Tuesday, November 17, 2009

“We cater for expansion”

Press release, November 17, 2009

Interview with Florian Schildein, Marketing Manager of Essemtec

The Productronica exhibition in Munich, always a wealth scale for the electronics industry, was 20 percent smaller than 2007. However, the Swiss company Essemtec seems not to be concerned by the general trend: Its booth was double the size of previous years.

Adrian Schärli: Most exhibitors are rating this year's Productronica as slow. How was the exhibition for Essemtec?
Florian Schildein: It was excellent! Wednesday was a record day where we had more visitors than ever before in the company’s history. And this during a recession!

Visitors or prospective buyers?
Everybody from sales is reporting high-quality contacts. It seems that many visitors were looking for machines and solutions. They have waited for this exhibition to gather information for the decision process. Of course, our new pick-and-place machine Paraquda and the new software ePlace attracted many visitors, too.

What were the reactions to the new products?
Speechless. I have actually seen people standing with their mouths open during the presentation and immediately after they began to play with the machine themselves. The new software is really trend-setting, something the market has not seen before.

And those who were not speechless, what did they say?
First, there were comments regarding our booth: “You on to something,” they said. For me that means the same as “you are trustworthy, we can rely on you, we can count on you into the future.”

Your booth was bigger than two years ago?
Doubled. We are now at 230 m2. We need this space to show complete production lines so that we can make clear that we are the “Real Turnkey Supplier.”

“Real”?
There are suppliers who just sell products from different manufacturers under their name. These are turnkey solutions, but no “real turnkey solutions.” We are different. We develop and build ourselves. From us, the customer receives the machines for all process steps really from one single source.

What are the advantages for the customer?
Customers can save money before the investment, when buying and also after. With Essemtec, the customer only needs one contact person who knows all processes by 100 percent and can advise competently. For education and service, there is only one engineer required who can do everything at once. And, of course, the customer can profit from attractive package prices.

In looking at Essemtec’s booth design, we notice that mention of “Switzerland” has disappeared.
Not at all. Switzerland is in our booth in the form of our team! Maybe the “Swissness” is not that obvious any more, but it is still claimed in the logo. With the new Paraquda we are going to reach another customer segment that wishes to be addressed differently. Furthermore, I believe that the brand Essemtec already has high name recognition. It is known that we are from Switzerland. Mountains and green Alps are not required anymore to transport this message.

You are also investing abroad. Lately you have opened Essemtec Benelux and Brazil. What will be next?
We want to grow and we are proofing this with our booth, our products and with the entire Essemtec. We cater for expansion and we want to succeed. Our CEO Martin Ziehbrunner was recently awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year,” by Ernst & Young, which shows that we are on the right track. Of course, this also means that we build subsidiaries in interesting markets abroad.

This sounds exceptional: The industry is in a crisis, this exhibition is shrinking by 20 percent, and you are speaking of a recession. But Essemtec is still expanding?
Moaning is other people's business; this does not concern us. We are doing well. Essemtec is a wealthy company and we can afford investments. Moaning leads nowhere. Instead, you must always sail close to the wind and see where you can make things better, where you can be more effective. And this is the direction you must go!