“2009 has come to an end and we certainly cannot afford its sequel in 2010”, starts with no hesitation Piergiorgio Benuzzi, Giben managing director, whom we met in Pianoro (Bologna) in the group headquarter. “Like recent history shows, we were ready to find an all-Italian way out of this severe crisis”, he explained. “Unfortunately, a trade partnership is not enough, in our opinion. We need to draw new scenarios, achieve a company size that allows to follow accurate strategies: this crisis can be compared to a war, with no bombs or destroyed buildings, but with factories that risk to be emptied. It will take years to get out of it and we will all be different, maybe we will do what we never even imagined. From such a scenario you do not get out with small-scale strategies, with agreements that only help cut costs and do not pursue a strong solution to the problem”.
So, Giben changed playground and passed from the Woodtech Alliance (a project started at the beginning of 2009 with Masterwood and Viet) to an all-new organization, ‘changing skin’ and showing off everything it is and wishes to be, with impressive clarity and the will to start on a new page.
The key stage of this decisional process is with no doubt the joint venture with the Taiwanese group Anderson, a real giant in the production of nc machining centers. However, this agreement is only the most striking step of a story in which the Pianoro-based group lines up an articulated structure, organized into four divisions: Sizing division (panel saws, the core business of the group), Nc division (nc machines with the Giben by Anderson brand), Edge division (edge-banding machines manufactured by Giben do Brasil and resulting from the joint venture with a renowned Korean manufacturer we are not authorized to name) and the Special project division, combining the Pbi division (solutions for large panel manufacturing plants), engineering for the furniture industry and the Graphic division (nc printing on any type of material).
About this deep re-organization we will have the chance to talk more in detail in the next issue of Italianwoodtech-Xylon International, when we will also tell you about the arrival of the new managing director of the group, Giuseppe Riva, from Giben Usa, about the opening of Giben China at the end of March, the startup of an innovative control system to supervise all group’s machines operating worldwide, 24 hours a day, and of course about the official presentation of the new joint venture, which will be celebrated in Taiwan at the beginning of April.
ITALY-TAIWAN
“For quite a long time, I have been convinced that technology manufacturers should radically change direction”, explains Benuzzi. “Consumption will never go back to what we were used to and this will force a contraction in technological offer. We are going to produce less woodworking machines and only those looking for radical changes will be able to survive. For months I have been supporting such certainty and our need to have medium and long-run perspectives in every area. In recent months we received several proposals – some are publicly known, others I will not and cannot mention – which allowed us to put our project into practice. Among others, we got a proposal by the Anderson Group, thanks to a long-standing cooperation between our and their American branch office. I must say it immediately looked like a long-term opportunity, which perfectly matched our vision, so we decided to take the next step. Once we understood that it could be a huge opportunity for us, we checked whether our partners had any intention to embark on such an adventure, we thought about a ‘tighter’ partnership than a marketing alliance, but we did not get the feedback we wished and we considered essential for the future of our companies”.
How did all this happen?
“By the end of November we got in touch and in mid-December we met Mr. Tzu-Jen (Andi) Hsieh, owner of the group, in the United States. It took us two days of discussion and confrontation to understand what problems each one of us wanted to face and what we wanted out of this partnership. We found out we were on the same page and convinced that we had to work on a real Italian-Taiwanese joint venture.
I would very much like to point out that we could have got to the creation of something similar also in Italy, without going to Asia. But we could not manage. We could not see the chance to create such a strong bond, such a tight partnership here in Italy. Our country has dozens of capable technology manufacturers, who produce excellent products and rely on utmost quality skills and know-how. Yet, we did not encounter the same strength, the same determination, the same ability in terms of strategies, industrial policy. Companies like ours have to make a choice: if they stop, they are inevitably doomed to lose in importance; in order to go on we need renewed energy and finances. During the last months of 2009 within our contacts we checked several opportunities, but none opened the same perspectives to us as those configured in the joint venture with Anderson.
I repeat, our industry is going to experience a contraction which could be dramatic for many, and only by massively increasing the company size we will be able to face international markets and still have something to say”.
Everything is ready for Giben by Anderson, the brand which will label all nc centers manufactured by this joint venture. The brand duly highlights the name Anderson, even though the Taiwanese were willing not to ‘appear’, but in Pianoro they decided to give it a proper importance. “We are talking about a real giant for numeric control technology – explains Benuzzi – listed at the Taipei stock exchange, with a certified production in compliance with Iso 9002 standards and 700 million turnover. The world’s largest manufacturer of nc centers and one of the two leaders in the application of this technology in the construction of electronic equipment with several patents in the nesting sector, for which it was practically the inventor”.
A new step in the history of Giben aimed at showing experience and abilities which the company has always featured, and not only with cutting machines, in fact starting from the upcoming days the combined design of few new families of working centers will benefit from the knowledge of Giben of the European market and its ‘peculiarities’. As already mentioned, we will talk about it in the next issue… (l.r.)
Giben-Anderson: a joint venture
that looks into the future
ultima modifica: 2010-03-08T00:00:00+00:00
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