A year to remember

Industrial systems for hot and cold gluing: efficient products and strategies that are “environmentally and user friendly” by one of the sector’s leaders. With 40 years under its belt, Robatech confirms its intention to leverage the gains it has made to grow further.

2015 was a year of excellent performance and important benchmarks for Robatech, which celebrated its success with various initiatives dedicated to customers and employees. Davide Morten, commercial and marketing manager for Robatech Italia, explains.
«We had a lot to be satisfied with, and excellent results, both at the corporate level and for Robatech Italia in particular, and this - the manager stresses - in spite of general financial instability and volatile currency exchange rates, affecting even the Swiss franc. The Robatech Group has increased volumes, beating its already record growth of the previous year and, in Italy as in abroad, the company has sought to extract even more value from human capital with direct full-time hiring, guaranteeing employees professional satisfaction and ease of mind about the future».

2015 marks the 40th anniversary since the founding of Robatech. What meaning has this occasion had and what initiatives have you implemented to celebrate?
The concern wished to celebrate this 40th anniversary by focusing on communication, constantly through our web portal, but especially in marketing actions to promote the excellence of our products and services. Particularly significant and popular was the “40 years, 40 months” promotion, according to which all purchases made in 2015 are covered by a 40-month warranty instead of the usual 24-month one, a clear demonstration of how reliable the concern considers its products.
In addition to these initiatives, Robatech wanted to dedicate the most heartfelt celebration to its employees, who represent an indispensable resource with which to share the satisfaction of a benchmark passed. And so, in late October, the concern organized a 3-day mini-cruise on a specially-reserved liner, which traveled from Athens to Santorini, with the group’s worldwide personnel as the guests of honor, participating in ceremonies and gala dinners. The cruise was the crowning event of a week of conferences and meetings held in Athens for the biennial meeting of managing directors of the various subsidiaries in order to analyze the market and discuss intervention strategies. Of course, at both excursions, our CEO Marcel Meyer was also in attendance. His father Hans Meyer founded the enterprise in 1975.

A “family enterprise”, on the Italian model...
For all intents and purposes, Robatech is a multinational, active in over 50 countries of the industrialized world, but it has maintained a human heart and face. And although it belongs to a holding company, the personal and business involvement of the family, which actively participates and presides over every important decision, is still decisive.

What about the future? Any short-term plans?
As far as the Robatech Group is concerned, we will present at Drupa with many new offers. In fact, we have many new products in the wings, many developed on the wave of optimism from the strong performance of the last two years and the good market prospects. If we look at Italy specifically, we will participate at Xylexpo in May. That is an event for the wood sector (one of two strategic business areas for Robatech Italia, Editor’s note), and we will definitely be at Cibus Tec in October to highlight our commitment to the packaging sector.
What’s more, packaging machinery manufacturers are among your largest customers, and according to the most recent data, the sector is still going strong…
Indeed. Much of our business is directly tied to machine builders, the OEMs of the packaging sector that, as we know, export 85% of their turnover. The fact that we are a multinational company that makes local service in various countries one of its strengths has led us to become a preferred partner. For a couple of years now, the world of Italian packaging machinery has been doing very well, and as a response, we are following that trend, growing in terms of market shares. This is a point of satisfaction from various perspectives, because not only does it prove the reliability of our offer, but it also serves as a testament to the popularity of the features of our service, including that offered to the machine builders’ end users, speed of delivery and response times. This effectively is what distinguishes us from even the most respected competitors.

For Robatech Italia, then, the target market is not just machine builders, but also those machines’ end users.
Exactly, machine builders guarantee a substantial part of our turnover, but some 40% or so comes from business with local users that, having grown considerably during the last two years, represent a very promising outlet. The direct relationship with a machine’s end user, in addition to guaranteeing a different profit margin, also enables us to make best use of our competencies in technological innovation, service and consulting on the product’s reliability. In such a way, the recovering Italian market helps us grow in this case too.