Questions for Philippe Moeschler, VP Pipe & Tube Business Line and head of the Swiss operation of Maillefer SA:
What makes your company unique?
It is the combination of several values that make us unique. 1) Our long industrial history and strong ties to the local economy, here in Swiss Romandie. 2) Close access to expertise and highly qualified personnel. We are within a few kilometers of Europe's top schools. 3) Our drive to serve customers worldwide. We are a B2B company with few customers in any one country. An international orientation is key. 4) Our technical solutions survive in the long term. It requires us to be service driven and help customers evolve over time. Our customers become loyal partners for mutual success.
Where do you see export opportunities for the future?
Our export markets will certainly remain the ones that we are currently addressing at the moment. As our customers are facing shortages in know-how, they will more and more rely on their suppliers to fill the gap. On top of these “traditional” markets, the MEA region may play an increasing role as they are expected to considerably develop in the future. For Africa, the market is not there yet for our products, but the ME is already active.
What are your biggest learnings in the internationalization process?
Globalization is one of our concerns, mainly in term of supply chain. The industry is facing important issues on component shortages and has significantly suffered on global logistics in the past years, linked or not with COVID. In order to secure our supply chain, we have reconsidered our supplier network in order to maximize our chances to deliver on time our customer projects. Delivering the goods to our customers has remained our utmost priority and our biggest challenge, in addition to facing logistics issues. We have learned to do the unexpected to ensure our business continuity in Switzerland.
What are you particularly proud of?
The last 3 years have given us much reasons to be proud, because of what we learned and realized. In addition to this, customers have been catching up in CAPEX investments, generating an unprecedented work load for the company. I am particularly thankful to all our employees that never gave up in front of the issues that we were facing and have always made their best to serve our customers in professional and proactive manner.
In what way can S-GE help you succeed?
We expect S-GE to continue to support us in our exhibition program. As an international company that realizes over 98% of sales outside Switzerland, we must be visible to our customers and to the industry itself. Whether it be promotion through a Swiss pavilion, or targeted market actions in a particular country, S-GE support is part of our recipe of making good business.
