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Marketing Research In-Class Assignment 3 – group/pair work

NAMEs of students Moventas team: Ekaterina Kelekhsaeva, Ekaterina Spitcyna, Sofia Romanenko, Tommaso Cicero, Nafis Ahmed Chowdhur

Transcription of interview

Interviewer: I

Interviwee: Jussi Hienonen JH

I: Describe, please you position in Moventas?JH: Ok, aaa… well at Moventas I am working in industrial gears division, so we have three divisions: industrial gears and wind gears and service. In this industrial gears division I am responsible for the sales for new customers, so my job is basically looking for new customers, making proposals, negotiating. I: We know that in 2009 it was really hard year for all industries and M. wasn’t an exception. Can you describe industrial gears industry how it looks nowadays?JH: How it looks nowadays? Well, like you said 2009 was probably the slowest year aaa.. since then it’s been growing in 2010 and this year as well. We actually have a very high growth at M. industry gears at the moment, so factories are loaded, it’s works.

Industry is growing

I: So, you think since 2009 it is growing, improving and getting better.JH: It is growing, yes and at this moment we do not see any of this crisis effects.

Industry is growing

I: Can you point two future developments in the environment which will impact on this industry the most, some innovations or something like that?JH: Mmm… let’s see are you thinking about innovations especially or other something…?I: May be another sectors of economy, which will impact on this industry in future.JH: Well, say since we are talking about industrial gears it depends largely on, well other industries pulp industry and mineral

are doing, what happens in there. For example: our demand is based on how much world is consumes paper, so we make gear boxes for paper industry or how much world needs metals, which mean says for us work for miner equipment.

industry strongly influence on M.

I: What about environmental problems and raw materials?JH: Yes, let’s say that demand for raw materials is a big effect on our business and environment we are thinking that it could be the effect based on new technologies like purification.

environmentpurification technologies

I: Where do you buy raw materials for yourselth?JH: We buy, what we buy for example we buy steels, cast. We buy from Finland, we also buy from Germany, China also, but basically rather globally. I: Are you hunting for the quality of raw materials or for the price?JH: Oh, pretty much both I guess. We gave rather high quality standards, so we are looking at say cast for example we have to be high quality.

high quality of products

I: So, now we would like to talk with you about strategies of M. What are the strategies basically?JH: Well, that is a very broad question. Our strategies I can give you small summary and show you on the slides. We try to be perfect supplier for selected manufacturers, on the service side we want to be number one service provider , we want to be a leading supplier of selecting industrial gear application and services and that for us means we do not try to supply for every industry, we try to select ones that are suitable for our technology and our production, the production we have available already.

leader in selected industry

I: So, basically as I saw from the slides you are trying in every aspect of industrial gears wind gears you are trying to become the first.JH: We are doing we want to be the best of that, so I guess that’s quite quite common strategy that you select where you want to fight and you want to be the best of that fight.


I: That’s true, so from your point of view, how company should change its strategies to better position according to future developments?

JH: Okay, so that, of course, it depends on what those future developments are and from industrial gears side we have not made such scenarios what going to happen next. Let’s say if demand for raw materials rises it means our customer will sell more miner equipment, for example Metso mineral and when Metso do that we can make more gears for them and that is mean, basically we are looking at developing more products for that industry.

Flexibility

I: So, you are basically ready for the changes you have your plan, but you always consider what if they offer more or less or something changes.JH: That’s nice to have plan for everything, but what I think is that we try to be flexible for the industrial gears market developing new products for certain amount of time, it is not that fast as let’s say cell phone industry, so we need to plan what we are developing next and take time we go to the market one or two years normally.

Flexibility

I: By the way, do innovations play a big role in your development, there are always new computers, new machines, new innovations does it matter for this business?JH: Well, it matters for sure, but I cannot say does it play a big role, this is let’s say rather mature business, new thing come up, but they do not come up as quickly.

innovations don’t play big role

I: Does M. tries to catch up all innovations or sometimes you just stay with what you have, because I think that it is really expensive to change programs all the time and everything? JH: Well, for sure we look for new innovations, but mostly we have to stay with what we have, for example we do not have so much partitive to develop all the time new products, so we need to get the most import on what we have already on the same time we have to try to select like our strategy says select certain industry gear applications, where we think we can be the best, one of the top supplier and then develop products for them.

innovations don’t play big role


I: How many departments you have in M. what you put more emphasis on R&D department,

Sales, Marketing?JH: Well, let’s say in H&R department we have may be 10 – 15 people all other at M. that’s centralized M. group; in production we have may be 400 employees as an example, but that only because we need a lot of people at production to keep it running; sales we have probably 30 to 50 employees.I: Engineering department is important department?JH: Yes it is important for sure. We have rather small R&D department, which is responsible for making new products updating products and then we have engineering department which more or less working with some certain projects. But it is hard to say based on the number of employees what department is most important, you need all of them.

all departments are important

I: We know that in Finland you have two main competitors SEW eurodive and Kumera, please describe your competitors, what are their strengths and weaknesses compare to M. of course?JH: SEW is a very large company for our market and they are based in Germany but they are very global, so they are in Finland as well they are in China basically everywhere and they have large rate of products very small ones that we do not make for example and up to large ones. I think that they are strongest in their overall worldwide, so they are everywhere, they have sales people in every country a lot of sales people and also with their production logistics they can assemble products from every continent.

SEW: sales people worldwide

I: And M. it is mostly player on Finland market or somewhere else?JH: We have production in Finland, in Germany and in some countries as well, but we are also delivering globally, we are working more from our home basis, we have sales people in different countries, but not as much as SEW has and their product rate is bigger, more different products and they can pick up the volume, so they can lower the price as well. On the other hand when we go in to certain application where products are larger, they

M. less sales people

SEW: large product rate

M. better in complex products

can be more complicated, they are more customized for example and then such things as engineering for example are more important and we have good engineering capabilities, in that sense we a better than SEW, so when it comes to complex products and that come back again to our strategy where we try to select our certain product, certain application.


I: Can you say that M. number one in Finland?JH: Yes, I can say that.I: And what about Kumera?JH: Kumera is also a strong competitor in certain areas, for example in power paper, one of our biggest customers is Metso paper and as you can understand we have long history with them since we are here, they actually own this company for a long time this part of the company. So we have a big history with them, but Kumera has been pushing into that market as well and we are fighting against them for projects.

Kumera is a competitor in Finland

I: Okay, you are fighting for the same projects is Kumera is really strong competitor?JH: Yes, in paper business some time in other business as well, but Kumera let’s say a little bit smaller as far as a gear business concerned and they a bit more local, so they are more centralized in Finland, they act globally, but not as globally as we do I would say.

Kumera is more local

I: And now we actually have some business aspects, we would like you to rate each on a scale from one to ten. They are: product, sales ability, marketing ability, customer service

SEW eurodrive Kumera Moventas

Product 7 6 8

Sales ability 8 4 6

Marketing ability 9 6 6

Customer service 7 4 8

I: So, the first is product how would you rate SEW for example?

JH: Okay, so I rate this three companies. Well, let’s say, first of all I have to say that’s quite difficult job to give numbers, it’s different industries, it’s basis on what you are evaluate if you are talking about products, quality or price or…I: May be just in general what first comes to your mind, your opinion.JH: Okay, well I will give SEW 7.I: And it based on what, could you please explain?JH: That based on the wide rate of production that they have and also fairly good quality.

SEW: large product rate

I: Okay, then Kumera?JH: I am going to give six to Kumera. They have small range of products.

Kumera small product range

I: And Moventas?JH: I try to be positive I give an eight, we also have the same line with Kumera, but our products scope is not as point , but on the other hand the products we have are really well suited for the use and they are also high quality.


I: Okay, then sales ability?JH: Again, there are different aspects of sales ability one thing is how much sales people you have, how you power the market, another thing is how skilled your sales people are. In our business at least sales people should be quite technical as well, they have to understand what customer really needs and have to be able to make technical decisions and proposals. So, I try to combine this I will give SEW an eight. Like I said they cover the market really well, their sales people, certainly they have a lot of skilled people, but at the same time when they have so many sales people not everybody can be an engineer for example, so they do not have the same technical knowledge, all of them.

SEW: sales people worldwide

he mean that many sales people not always well qualified

I: What about Kumera?JH: Ah… one to ten is scale, so I will give them four. I have to say I do not know Kumera’s sales organization well at all, this is only based on what I have found about them they are not so active in the markets. We do not cross with them in all markets. So I think they do not put very much

Kumera is more localnot put much effort on sales

effort on sales.I: And Moventas?JH: Really interesting, I will give us a six and again it would be based on that we are not so well covering every market like I said we have may be thirty to fifty sales people, depending who you see as a sales people, we have some people who are travelling all the time with the customers, some people who are mostly seating in an office giving sales support work and overall I can say that our sales people are well trained and they know much about products and that is a strength, the weakness is that they are not so many. Another thing is may be that Finnish perhaps not natural sales people if you compare to more talkative type. At least we have our own style whatever it works or not it depends on the case and the person.

M. do not have much sales people, but well qualified

I: And the next is marketing ability?JH: It is important, even though I think that in our business personal selling is one of the most important, it is the most important. Of course marketing supports and in our business it is exactly that way that marketing is the supporting function to sales that’s how we see. Sales for us is more important, because we are focusing on a certain customers, certain industries, certain kind of applications, so we always have to be personal selling, because it is customized products, but I would say I will put SEW rather high here let’s say nine for them and again they are big company, big volumes they can send more funding on the marketing, they put a lot of effort on shows and marketing material, newspaper articles.

marketing is not such important

Sales is important

SEW is a big company

I: So they use newspapers for the advertising?JH: Yes, we do as well. But well not in newspapers, let’s say industry magazines, whatever is related to our industry.I: Have you got your own magazine?JH: Yes, we have in M. that’s only for personal, so it is an internal magazine. Sometimes we send newsletters to our customers, but not really magazine. If we want to advertise somewhere we use some magazines of the customer industry for example paper industry or something for the miner

miner and pulp and paper industry main clients (Metso paper and Metso mineral)

industry or something like that.JH: How would you rate Kumera?

Interview.Company that is being analyzed: Moventas, industrial gears.Person that has been interviewed: Jussi HienonenInterviewers: Sofja Romanenko & Ekaterina KelekhsaevaII part. 20m 01 sec.

I: interviewer

JH: Jussi Hienonen

I: … so they are using newspapers for advertising?

JH: yes,yes, we do as well, not newspaper, that is not correct, lets say industry magazines, so whatever is related to our customers.

way of advertising

I: so do you have your own magazine? like Moventas

JH: yes, we have magazine but that’s only for the personal so that’s the eternal magazine, sometimes we send a newsletter to our customers, but not really a magazine, if we want to advertise somewhere we use some magazine of the customer industry for example pulp and paper in a paper industry or something for the mining industry or something like that

way of advertising

I: how would you rate the Kumera?

JH: Again, I believe they put less efforts on marketing coming from the size first of all, lets go for ..eer.. lets go for a 6…(silence, thinking)

rating competitors

I: ok, so , do they use as well some kind of media? Internet? Digital way?

JH: yes, magazines to an extend tritialtias or exhibitions for sure, aaaand, naturally everybody has a website but I don’t know how active they are they are using their website for that otherwise they use media.

methods of advrtising of Kumera

I: now, what would you give to moventas?

JH: id give a six I suppose, (long silence) rating

I: ok, can you explain the 6?

JH: eeer, Yea,well, we have put some efforts on, we try to be selective also on the exhibitions where we go, because it is very expensive, we try t, I think we come up quite nicely when we are in the show, we are professional people , we are presenting our company, so eeeer, we have some prepared material of course, we should have more, for sure, I think that’s always the case, eemm, where I think we need to be much stronger is criteria related to our products when we are talking about product catalogues and selection sheets and this kind of things because most of the times we find that the engineers select our products, and we provide the engineer information that actually supports them, helps them choose our product to be included in their product So that kind of things we need more. Now I think may be ,..sort of reference articles and stores that can be useful.

advertising and promotion

I: ok, and the last thing is customer service, how do you think these 3 companies

perform in the customer service?

JH: Hmm…, once again, it depends on how do you see it, emm, all this companies are working really well at some markets, another markets they are not working so well, em…, take, for, for example a small market of Portugal , and I happen to know because I have been dealing with this customers that, that SEW is very strong in Portugal , their own workshop they go for the paper and pulp thing with their customer, and give them , I believe a good service, Kumera for example as we have discussed this , is not so strong all over the world world, they have some service kept in Finland, ..eeem…, they have some in Austria, but they are not so strong overall, Moventas as you have seen we have also our service devision so we try to give more efforts on service, and, well,, of course, it means, after sales service like Spare partners but it also means the customer service that we are giving, in everyday dealings with customer, I guess that that’s what you mean both of this aspects , … and…, to choose some current numbers, I starts with Kumera I put a for again and … I ll go for 7 for SEW … and… lets say we are 8 as well , I d like to say we are nine but I know we can not support equally work on every market in on every level because we are not so active in there, what we normally get is we get good feedback about services and how customers appreciate our support and quick reactions, what they are learns it happens to all of this companies that sometimes we drop the ball and some customers are not happy with the service, so, so, its really hard to compare but when you go ask around maybe ask our competitors and I don’t know if you are doing any customer study or anything like that

rating, where they fit and why, pros and cons

I: mmm, no

JH: so maybe you ll hear something different from our competitors, which will be interesting to see what differences are

opinion from the side

I: so, what we see is that your main strengths are product and customer service in Moventas,

JH: a ye, that is right

I: so, does Moventas or your department , do you have some kind of plan to improve sales ability or marketing ability

JH: yes, sales ability, we actually have been improving it all the time we have opened new locations for example in Australia, Brazil, Spain, Italy, and this covers not only industrial gears but also wind gears and service. So I m talking all over , we have added some sales people in the USA , we are, also in China, we have made deals with some agents in the, .. I am not talking about past , say..5 years, we have made contracts with agents so we have some agents in several countries that support us and

improvements, achieving the goals, new locations

I: so you are always improving basically?

JH: yes, lets say its always improving and we have done improvements in the last years and part of this still to do.

Improvements

I: How about the marketing ability?

JH: em, that too, and we are now in situation that, lets say, for the last few years there was problem So everybody is cutting marketing expenses and we haven’t started spending so much more on marketing yet and I don’t know if Petri has told you or if you studied about the industry more but for us wind gears is doing very poor at the moment ,so they don’t have so many orders and you can see if you a little bit into this industry for

cutting expenses, saving money, slow marketing development

example wind gears, and they are not so fully loaded so that comes to our expenses that we can not spend that much for the company we don’t have that much money. Well the plan is that we have to be very selective , choose where we put our product for some marketing and what really gives the payback as well

I: ok, so we see that the marketing is not so important thing in this business , its like last thing you put expenses on

JH: eeem, somebody could say that, but I don’t want to think it that way , first f all like I said that marketing and sales are quite close so you can thing that there is part of marketing that are part of sales or either way , it happens that personal selling is quite important now in our business but definitly we need marketing as well

importance of marketing

I: and also interesting to know how do you get information about you competitors ?

JH: eeem, great way to get information is when you go around and you meet customers for example

way of getting information

I: their customers, your customers?

JH: our customers, their customers, normally the are customers of both and we are trying to fight for projets and sometimes we ?? some information this other companies offered , and information and they might ??? some project that has gone not so well oooor...

cooperation with competitors

I: so the main thing is the customers?

JH: eeem, one of them yes , another one is industry exhibitions well if you go pulp and paper show they will have a stand they present their products there and our people

way of getting information

will for sure go there and have a look and they will come to our stand and have a look something about them

I: Do you cooperate with you competitors sometimes or do you try to hide information? Like everything you know, like, you work hidden that they wouldn`t know what do you do?

JH: eeem, we try to hide the information, that we believe that our competitors may not have ,eeeem, so that comes to certain technology goal , solutions ,eem, pricing information, this kinds of things , yes we try to hide them . Cooperation, sometimes we do it, sometimes we buy a product from customer and competitor, sometimes they buy from us, especially in the service side so there is a bit of cooperation as well not very much though, we could cooperate in some kind of research projects for example

way of operating with information

I: but can it happen that you work now here then for example Kumera offers you a better salary , better opportunities and you go work there or do you have in your contract that you can not go to your competitors?

JH: eeem, well, i`m talking in general now, im not talking about my contract or what Moventas does , i`m not allowed to say anything about that but of course it is possible to change jobs and usually your contract may say that you can not work if you are, lets say, if you are in a manager position you might have a contract saying you can not work for competitor within certain time after you resinhg from Moventas , if you are fired from Moventas for example or another company then you have more ability to move because its their ??? that you go ,eeee, but typically if you are an engener or sales person , production worker you are more critical so you can get a better opportunity to go or if

job opportunities

just otherwise want change . It is quite common its not such a big industry so it circulates overall , people change jobs and they work for a one company they go to another company so its not a big deal

I: aaaand , eem, can we just like summarize everything and can you say us what are the most important things in this industry that should be the number one ?

JH: okkey, that will be hard, well i would say one of they key things is reliability that means reliability of the people of you customer that they ll be able to trust you and of course also reliability of the way we work, because our customers or their customers are running process that cant stop so reliability for sure (long pause) i ll stay quite general i would say technology meaning product technology and costs that you have to keep down

I: and what is your main customers like Metso and what other? most of them are paper industry?yes?

Conclusion, key aspects of successful business in this industry

JH: yes, Metso has paper industry and they also have mineral industry and they are big customers in a both sides for us

Main customer

I: aand like in Finland what other customers you have?

JH: Metso paper, Metso minerals, and what do we have …,

I: main, like main your customers?

JH: its is quite big our customer, that we have group of lets say ten rather big customers this tree would make the list at the moment

Group of main customers

I: ok and just for me interesting do you have any customers in Russia?

JH: yes,

I: Yes? and can you name?

JH: eeeeer, i ll try , we have many customers in Russia , ?? Paper Mills for example and and recently we have developed a new product for conveers so the conveer gear box and we have Russian cole minors customers i don`t remember the name of the cole minor or there is many of them but...

Customers in Russia

I: so you have customers..

JH: We have customers and we have our agent in Russia and then there is other company who works with us and that so so you would know much better we find it when we are finding our service in Russia and we do business in Russia.

Business in Russia

I: and can i now ask if you have someone in Estonia ?

JH: we do!

I: You do?

JH: yes, eeem, its called , in cement industry, its called Kunta cement, do you know the company?

Customer in Estonia, proof that Moventas has customers in many countries

I: No

I: so quite a lot , so Moventas have everywhere practically customers

JH: yea,

I: but we understand that SEW they have more customers than you? They are more global?

JH: Yes, they are more global, they are more general, they have customers in more or less every industry

Reason why other company is more successful

I: why it became so? How many years Moventas operates in this industry?

JH: well, 70 years old, its basically i would say because of the way of working here this part of company here in Jyvaskyla used to be part of Metso, and they made paper machines and they wanted this part of the company to make not gear boxes but the paper machines so we focused on that and in Kartila we have another background from company called Santoselo they have their certain customers so they focus on those customers maybe it has always been the way of working in Finland that you try to focus on the certain things because yo can not be so good allover but then we have Nokia for example which is focusing on efficient production and products SEW has been an independent company so they are just the key supplier and they have just turned this strategy well to have a goal

Small history, reasons explaining difference between competitors

I: and how do you see the Moventas in 5 years?

JH: well, that`s a very interesting question at the moment i don`t know but you know about the situation of Moventas our wind gear are at not very good position at the moment and what happened in the company last summer was that our group Moventas this part of company were?? bankrupcy and now the two sister companies so its Moventas industry gears and Moventas wind gears are in cooperate reconstruction process and basically they deferse to us so its pretty good for example to fight in this business they are sort of controlling what the company does though we really don`t know at the moment what½s going to be happening in the next 5 years probably no more in certain amount of time opening soon but that`s going to have a big effect at the same time i can say that i believe

Forecast, facing some inside problems

demand for metals , demand for pulp and paper ,eeem, it`s not disappearing or we will be making gear boxes anyways but could think going back to 2 possible developments for example anything i d relate to environment and water cleaning and bio fuels and this kind of things that could be a big thing in a future

I: but do you see yourself in Moventas in 5 years?

JH: Very possibly, it is also quite possible that i am not here let`s say that i can easily picture myself being here

Moventas as a workplace in future

I: so i think that we understand that in future the one of the most development will be connected with the environment / yes? and?

JH: we don`t know , we don`t know yet this application that are important for us or which where we are good at and at the moment it means usually rather large products , gear boxes, and lots of special solutions so we can …? somebody like SEW who is more general so we are now trying to set up plan what happens there but we don`t see big potential in application that we need to but, quite likely there will be something

Forecast about developements

I: I think we have asked every question

I: thank you very much, thank you

JH: thank you, hope it helped you!

Category Description Industry Current situation in the industry: after

crisis the industry is growing.

to customers, they are able to trust

in working process

Industries which strongly influence on industrial gears business from Moventas point of view: pulp paper and mining industry.Mature industry, innovations and marketing not that important as sales. Very hard to forecast the new developments and innovations that will influence this industry.

Moventas The strengths and weaknesses of Moventas: high quality of products, leader in selected industry, flexible to changes, well qualified sales people, better in complex projects.However not so many sales people like in SEW, not so large rate of products.Worldwide however not as SEW, developing and aiming to be the best in their category. Serious about recruitment process, future oriented, however lack of clear strategy.

Main client Metso mineral and Metso paper

Competitors SEW bigger, more global, large rate of products from small to big ones, sales people everywhere. Not so good at complex products. Good strategy.Kumera is more local. Has small product range. Not put much effort on sales. Operates mostly locally.

The most important for the company

The darker is the figure the more important it is.

Mineral industry

Pulp and paper industry

Demand for raw materials

Moventas

Environment

New purification technologies

Factors, which can affect on Industrial gears business.

1. What did you learn about analysing the qualitative data?

Analyzing data helps you to better understand the message person tries to tell you because you can notice some information and facts that were the most necessary ones while analyzing the data. You can learn something about formulation questions because if you notice that answers to some of your questions were similar it means that person did not understand the question or the question had the same meaning that another one but just formulated differently. Moreover,

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it is very obvious of person is sincere while answering or not because you can see it through the text. At that point sometimes it is useful to ask all the same questions that are formulated differently to check if person is honest or not.

From the interview you can found things that really important for interviewee, sometimes as it happened in our interview he repeat several times about Moventas strategy, so we can understand how it is important to follow the selected strategy. Also what he is proud of like well trained sales person.

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