Elvas

EL.VA.S, company of the valley’s women.

Symbol of the 80s, billboards that make you dream, excite you and often create despair. Few people know that Italy has a company specialised in creating these products: a mainly female cooperative that for just over 40 years has designed, assembled and mounted billboards, and electronic boards.

Experience, reliability and innovation.

Why did you choose these three values?

Reliability because the customer is always the most important thing for us. We do everything possible to maintain any commitment taken. If the customer is in difficulty, we are there to solve the problem: it is emblematic that they come back to ask for our support even after 20 years. They know we provide assistance and are satisfied with our work.

The term experience is closely linked to reliability: we have been operational for more than 40 years. We make two types of product: electronic billboards for sport, and electronic boards for different sectors. It was the 80s: from gyms to locations to shops…Everyone needed electronic billboards. We were real pioneers, the first to use led technology. At that time, billboards used bulbs. However, for each match someone had to change the ones that were not working. We, on the other hand, had always planned a led design; at that time a true novelty. A technology that evolved over time.

Now in Italy, there are only two of us working with this type of product. There must be a reason if we are still here. What is definitely important is that we are the only one to produce everything in-house. We design, assemble, install and provide after-sales assistance. Companies like ours do not normally have a part dedicated to electronics. For us that is possible because we also make electronic boards. Having direct control of the process means we can take immediate action even if a problem occurs.

And last of all innovation. A term that our entrepreneurial career is based on. Electronics is evolving continuously and is increasingly more present on the market. To remain up-to-date, you need to invest in technological change.

Innovation means redefining activities in order to limit environmental damage. In our market, some protocols, like Kyoto, have imposed compliance with regulations: for example, no lead can be used since 2000.

You have been active for more than 40 years.

What are your projects for the next 40?

Our main focus is on exporting electronic billboards, at present our market is only Italian. For some time now we have been taking part in European events, but as you can well imagine, Covid has changed things.

The relationship with its territory.

What relationship does EL.VA.S have with it?

It is a very close, intense relationship. The company was set up at the start of the 80s as a subcontractor in the television world. In the years just after that, the activity began to have problems. It was then that the co-operative chose to change course by starting to create its own product: electronic billboards for sport, in order to guarantee work for all the employees in Colere.

That was the new start and we continued: a while ago we celebrated our first 40 years. At present, we have 23 employees, more than half women, with a very low turnover. Just think that I joined in 1997 and never left. It was my first job, but I wanted to work. So slowly,slowly, year after year, first Head of the Commercial department and then Chairwoman. Definitely a stimulating role, but truly hard on anyone; even more so if you are a woman and, like me, have a family. But I can count on the support of the large EL.VA.S family: we all know each other, and help each other every day.

Women are a great resource, just like all our employees. We are aware that moving away from Colere, a village with 1000 inhabitants and just 50 km from Bergamo and from Brescia, could solve a lot of our logistic problems.

Simply, lots of customers have doubts over delivery times because our position is off the beaten track. But, without our collaborators and our valley, we would never have celebrated 40 years activity. So that is why we will be staying here, believing in our project.