Josef Kurzmann, executive director of Austrian formwork company Doka Group, tells us how the company is dealing with the present times and that the key to any successful business is a convincing price-performance ratio.
Is the business section in the morning newspaper worrying?
There is no doubt about it. Business conditions are very different from what they were a few months ago. After years of vigorous growth, many areas of the economy have been hit by the credit crunch.
The world economic crisis has not passed us by either, of course, but nobody ever solved a problem by sitting down and moaning about it. We see crises as opportunities and are looking ahead with realistic optimism. We have a tightly structured organisation and are confident that together with our customers, we shall make a good job of dealing with the challenges.
Has Doka’s double-digit revenue growth continued in 2008?
In 2008 we generated the highest revenues in 50 years of our company history. With double-digit growth rates worldwide, the first three quarters of last year went very well indeed. In the fourth quarter, however, we started to feel the first serious effects of the incipient world economic crisis on our sales.
What steps have you taken to counteract the crisis?
We are always working hard on continuously improving our performance and the quality of our relationships with our customers, and have set ourselves the ambitious goal of gaining further market share even under today’s difficult conditions.
Over the past few years, we have made intensive efforts to optimise our costs and our business processes. This means we now have an even more effective organisational structure, modern technologies and a cost-saving product range that is more relevant than ever in the present economic climate.
Are cutbacks in Doka’s worldwide distribution expected?
No – quite the opposite! Closeness to the customer has always been a vitally important success factor for Doka, and it still is. If you’re serious about helping your customers to minimise their construction-related project risks like deadline pressure, quality and safety, then you simply have to be able to keep their jobsites quickly and amply supplied with engineering capability, project expertise and formwork equipment.
This is why we shall still be investing in extending and upgrading our high-performing distribution network in 2009, albeit in modest doses, despite the fall in construction industry demand in many of our markets. It would not be realistic to expect the individual construction firm to put up with longer delivery times, just because of a downtrend in demand in the industry as a whole.
How will you deal with construction firms’ price sensitivity?
I’m firmly convinced that when you’re investing in new formwork equipment, it’s not enough to only look at the purchase price. What counts is a convincing price-performance ratio. Seen from this perspective, factors such as the manufacturing quality and durability of the formwork equipment, and the problem-solving capability of our formwork technicians, acquire far greater significance.
With the advanced technologies and systems that we use to produce, develop and distribute our products, we have nothing to fear from any price comparison. Our high manufacturing quality also delivers measurable added value to clients who rent formwork equipment. For example, the maintenance intervals are a lot longer, and fewer costs are incurred for subsequent finishing-work on the concrete.
But ultimately, don’t cut-price suppliers have the upper hand?
There are price-sensitive customers, and there are cost-conscious ones – and there’s a big difference between the two. Customers who focus on the total costs when buying or renting formwork equipment go for Doka because they know that we can give them a complete, cost-saving solution for all areas of building construction and civil engineering.
Turning now to the price-sensitive customers you referred to, the important thing here is to argue from the total-cost point of view and not just look at the purchase or rental prices. The formwork accounts for a relatively small portion of the total investment costs for a construction project – but has a big impact on daily construction progress, as well as on the important related issues of workplace safety and the quality of the concrete results.
How is Doka meeting the increasingly important safety needs?
All Doka formwork systems come with integral safety solutions and provide the best workplace safety. When we develop new systems, on-the-job safety is of absolute importance. This has made the name of Doka synonymous with safety in formwork operations, all over the world. To achieve this, close, networked co-operation with construction firms is crucially important.
The reason is that if you want to ensure safe and accident-free forming operations, it’s not enough just to have safety-optimised formwork equipment. It’s equally important to make sure that the site crew know how to use the formwork properly and safely. This is why we join with construction firms and external experts to offer special seminars on workplace safety.
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