So more, I would say, a turnaround approach than a transformation. I believe it’s important to remind that we have done already since 2021. I would say, a silent restructuring in the sense that you didn’t have heard about it, despite, we work in a highly unionized country like Italy, but we reduced already by 577 units our overall workforce, including a quarter and factory and we’re going to be continuing in this direction. So to streamline and making more agile our quarter and also to optimize and continue optimizing our factory. Additional activity in the, let’s say, chapter of cost optimization are the one, which are taking the simplification and streamlining of our complexity. Starting really from the collection, where we have this philosophy of adding fewer and bolder launches in the market rather than operating with several launches, which was the modus operandi of the company when distribution was primarily worth sale.
In terms of growth, our priority remains organic growth. One distinctive asset of the company is the one of adding 700 stores. We believe that, that is really where we should start from because if we make those stores more productive, we’re going to get more sales momentum, but also better utilization of the investment we have done directly and the investment our partner done directly. Of this store, although 700 store roughly one-half are in China, and I will expand later on China. So what we are doing to improve retail. We are improving our talent pool. We have built a central retail division, which is really helping to capture the best practice starting from singular individual market like U.S., codifying them in disseminating them. We also invested in adding improved IT system that help us to read very carefully the performance at retail level, which is now the standard we use to engage in discussion with store management, so the store manager and on the level in the organization up to the country manager.
We want to strike to excel in retail management, so to be a credible partner also to our franchisee. As you know, out of 700 stores, roughly 600 are operated by franchisee. So clearly, that is where we expect the benefit to come from as well. So every effort we do in our directly operating store as the ultimate objective to be able to be credible partner for our dealers to improve their own performances. To support organic growth, we also strengthened our marketing team. We hired a retained person, which was already known to the group, Daniele Tranchini. He brings really a wealth of incredible experience, helped senior position in agency, including Walter Thompson and Publicis and they’re really already making a huge difference in shaping our unique story around the different markets.
Talking about market, a couple of highlights on two important geographies. The first one, China. As you all know, especially the investor and analysts that follow us, in China, we are in JV with Kuka. And we don’t consolidate line by line because we own 49%. But our aspiration is not to consider China as a financial investment, but really as part of our operation to make sure that also China benefit from our learning and especially manage the brands in the way they should be managed. After that, for almost three years, and at least since the beginning of my [indiscernible] date, was impossible to travel to China. We have been already 2 times in China since May last year. For a reasonable period of time – so many time, two weeks with the most important people in the organization, which are our Chief Brand Officer; and including our Chairman, Pasquale.
I also in full agreement with our Board take full responsibility to the support of the China operation to work in partnership with our JV. China is clearly a market where the wind not only for furnishing but for everything has changed significantly. I mentioned in my initial speech the potential implication of Evergrande, which was the market leader in real estate, which is down 90% of its market cap and is facing really a difficult situation. So we really strengthened the quality of the relationship with our JV team in the spirit of making sure they really can benefit from our brand, merchandising, retail knowledge and guidance. And in accordance with our Board, I’m planning to be back in the next few weeks in China for at least two, three weeks, we need to support this process.
