For the past couple of years, there’s been a pessimistic consensus in the crane industry that says ‘we’ll never see another 2007’. Luigi Porta, Fassi’s newly appointed commercial manager, thinks the consensus is wrong: “In the last forty years, there have been three recessions. Each time, people have said that the peak would not return; each time it returned.”
Porta has been with Fassi for about 25 years. At SAIE this year, the company announced a new structure, which it says is aimed at operating in an increasingly complex global marketplace. Porta has been appointed commercial director.
He estimates that in the 2007 market peak, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 knuckleboom cranes were sold worldwide. That number, Porta says, probably fell to 20,000 in 2009. This year, he expects the market to grow by 10–15%.
Fassi’s aim in the downturn has been to build market share. Porta sees weaknesses in many of Fassi’s competitors that he has been able to take advantage of: “They’ve not been able to keep their distribution stable, and they’ve focused on lowering their prices, which has destabilised their distribution further. Our distributors have been told to produce long term plans, covering sales and aftersales service.
“We’ve also been able to attract the attention of staff from our competitors. We’ve focused in particular on one competitor that has undergone a drastic reorganisation. We’ve gone to their customers, and offered fast delivery.
“Those companies that have remained reactive have gained market share.”
As well as poaching staff and customers from rivals, Fassi is looking to build its business in new markets. Porta highlights North Africa, noting that the company is now represented from Morocco to Egypt, and says the company is beginning to look to Central Africa. At the same time, Fassi is looking to Eastern Europe, starting with Russia and Belarus.
The secret to this growth has been liquidity: “Lots of out competitors suffer from poor liquidity,” Porta says, “We’ve been able to navigate with a stable condition; our liquidity has allowed us to grow volume as the market grows.”
Fassi is still sitting on a warchest from the sale of its platform business, Socage. This will give it opportunities to enter new sectors. Over the last year, Giovanni Fassi says, the company has been looking for acquisition targets in the timber crane sector; “They’re almost all very small manufacturers, but very complimentary to construction cranes. The customers are different, but the dealers are the same.
“With only two major players, there’s an opportunity for a third.” Fassi goes further, citing Epsilon as the only strong player in the market today, and predicting a new entrant could possibly take second place.
The company has made some big claims: next year, it will have the opportunity to prove them.
