Sedacor: allies of nature

A company that is committed to a strategy of vertical integration and diversification of cork products to which they add value. Sedacor has blessed the world with innovative sustainable solutions applied across the wine, construction, decoration, furniture, transports and textiles sectors.

Within the scope of “COMPETE 2020: close to those that add value”, we were thrilled to welcome the Chairman the JPSCork Group, Jorge Pinto de Sá and its commercial director, Manuel Albertino Oliveira.

A Brief History of the company

The JPSCORKGROUP has been engaged in cork since 1924. The central business area of the group is Industry, which produces cork articles. It is composed of Jorge Pinto de Sá, Lda. and SEDACOR - Sociedade Exportadora de Artigos de Cortiça, Lda., operating from several factories located in Portugal. 

. Mission: The JPScorkgroup strives to produce and sell cork products that meet the needs of its customers, ensuring reliability, flexibility and competitive quality standards, follow-up and after sales service in order to exceed customer expectations.

. Vision: To establish long-term relationships with our stakeholders, ensuring their satisfaction and contributing to the domestic and international success of JPSCorkGroup. To be the partners chosen by our customers in investigating solutions and specialized technical support in cork products, being aware of the added value that experience and the skills acquired together represent.

. Values: •    To exceed the expectations of domestic and international customers in terms of products and competitive prices. •    To be distinguished by the quality of our products. •    Constant technological and technical development in products and processes. •    Continuous improvement in the product range through ongoing Research and Development. •    To ensure the development of employees’ skills and their involvement in the quality, environment and health & safety processes. •    Compliance with applicable regulations.

. Innovation and Quality: We are an innovative company in the cork sector.  In the manufacturing processes, which we continually improve, in the enhancing of product attributes, in the creation of new applications for traditional products and in the introduction of new products.

The R&D department is the centre of innovation, supported by the entire organization under a more comprehensive and inclusive concept. It is, therefore, a department with the most advanced and up-to-date technological resources in the cork market and includes highly qualified human resources.

COMPETE 2020: close to those that create value

“The cork sector is globally dynamic, characterized by the entrepreneurial spirit of its players that are committed to strategies of product and market diversification in the search for sustained competitive advantages in the global market.” That was how the president of COMPETE 2020, Rui Vinhas da Silva, characterized the cork sector after a four day visit to various companies spread throughout the country.

As part of the initiative “COMPETE 2020: close to those that create value”, the programme occurred from the 12th to the 16th of January 2016 and resulted in the visit to 21 industrial plants representative of the different subsectors of the cork industry and also a meeting with four other business people who presented their companies in the Observatório do Sobreiro e da Cortiça, in Coruche. This route also included visits to the three entities that represent this sector: Centro de Formação Profissional da Indústria da Cortiça (Cincork), the Centro Tecnológico da Cortiça (CTCOR), and the Associação Portuguesa da Cortiça (APCOR) – the entity responsible for the visits.

The president of COMPETE 2020 stressed that “the cork sector is committed to the building of sustainable competitive advantages upstream in the value chain, which result in efficient productive processes and downstream, through the satisfaction of the requirements of demanding clients in differentiated markets.” He also highlighted that “many companies have similar technological and equipment infrastructures, but it is the entrepreneurial spirit and the vision of the business person that makes the difference between success and failure.” At the level of technology and of productive processes, Rui Vinhas da Silva, emphasized that the cork sector companies are “endowed with sophisticated technologies, showing a constant concern for continual improvement of management processes, through the adoption of systems and techniques of modern management. They possesses extensive know-how and knowledge of productive processes as well as markets globally."

Rui Vinhas da Silva further noted that the cork sector “is committed to strategies of product and market diversification, rooted on a philosophy of constant innovation.” He also stated that: “it is a sector with a strong understanding of the dictates of economic competitiveness and of global market requirements.”

For the president of COMPETE 2020 there exist “stereotypes about the level of development of the country and its industry that frequently lead buyers, in B2B (business to business) and especially in B2C (business to consumer) contexts to have less willingness to prefer products of Portuguese origin or alternatively lead those foreign buyers to have psychological price ceilings above which they are not willing to pay for products claiming Portuguese origin. This reality has begun, progressively, to change, but there is still much work to be done for Portuguese products that have high intrinsic quality, but are yet unable to command price premia in demanding markets next to sophisticated buyers of high purchasing power. These negative stereotypes of the country of origin of the product cut across sectors of economic activity and are transferred to products that often are not even related.” He concluded: “the external image of the country could be a strong constraint to the adding of value to tradable goods and to the competiveness of the Portuguese economy in the global market. This reality has begun to change, but there still is a long way to go.”  

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