Vice-President of the Supervisory Board, Provalliance Group (former CEO, stepped down 2025), Jean-Louis David (Provalliance Group)
Marc Aublet (Provalliance) : Provalliance arrive en Inde
Ce mercredi 21 février, Marc Aublet, PDG de Provalliance, a présenté le groupe Provalliance qui est un leader mondial de la ...
Transcript (17 segments)
I
Interviewer0:00
Good morning business business today. We're going to talk about hair with the CEO of Prov Alliance, Marc Aublet. Good morning.
M
Marc Aublet0:09
Good morning.
I
Interviewer0:09
Who is crossing the half-billion euro mark already in revenue, and who is launching into the Indian market, a big event. Landing in India, we always say every day on set, India is the new China. So you're going there. What is your ambition for India? And also explain to us the particularity of this hair market in India, which is culturally extremely important.
M
Marc Aublet0:30
Well, first of all, it's one of the largest countries in the world, a country with a meteoric economic rise. Consumers aspire to everything French, especially beauty. Many French companies are already there successfully. In their wake, we are implanting ourselves. We have an ambition to open about a hundred salons within 10 years on Indian soil.
I
Interviewer0:55
Marc, you have brands like Saint Algue, Jean-Louis David, Franck Provost. Are you going to surf on the luxury market there? Because those brands here are not luxury; they work well but don't represent luxury there.
M
Marc Aublet1:09
Absolutely, we have a more upmarket positioning. We address a wealthier clientele, middle classes with more money, and a very wealthy clientele looking for French brands. And apparently, touching someone's head in India is very particular; hairdressers have a great aura in the Indian population.
I
Interviewer1:47
In India you want to open 200 salons in 10 years? Here in France, what trend are we seeing? Hairdressers closing, reinventing themselves. Some even have 4 licenses, there are offices with hair salons. There's a real change in how this retail segment is approached.
M
Marc Aublet2:07
I don't know if there's a real profound change. It's true that for two years small salons have been closing. The market is rationalizing, but it's a gigantic market. There are over 70,000 salons in France, it's the second largest artisanal sector. There are three times more hairdressers than bakeries in France. It's part of the social fabric. Often it's the last shop open in a village. It's part of French life. So yes, there are new models, but fundamentally we will always need hair salons. There is rationalization and big brands emerge.
I
Interviewer2:45
So you're not afraid of being, to use a not-so-pretty word from the Anglo-Saxon, disrupted by self-employment? We see in Anglo-Saxon countries more and more independent hairdressers going to homes and offices, renting chairs. That's not yet the case in France. Do you think that will come?
M
Marc Aublet3:08
That trend has existed for a long time in Anglo-Saxon countries; they rented chairs. Today there are salon suites in the US in coworking spaces. In France and Latin countries, I think people are very attached to their employee status, the famous CDI. So we don't feel that trend arriving, but we watch all these models carefully. If there was a deep aspiration from hairdressers, we would go in that direction because there's a big recruitment issue for your entire sector.
I
Interviewer3:38
You were quite called out on the question of salaries that were below the scales in your collective agreements. Has that changed? Does it allow attracting new profiles?
M
Marc Aublet3:49
Yes, of course. First, we must adapt. We try to seduce young people to join this profession. We have evolved, adapted to new mentalities. For example, more flexibility, the possibility of working 4 days instead of 5. The Saturday sacrifice, we tried to open our chakras to occasionally offer a break on Saturday to be with family. It's a question of adaptation. It's a profession that offers enormous challenges and possibilities, allows access to entrepreneurship fairly easily. We are also there to accompany young hairdressers who want to become bosses one day.
I
Interviewer4:29
So you have grown a lot in recent years, notably through acquisitions. You bought the continental branch of the American Regis Corporation and thus surpassed it in terms of global market.
M
Marc Aublet4:40
Absolutely. We are very proud to announce today that we are the largest player in this profession in the world. It has been years of continuous rise. Regis was our associate once, they had some difficulties, but in any case they rationalized their network. So today we are indeed the main player. We are very proud of that in a market that is considerable.
I
Interviewer5:02
Well, good luck in India. Have you taken any known muses to represent you?
M
Marc Aublet5:07
Listen, we hope that all of Bollywood will join us.
I
Interviewer5:11
Exactly, with their beautiful hair. Prov Alliance and its CEO Marc Aublet were our guest on Good Morning Business.