio went there to spend time with his father; the result, though, was that a passion for the industry was kindled in him. It was a passion that led him to get involved in the Gauci family business as soon as he left university nine years ago, the same passion that he has carried with him throughout his life.
The decision to enter the retail business may seem automatic in retrospect, but Sergio did initially consider other careers. “I was interested in engineering,” he says. “I like anything mechanical.” In reality, though, he suggests, the gulf separating the two may not be that wide. “In some ways, I see the company as a huge mechanical jigsaw puzzle. There are similarities between a business and an engine. Ultimately, an engine generates power, a business generates profit… Maybe I see things this way to accommodate my passion as well,” he says.
He might have a penchant for mechanics, but there is nothing mechanical about Sergio. Throughout the interview he speaks about his career with enthusiasm. In this business, he says, “we are not just selling furniture – we are selling dreams, aspirations. How else would you explain the fact that one chair costs €50 and another €500? It’s not just about functionality – but identity, lifestyle, expectations.”
So, after all these years in the business, can Sergio accurately predict what type of furniture someone would choose just by looking at them? “There is no clear recipe,” he says. “We’ve had old couples wanting to change from traditional heavy wood to furniture with a contemporary feel,” he says, “and young trendy couples wanting traditional styles.” As well as varying from one client to another, Sergio explains, Maltese trends have changed drastically over time. Today, the Maltese furniture market, Sergio tells me, falls somewhere between the trendy innovative Italian one and the slightly more conservative UK one. There is, however, a considerable niche that follows the trend – that is quite avant-garde, according to Sergio. “Ideacasa caters for them too, which is why we are investing in the latest furniture styles even though we know that ultimately the majority will not necessarily be buying these.”
During our interview Sergio’s phone rings twice. In both cases it is his father. Does Sergio feel the strain of working with his family? “The reality of a family business is that you are unable to leave work behind. It’s difficult but very important to keep a separation. When we are at work, my wife – who also works with me – is a member of the workforce.”
How difficult is it to strike a work-life balance, I wonder. “I don’t think I’m the best person to talk to about this,” says Sergio, laughing. “There are times when you have to accept that you just cannot have a balance.” Still, sometimes you need to find time for yourself, he insists, to free your mind. Sergio loves the sea and luckily, he says, so does his wife. “Business complements who you are – but it is only a part of who I am. A person is made up of many elements and I don’t want it to take over.”
Studies into the specific challenges faced by family businesses have been increasing at an exponential rate. It’s unsurprising really. In a book entitled What is different about family businesses? Ralph Chami points to studies carried out in the late 90s showing that family firms made up anywhere between 65 and 80 percent of all worldwide businesses and a whopping 40 percent of the Fortune 500 companies in the USA. It’s quite interesting that despite our tendency to think of businesses as impersonal, unemotional and clinical, it is businesses based on the family – that most personal and emotional of institutions – that remain the bedrock of much of the economy the world over.
Significantly, Sergio compares the business to a baby – “you watch it grow and take care of it. It needs constant monitoring.” But although Ideacasa may be Sergio’s metaphorical baby, he also has an actual baby – a one-year-old boy. “It is not always easy, returning home tired from work – but you have to prioritize – you have to spend time with your child,” says Sergio adamantly.
Maintaining a work-life balance is all the more challenging in a business which demands continuous development. Up until 2002, he says, the Maltese furniture market was “static”. But the removal of the import levy on furniture injected a dynamism into the market like nothing else. Nowadays, says Sergio, clients know what is out there. That has exerted considerable pressure on Ideacasa to keep up, to innovate. “It comes with challenges,” he says, “but in business you have to keep moving – it’s growth or decline – there’s no in-between.”
