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Challenges
- New Zealand Tube Mills is the leading manufacturer and distributor of precision carbon tubes and an extensive range of stainless architectural food and beverage tubes for New Zealand, Australia & the Pacific Islands. “The company was actually founded in the 1950’s as an exhaust maker for the emerging automotive industry of New Zealand”, explains Terry Carter, General Manager of New Zealand Tube Mills. But, in the late 1990’s the majority of the car manufacturers decided to withdraw from the market, due to the reduction and removal of tariffs on imported cars. “So, our business reinvented itself successfully into a horticultural trellis maker”, Carter says. “We now manufacture the Eco Trellis ® vineyard post system and all types of tubular trellis, mostly for grape, apple and berry growers.”
- Tube Mills’ main market has always been Australasia, but because of the seasonal character of the Horticultural sector, the company started looking for opportunities abroad during the low sales months. “We are very busy from April until September in the Southern Hemisphere, so we wanted to fill the rest of the year with activities in the Northern hemisphere”, says Carter. “We have secured ongoing business in the U.S., dealing with 3 of the top 5 wine brands in California, but we did not have the time and resources yet to get our sales in Europe off the ground, which was a natural next step for us after getting a foothold in the U.S..
- Carter says that New Zealand Tube Mills was considering a step to the European market, when ALTIOS made a cold call visit to their offices. “The visits came at exactly the right moment and gave us great insights into the opportunities new markets, like Europe, could offer us and to learn about new ways to approach these markets. The relationship started from there.”
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Solutions
- Even though Europe was a priority market for Tube Mills, the complexity of the market and the lack of in-country presence made it very difficult to enter the European market successfully on their own.
- “With ALTIOS’ help we formulated a plan to investigate the European market by country, specifically focusing on Germany, France, Spain, the U.K. and Italy. We looked at validating the potential of our products in these markets and to get a better understanding of the export regulations we would have to fulfil and what the duties would be”, says Carter.
- Besides this, ALTIOS allocated a part-time European representative for Tube Mills that identified the key partners in their target markets, that could operate as a distributor in one or multiple countries, and set up the first meetings and negotiations with these partners.
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Results
- “ALTIOS EU provided Tube Mills with a very good base from which we can launch our European endeavours going forward”, says Carter. “They were able to identify key ‘players’ in our selected countries, make the initial contact and set up Zoom meetings for us. This has allowed us to favourably consider the next step – which will be in person visits to the EU hopefully this year.”
- The next step for Tube Mills in Europe would be to cement the efforts by ALTIOS, establish relationships and expand the business to the target markets. “We expect that Altios will be ‘by our side’ for this next stage too”, says Carter.
Discover more about Tube Mills on: http://nztubemills.co.nz/
