Time to rebuild the business

Road construction equipment manufacturers use the interval brought by the crisisto rebuild productive concepts and market strategies

As everybody knows, the drastic economic shrinkage of the country was caused by several factors. The main point to be solved, however, is the unstable political situation, whose consequences are felt more deeply in the areas that depend of political decisions.

Road construction, highly dependent of public work biddings for its good operation is among the areas more burdened by the turbulent moment. This is the sole reason why it is facing one of the highest drops of Brazilian industry: approximately 60 percentor even more in specific cases. To balance this reduction, foreign trade comes in with total power, being the key player of the reduced volume of business carried out currently by Brazilian companies. These companies are using their plants as distribution centers for other regional markets and sometimes for other continents.

This is the case of Volvo CE, which currently still has its sales ranking leaded by Brazil, followed by Chile, Colombia, Panama and Mexico. According toBabliton Cardoso—who was already responsible by the development of company’s roadbuilding area in Latin America and is currently the commercial director of SDLG Latin America—the contemptible resultof internal sales in 2015 was partly balanced by external markets. “Peru had a significant growth during last year, as well as Bolivia, and both overcame Mexico, that was the main destination of products manufactured here”, says him. “In fact, the performance of these two countries was quite surprising.”

And even with the Brazilian crisis, Volvo CE continues to invest in training. This is being its bastion in the different business fronts where it is working. “During the last year we had an average of 15 training sessions in our Road Institute, one or more per month”, points him. “Far beyond technical and operating aspects, the purpose is to maximize productivity and profitability ofour clients.”

OPTIMIZATION

Keeping an eye on result optimization and obviously in the expectation of better days,Volvo CE took advantage of the good receptivity of the Road Institute to develop later the project“Paving the Future”, in partnership with Brazilian—and also Latin American in a near future—teaching institutions. The idea is to bring the future engineers closer to the road construction universe that—as explains Cardoso—continues to evolve to highest levels of efficiency. “This includes new technologies and we are anticipating this situation preparing these professionals, who will be the businessmen of the industry in medium and long term”, says him.

Many of these new technologies were presented in the M&T Expo 2015, carried out in the last year. Volvo CE renewed its product line, passing to have three products in each category, on tracks or on wheels. But most of their sales are concentrated in track equipment, which responds by 70 percent of the total, against 30 percent of wheel equipment. And the reason is quickly told by Cardoso: “Brazil paved only 12 percent of its road network. This is an interesting opportunity for large projects, that demand many machines with higher torque and capacity of traction, as well as wider screeds.These needs are totally attended by track models”, says him.

Things flow in the same way at Atlas Copco. According to Carlos Eduardo dos Santos, product manager of the company, the lack of paved roads in Brazil ensures alarge field for paver application. In addition, a large set of road sections will be bid during this year and the next ones, what makes business perspectives—mainly in a free-fall market—quite encouraging. Only for the Program of Investments in Logistics (PIL)—which involves improvement in the whole transport network, including all modes—investments are estimated in almost R$ 200 billion for the next years. More than 30 percent of them are related to roads.

According to the executive, the best attractive of Atlas Copco is its portfolio of customized products, which allow the client to achieve maximum productivity. “We studied thoroughly the operation to offer the most appropriate products”, emphasizes him. In the company, track pavers also stand out in the area, reaching 80 percent of total sales.