EY Slovenia recognized the sucees of family-owned company VARIS Lendava with the EY Family Business Award of Excellence. Their team of leading European specialists for development and manufacturing of prefabricated bathrooms makes between 4.000 to 4.500 bathrooms per year, which comes up to more than 100.000 in their 40-year history. Recently, the leadership of the company has been transferred to the second generation.
Family business VARIS Lendava is lead by mag. Sabina Sobočan, Director and co-owner of the family company and daughter of the founder. The company’s good practices have been recognized by several awards, such as the 2016 innovation award for a unique, environmentally-friendly green concrete. Their vision, results and family culture convinced EY Slovenia to bestow upon them the EY Family Business Award of Excellence 2022.
“The award we received comes with pride, purpose, and responsibility. We are proud to be recognized for our excellence and our purpose and responsibility it to remain this way. We feel responsible to ourselves, our family members and business partners, the local environment we operate in, but also to Slovenian and international economy and society as a whole. We are creating a better world for everyone and building a responsible future,” said mag. Sabina Sobočan in her acceptance speech.
30 million of revenue in 2020
Family company VARIS has specialized in manufacturing of individualized construcion modules, i.e. ready-made bathrooms. They manufacture concrete, lightweight and combined bathrooms and are one of the three leading European manufacturers. They are a trusted partner for international hotel chains Sheraton, Motel One, Hampton by Hilton, Holiday Inn, and InterCity. In addition to prefabricated bathrooms, their products include concrete elements for skateparks and pump tracks. Their finalized construction elements and modules are perfect for installation in hotels, residential buildings, hospitals, student dormitories, jails, and other buildings, where functionality and durability are just as important as style.
The advantage of their products is that they make an investment cheaper and safer. An object such as a 130 room hotel can be built three months faster compared to classical construction. This means lower total investment costs and faster return on investment for the investor. This type of construction also eliminates any problems and unexpected costs at the construction site. VARIS Lendava does most of its business in Germany, followed by Austria, Switzerland and Slovenia. In 2021, they made almost EUR 32 million in revenue, which is almost twice as much as in 2016.
Two generations of family entwined with the company
The company has been making prefabricated bathrooms since 1977 and was born from former Gorenje IMO company, where Štefan Sobočan, Sabina’s father and co-owner of the company, used to work as a Director. He led VARIS until 2015, when he trusted the company to his daughter Sabina. This is how he explains his decision: “There are three options when choosing your successor. You can teach someone, you can hire an experience manager with good references, or you can choose someone from your family and raise them to be your successor.” Today, Štefan is involved in the strategic decisions of the company, Sabina leads the company as the Director, and her partner Marko Čuš is part of the company’s leadership team. The family company currently employs 211 people.
The basic unit of a successful European company is family
“The basic unit of VARIS Lendava is the Sobočan family. The company is a sector leader in Europe and their comprehensive family approach is an example of good practice on a global scale. There are several reasons they deserve this award, among them their commitment to quality control on all levels of the company. They follow their approach that everything is possible and are building the future of the company with constant research investments. The next generations will receive a company in an excellent form,” points our Mojca Emeršič, head of family business at EY Slovenija. This year’s EY Family Business Award of Excellence was the seventh in a row, with last year’s winner being Intra Lighting. Previous awarded companies include Lotrič Metrology, Vivapen, Lumar IG, KLS Ljubno and Roto.
The winner was selected by an independent commission, whose members are prof. dr. Boštjan Antončič, Head of the Department of Entrepreneurship at the Faculty of Economics in Ljubljana, M.Sc. Edita Krajnović, director of Mediade, and chairman of the commission Matjaž Čadež, founder of Halcom and MBILLS companies.
