ACERBIS: SOUL & PASSION

Soul and passion” is Acerbis’ slogan
“Because this is what separates a life
rich in humanity and emotions
 from a life without them”.

THE COMPANY

Acerbis is a company born in 1973 and established by Franco Acerbis. From the beginning, it shows its competitive vocation in the market and for the market. In Acerbis they have the intelligent outlook to fulfil the needs of the competition riders, who at the beginning of the 70’s needed products with a higher level of security and competitiveness. And of course, if the professional rider takes advantage of it, so can the private rider.
In Acerbis, the work is undertaken with the same enthusiasm as in the first years. Efforts go unnoticed and work seems game in the Italian company due to their professionalism and passion for what they do. Franco Acerbis, its founder, likes to say that “if you like what you do today, you have more opportunities to see the future, because if you do what you like to do, your body and mind are benefited by it. Following your dreams makes life easier and less complicated”.
Acerbis turns over 60 million euros. It has 260 employees distributed in its 5 facilities in Italy: two factories, two logistic facilities and the headquarters in Albino. It also has facilities in the Czech Republic and in the United States. It distributes its products in 75 countries, with direct sales in the USA, Spain, Portugal, France and Great Britain.
Its activities covers motorbike sports, soccer (Franco Acerbis is the vice-president of the AlbinoLeffe an Italian B league team), winter sports (it sponsors great professionals in this sector, as Alberto Tomba, Giorgio Rocca, Deborah Compagnoni and Nadia Fanchini), bicycle (provider, among others, of the professional team Columbia), dancing or mountain. ACERBIS wants to improve even more its position as reference brand in sports.

THE FOUNDING

Franco Acerbis (60) has been married to Norma for more than 35 years. They have a son, Guido (33) and a daughter, Michela (31). He explains that when he competed in endurance rounds in 1972-73, he started to be interested in adding security and challenge to his own competition. The front mudguards, for instance, were too short to prevent the mud to blind you and the same happened with the back ones, and you got mud in the back. “I produced the first mudguards that were longer and wider than the normal ones of that time. I produced three, one for me, one for the local champion and the other to sell”, explains Franco Acerbis, who, as he took part in races all over Europe, noticed that other riders were interested in these improvements of the bike: “And I made 30 more, and today they are millions of accessories”. An example of the importance of this production over the years is the Elba, Franco’s favourite product. The Elba is a mask for the headlight with a square space for the number. When Franco invented it, everyone had them round and they were surprised and even laughed at the idea.

But it soon caught on, because it was much lighter. In little more than 20 years, nearly one million were produced. Franco likes the way in which, in the off-road world, every improvement rapidly expands in the market; his concept of clarity and practicality in his business combines perfectly with the idea to provide items for competition, as the championships are the next best thing to the real market.
Apart from that, Acerbis also inherits an Italian tradition with many centuries. In the renaissance they also valued practicality, but without forgetting about beauty. Franco’s grandfather always said: “before making anything, take a pencil and draft it on paper”, as a good way to say that anything must be carefully planned before being made. Thus, aesthetics merge with practicality.

THE BUSINESS

Acerbis has three main business activities: After-market, that is, the production of spares and accessories for any kind of bike and equipment for riders; the production Original Equipment Manufacturig – OEM, both for bikes and off road vehicles of four wheels; and the distribution of SCOTT USA products in several countries.
The Bike Aftermarket line is the original and most important line of the company. It is dedicated to the creation, development and production of plastic element to personalize the bike; accessories; functional modifiers or spares. From 1996, this division is in charge of the development of a clothes range for off-road, a complete range of protections and accessories, from helmets to boots, produced with first-rate quality materials and an innovative design, with the advice of the best riders in the world. The catalogue includes a touring and a casual range. The Acerbis range closer to asphalt equipment is the touring range: this new line offers great satisfaction to the user through a beautiful design, high protection and first quality materials, without forgetting “fashion”, as a true Italian company. The result is a first-rate product.
Acerbis is among the most important companies dedicated to the production of first parts and motorbike accessories. Its products’ quality is renowned and appreciated worldwide. Aprilia, BMW, Cagiva, Ducati, Honda, KTM, Triumph and Yamaha are some of the brands that charge Acerbis with the production of some of its plastic OEM parts, which are later included in their bikes. The production of this range is of more than 4 millions of items a year. The Italian company works together with its customers in all the stages of the process: from the design to the search of new materials; from the prototypes to mass production. Another asset of Acerbis are its highly qualified professionals, A group of people from different countries with a cosmopolitan point of view that mix the Italian creativity and energy with the experience of various cultures within the global market and with the aim to get ahead of their time and help their customers to improve quality. Acerbis takes advantage of its experience in the motorbike market to grow to other sectors such as trucks and industrial vehicles.
The distribution network reaches 75 countries with catalogue of 1800 products of the Acerbis brad. The two main markets are in Italy and the United States.
After 20 years of fruitful commercial relationship, Acerbis and Scott Usa (born in 1958) started a strategic alliance in 2004, thus allowing the expansion of the plastic products of the Italian brand in the United States. Once the objectives for Europe were achieved, a wide common sales network was created to achieve important synergy. Scott USA took charge of the sales, marketing and administration in its Idaho headquarters, while the off-road Acerbis products started to be distributed from the Scott USA facilities in Utah.
At the same time, Acerbis is the only distributor in Italy of the Scott products for motorbikes (textiles, goggles and accessories), and also for winter sports and bicycles. Acerbis also distributes Scott Motorbike products in Italy, Spain and England.
The American market is about the 20% of the company’s turnover. The founder holds it in high esteem: “The United States is a laboratory of opportunities –says Franco-, where they use all possible sale systems, also in the Internet, and it is constantly evolving. It is like being on the wave’s crest”. The USA market is a great consumer of Acerbis plastics and the company designs many of its products to fulfil the taste and needs of the customers of the other side of the Atlantic, even separating the East and the West Coast markets for its peculiarities.
Acerbis feels that a good quality product can be sold in any part of the world. Quality and internationalization are the base of the future. In the next few years, the customer will demand even more security and protection. To reach the highest number of markets possible, the logistic has to be improved, but it is also necessary to offer a good international image, through the Internet, for instance. The Net is a good sales environment, but Acerbis never forgets that the traditional shop is a very important way to create and maintain the relationship with its customers.

NEW MARKETS: Football and Fashion

From 2005, Acerbis has a department to produce equipment for soccer players, both technical and protective. This new range has its origin in the collaboration with the Albino Leffe club, based in the same town were the company has its headquarters. Franco Acerbis wanted to transfer to the “Calcio” the experience acquired in the motorbikes, “where the excellence of material is sublime”; he wanted to teach a “naive” market as is the football that the players are also athletes and they should not renounce to quality that will allow them to improve their performance. In the lower categories, the image has been more important than the quality of the product. An off-road t-shirt is produced with a minimum of 15 different materials. Without arriving to that end football equipment should also be a product that caught attention and offered quality and comfort. Acerbis has brought to the amateur and lower categories football materials of the highest quality and offers a cutting-edge technology in design and product development. With Acerbis, the football market has a company that wants its customers to have as good a quality as if they were premier league’s teams.
Fashion also has also found a place in Acerbis, with the launch of "Acerbis Republik", which had a very good reception when it was presented at the international fairs, such as Pitti Immagine Uomo (Florence) and Bread & Butter Fashion Show (Berlin). Guido, Franco’s son, has a special talent and sensibility for this market and together with the “Nadia Fassi” brand, they create new trends in casual fashion.

f-road si produce con più di 15 materiali differenti. Senza arrivare a questi estremi, un completo di calcio deve essere esteticamente bello e rispondere ai parametri di qualità e comodità. Acerbis ha portato nel mondo del Football la qualità dei migliori materiali, presentandoli in un prodotto disegnato e sviluppatocon alta tecnologia. Il mercato del football dilettantistico può contare su un’azienda che si preoccupa che la qualità non sia solo una caratteristica delle divise delle grandi squadre di leghe europee.

R&D

From competition emerge the best ideas for the private practice of the motorbike sports and Acerbis also knows that the fan will be benefited by the constant development of its products. The workbench is, of course competition, and the riders directly sponsored by the brand from Albino (Bérgamo, Italia) allow the R&D department to focus in creating relevant solutions for their customers

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The new products or the evolutions of old ones are tested in the machines and bodies of the riders, which use them in the hardest conditions to test their resistance and efficacy. The first development startswith the rider. Acerbis was born from racing, so it is natural that the process is this. The engineers put in practice the riders’ ideas, but the riders are the soul of these ideas. Another important thing is the psychology of the company’s managers that have a lot of experience in this field. Franco Acerbis likes the ability of a rider to “demand”, but also the ability of a mechanic to “invent”, because when you get ahead with your ideas you arrive first to the future. The use of these ideas in the paddock is a very important element to understand they way of thinking of the people that use your products. Franco thinks that the true world is not that of the professional fairs, but that of the paddock, were life is fast and you learn to use psychology to get ahead of the difficulties and where there is the perfect mix of opportunity and risk.
The success of the company is based in the quality of its products. That is why they need a cutting-edge technology and a work process which, since 2000 has the ISO 9001 certification, which guarantees the development of innovative products able to fulfil the needs of the customers in the best way possible.

MORE INVOLVEMENT IN RACING

Acerbis has always been near the racing off road world through its sponsoring and this was how it grew both technically and commercially. Acerbis has left its mark in great events such as the Dakar Rally, the Endurance World Championship or the European Cross-Country Championship. In fact, Acerbis has promoted and organized renowned competitions such as the legendary Incas Rally in Peru (1986 to 1990) or the Nevada Rally (USA) from 1991 to 1994 and a special edition in 1996 with ESPN). Its last great project was the organization of the Six Days of Enduro (ISDE) in Chile 2007, and also sponsored the Six Days 2008 in Greece.
America was the scene of many of the races Franco Acerbis took part in, such as the Six Days of 1973 in Massachussets; the Six Days of 2003 in Fortaleza, Brazil; and the already mentioned Incas Rally, as well as the Enduro de los Gallos in Patagonia).  Acerbis is also in the USA Motocross and SuperCross series.
  

Both in Europe and in the United States, Acerbis sends to the races the “Acerbis Race Support”, team to give full support to teams and riders.

ACERBIS RIDERS

The best two-wheel riders in off road have achieved their world titles with Acerbis in endurance, motocross or TT rallies. If you ask Franco Acerbis about “his” athletes, he will give you names of the old years: Alessandro Gritti, Yuri Stodulka, Melko Smith, but also new names such as Fabrizzio Meoni, Richard Sáinz, Stefan Everts, Juha Salminen , Ivan Cervantes or Gió Sala. “This is a very exciting sport, but it is also very painful”, he says, referring to the ones that are no longer with us. Acerbis holds them all in a very high esteem.
Franco Acerbis thinks that the best place in a race is behind the world, studying the competition and with the aim to discover a new athlete who deserves to wear his brand.

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THE FUTURE

Acerbis’ immediate future is guaranteed by Guido, the son of Franco Acerbis, who is the company’s General Manager and works side-by-side with his father.
 “Like father, like son”, Guido is a huge motorbike fan, or rather, a motorsports fan. He took part and even won some rounds of the Italian Rally Championship and also participated in the Six Days of Enduro in New Zealand 2006 and Chile 2007, where he won a silver medal in the amateurs’ class.
Since Guido works with Franco, a new factory has been opened in the Czech Republic; “Our factories here were already congested, so we decided that it would be a good idea. We have many customers in the north of Europe and the incentives offered by the Czech government convinced us to take that step. It has already been working for a year.
New product ranges have also been opened in soccer and fashion, as well as the already started in snow, bike and mountain, because Acerbis’ aim is to be the reference brand when talking about sport ….
Guido Acerbis is 35 years old and was born the same year in which Franco Acerbis decided to create the company. There is no doubt he has the same spirit.

“Work with passion delivers a well made product”