Miroiterie & Carpentry Aunis
Renamed Miroiterie & Carpentry Aunis, the company located in Lagord (17) near La Rochelle, was inaugurated on November 15 with a new logo, a new visual identity, a new website and a new leader that we have interviewed at the end of his first day of recovery in early October.
Journey of an entrepreneur of the mirror-joinery
" I am happy ; it's going well and I'm in my element "congratulates Dorothée Leneuf-Blaise at the end of her first day of recovery. In the miroiterie for ten years, the new leader defines herself as "atypical". After a master's degree in economics and ten years in an accounting firm, she joined GBM, a manufacturer of Cekal-certified insulating glass units, PVC joiners from the Rehau range and Technal certified aluminum manufacturer in Limoges (87). She will be the administrative and financial director for three years.
"After the judicial liquidation of GBM we took over the company in the form of cooperative, with colleagues who appointed me manager," she explains. GBM had a turnover of four million euros with 40 employees in 2017, but after five years as head of the company, it resigned, perhaps a bit cramped with the decision-making procedures inherent to S.C.O.P. The entrepreneur then embarked on an e-commerce project in the miroiterie. Employee director of the company, the relations with the shareholders do not leave him the decision space that it expected. "In January 2018, I found myself unemployed and I decided to be alone at the helm this time, and to look for a company to take over."
A drumming drive
Originally from New Aquitaine, this region will focus his research. "On the BPI website, there is a business transfer and takeover announcement service. I answered one of them which indicated "joineries aluminum and miroiterie, a true know-how". I sent my resume, signed the confidentiality undertaking; I knew they were at La Rochelle and Aluminiers Charged Technal: it's an image, a commercial force, a technical know-how and I was myself in Limoges, I knew very well the product, the provider. So I visited the miroiterie early May.
The company is not in trouble; taken over 12 years ago, it achieves a turnover of 1.2 million euros with 10 employees but its leaders want to change their life at the dawn of their 40 years. Dorothée Leneuf-Blaise, who has 42, signs an agreement at the beginning of the summer, "the time to set up the structure, to find funding".
Winner of the Réseau Entreprendre, which supports and accompanies it as well as Initiative Charente-Maritime, she was able to benefit from loans and also integrate local networks: "I do not know La Rochelle and a woman who buys a mirror company- carpentry there is not every day so I had to reassure employees as well as my financial and institutional partners that I had come to live in La Rochelle, that I was not there to manage a two days a week, "says the manager.
Give a new impetus to the company
After a phase of observation in the field last September, the roadmap of the new leader is clear: revitalize the company, modernize its image, give it a new impetus. "I presented my roadmap to employees. I presented them with a new logo, a new visual identity, they had an immediate overview of the image I wanted to give to the company. And they are very happy, very active, they got to work right away. The obsession of the employees of a company taken over is to fall on someone who does not know the job. Now I know the miroiterie and the carpentry alu: we immediately spoke the same language, we talked about building sites, suppliers, products, achievements, problems of customers and when we speak the same language it sticks immediately "explains t ' she.
Key objective for the coming year: "rehabilitate the production tool". Purchase premises, equip them with tools and set up a team. From the point of view of hiring a journeyman apprentice, aged 16, has just joined the troops a week after taking office Dorothée Leneuf-Blaise who welcomes it because train and transmit the know-how is part of his ambitions.
Recall that the company Rochelaise manufactures and installs aluminum Technal joinery for a client base of 60% private individuals and develops a business trading and cutting single glazing, replacement of breakage, work mirrors (shower screen, credence etc ... ) for the mirroring part. Its new leader aims for two million euros
