Skam restructures operation and the orders grow 40%
Gazeta Mercantil - 07/21/2008
While the manufacturers of machines and equipment register increases above two-digit numbers in sales in 2007, forklift manufacturer Skam, installed in Jundiaí (SP) since 1977, had grown 5%. The number was considered low by the officers in view of the heating in the market. The only national producer of forklifts at a segment shared by little less than twenty multinationals, Skam faced difficulties to compete after the commercial breakthrough of the Country. For that reason, it started 2008 determined to improve its performance. Its founder, 79 year-old Scot Maks Behar, who arrived in Brazil in 1953, hired a new executive officer, Paulo Coggo, to be the company's managing director. Together, they have reorganized the administrative structure of the company, are improving the production tools and setting out new focuses. With the internal reorganization, started early this year, the company already registers a 43% increase in the business inflow. The increase comes from orders that should only be reflected, in fact, in the next year's income. Nonetheless, the sales volume is already greater and the monthly income increased above the average it used to have, from R$ 1.6 million (US$ 1 million) to R$ 2.2 million (US$ 1.38 million) a month. That represents a 32% variation. "We also reached a higher level of production, which is even above what we expected. The idea was to start this year producing between 16 and 18 forklifts a month, and we are already producing 27. We may get to 40 or 45 a month in 2009", he completed. Among the reorganization strategies is the change in the focus of its products. With a much stronger competition in small-sized forklifts, Skam is beginning to specialize in the so-called "application engineering", the production of machines of greater size, aimed at the stacking in the warehouses of large industries, made to order and according to the needs of each client. Another strategy is to invest more in the lease market, too.