23.02.2005

Brand building tactics for Alimak Hek

At a recent press conference, the world’s largest provider of mast climbers and hoists officially dropped the “Intervect” name forever – the company will be now be known as Alimak-Hek (the names of the Group’s two strongest product names).
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The New name has a new logo

Privately held and jointly owned by 3i plc (UK) and Ratos AB (Sweden), Alimak-Hek say the new approach is a further milestone in creating “a stronger market communications platform” intended to sustain and build on its market leaders’ position.The new branding retains the traditional Alimak orange and the Hek blue.

President and CEO Petter Arvidson spoke to Vertikal.net about the company’s views on the market, the new branding and its strategy going forward.
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Petter Arvidson President and CEO Alimak-Hek

“We are the global market leader, all of our markets are strong and there is a good demand for vertical access. At this time, the Middle East is a particular hotspot for us, Dubai and Saudi were very good in 2004. In terms of targeting for growth, we continue to target all the featured markets with the Scando 650 for sales of construction products” said Arvidson.

Asked whether he thought the Canadian mast climber designs using heavy duty masts and diesel power in place of electric would be a strong growth product in Europe, Petter Arvidson was not overly worried “We don’t see a tremendous growth for the diesel powered mast climber in Europe, maybe in the US. We will not ignore it but we will continue now with our electric rack and pinion design” he said.

Commenting on the UK market, he added “it has been very good over the last two years with a strong base for construction applications, we are supplying the main operators in the UK”. “Looking at the bigger picture, as expected, the German market is currently a strong target but our efforts are more global”.

Commenting on its distribution network he said “We have 40 dealers worldwide we feel the network is a strong one but we are looking to Eastern Europe for additional dealer coverage”.

Digging a little further into rationale behind the new branding, he referred to the need to gear up for its long term vision. “The offering remains basically the same, with the same products, primarily targeting the construction market. The brands remain the same, Alimak for Hoists and Hek for Mast Climbing platforms”.

The two brands will however remain separate and the physical product will not carry the new ‘joint’ name of Alimak-Hek. They will be brought together at the Corporate level and in communications but the products will be marketed as separate brands.

Have Alimak-Hek perhaps missed an opportunity by not promoting the new joint name on its most visible selling tool – its products? we asked Arvidson replied “we are always open to new suggestions, we never close the door”.

New Developments for Alimak-Hek
So how does the world’s biggest mast climbing and hoist manufacturer develop the market further? Conexpo will see the launch of Alimak-Hek’s “Big Cage” Scando 650 hoist, the company’s latest product development,.

“over and above that we are developing new tools to show the cost effectiveness of using mcwp’s over traditional scaffolding”. To this end the company has announced its “Value Based Selling” software which provides a job by job calculation of the cost benefits of MCWP’s over traditional scaffold.

“Another way is to introduce the existing products into new markets and one example of this is a service that provides temporary passenger elevators for medium height buildings during major elevator refurbishment or replacement”.