Focusing on growth

Andrew Yeghnazar, vice president - international sales and business development at RathGibson says growing business amidst global financial crisis is possible.

What's your Middle East presence?

We have an established office in Manama, Bahrain. The Middle East operation fits with our overall global development strategy. The strategy was simple, get closer to the actual customers who are using our products, and provide "real solutions and excellent service in real time" to essentially make it easier for customer to do business with us.

Recently, we were awarded the honour of supplying stainless steel heat exchanger tubes for the Jebel Ali ‘M' power station in the United Arab Emirates.

What are your chief products?

Our main products are precision stainless steel tubes and pipes. These are both straight lengths as well as coiled products. We offer both welded and stainless pipe and tube. Our welded tubes are considered among the best in the world, and because our seamless factories specialty is providing world class tubes in extremely short lead limes, we are often called upon in emergency situations.

We have invested heavily in our manufacturing facilities, bringing in high tech tools and equipment that enables us to consistently provide world class products to our customers, while also allowing us to explore new ways of doing things and also developing new products that enable us to grow and expand our business.

What has your response to the economic downturn been?

We are proactively and aggressively turning over every stone looking for opportunities to serve existing and new customers. The 4000 megawatt power plant in Tata Mundra project in India and Jebel Ali ‘M' power station are testament to the fact that we as an organisation are indeed continuing to be aggressive in the marketplace.

Another major growth area that we as a company are keen to support is the whole desalination business. We look forward to serving the Middle East in this critical area.

Are you consolidating or restructuring any business units?

Despite the global situation, we continue to drive towards growth in a responsible manner yet with determined intentions. In fact, not only have we not laid off anyone in our international group, we have strategically expanded our sales footprint globally to fuel growth in these tough times.

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