The continuous expansion of business activities in the emerging markets is one of the main pillars of our Group strategy. In these regions, we are also pursuing the clear goal of placing customer needs at the heart of our activities and meeting country-specific requirements with tailored, market-driven products.

It is not just demand for Demag Cranes’ premium products that is rising steadily in emerging markets. There are also excellent opportunities to establish the Group in the mid-segment product range with solutions geared specifically to meet customer needs. Through subsidiaries in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), the United Arab Emirates and Africa, we are well positioned in high-growth segments to benefit more than most from the momentum of these regions. On the one hand, intelligent production and procurement concepts tailored to the different markets bring us closer to customers and their regional needs. On the other hand, we are putting our research and development efforts on an increasingly international footing, which allows us to act on growth trends directly where they are happening.

Any company that wants to supply customers around the globe has to adapt its products and services to all kinds of country-specific requirements. For Demag Cranes this can mean, for example, complying with local legal and safety regulations, or adapting products to cope with extreme weather conditions. It is also necessary to be able to assess the possibilities offered by the existing infrastructure and to have precise knowledge of the public authorities’ customary decision-making processes as well as other procedures. As a global Group with more than 20 country-level subsidiaries and a presence in more than 60 countries, this means enabling the continuous establishment and expansion of local know-how and expertise and, at the same time, making sure that experience and information are embedded as firmly as possible in the integrated Group. In this way, the optimised interaction between local competencies and central management result in additional efficiency gains.

The site we inaugurated in July 2010 is situated in the immediate vicinity of Pune. In addition to production, the site is home to development engineers, product managers and all the administration. Planning for the plant began in November 2008. Construction started about a year after that and production began just eight months later. In a short space of time, this more than quadrupled our production area on the subcontinent by around 8,000 square metres to more than 10,400 square metres. Another 6,000 square metres are available for possible further expansion. After all, the trend in demand is very positive, especially from particularly high-growth segments like automotive, steel trading and processing, energy production, engineering and infrastructure construction. The list of customers includes both privately-owned and public-sector enterprises. In addition to Standard Cranes, crane components and spare parts, the product portfolio also includes the technically more complex Process Cranes. Demag Cranes integrates these high-performance products individually in our customers’ production processes. Components not produced internally are increasingly purchased from local suppliers. In financial year 2009/2010, for example, we delivered the first Process Crane made almost exclusively of components procured in India.