Thermo Fisher begins operations in the country
Valor Econômico
Thermo Fisher Scientific, an American company leader in scientific equipment applied to industrial processes and to the life sciences area (development of medicines and vaccines), opened a branch in São Paulo and has plans to triple sales in Brazil within five years. The Brazilian office, with its own team of engineers, will sell equipment and render services aimed at industrial sectors such as cement, mining, coal, metal and steel, oil and gas and petrochemicals. At a second stage, the strategy of the company is to invest in the local manufacturing of equipment.
"Brazil is an important market in industrial segments, and we see great potential for growth in the country", says Dan Shine, President of the Division of Process Instruments of Thermo Fisher Scientific. The company, headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts (USA), operates worldwide by means of different divisions, including the division of environmental instruments (for measuring the quality of the air and water), the division of scientific instruments (applied to health and clinical laboratories, for instance), as well as the division of process instruments, among others.
In total, the company has 33 thousand employees in 38 countries, and last year, it earned nearly US$ 10 billion. After the opening of the office in São Paulo, which went into operation in December, the Division of Process Instruments of Thermo Fisher started selling equipment and rendering business and technical services with its own team. Services include technical assistance, remote support and over the phone customer service. The company also has an inventory of parts to cater to customers. The goal is to be closer to the Brazilian customers, says Shine. He has revealed neither the earnings of the division he controls, nor the revenue of the company in Brazil.
Shine said one of the plans of Thermo Fisher is to increase the participation of earnings outside the United States and Europe from 15% to 25%. And Brazil will have an important role in such work, even considering the possibility of starting assembling part of the equipment used by customers in the country. Alex Flaith, General Manager of the Division of Process Instruments of Thermo Fisher in Brazil, says the company is studying partnerships in the area of production. "We are in the process of surveying, of assessment of potential partners. The idea in the future is to have local production", says Flaith.
Until the opening of the branch the Brazilian customers of the division were served from the company's offices in other countries or through representatives in the country. "The idea now is to have Brazilian engineers, speaking Portuguese, which strengthens the presence and quality of the service", says Bernardo Ossandón, Commercial Director of the Division of the Process Instruments of the company for Latin America. Ossandón says one of the works of Thermo Fisher is to help the customers get the best products at lower cost and more efficiently from the industrial processes. "We measure critical process variables and the instruments we have together with the services we provide guarantee such results", he says.