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Spangenberg, September 12th, 2022: In 2012, the newly founded – a sales and service company (Vertriebs- und Servicegesellschaft – VSG) of WIKUS-Sägenfabrik Wilhelm H. Kullmann GmbH & Co. KG in Spangenberg – entered the market with two clear goals: to establish the high-quality sawing tools “Made in Germany” in France and to make WIKUS the market leader on site. Both goals have been achieved within a decade. On its tenth anniversary, WIKUS France can boast a market share of almost 40 percent in France – and call itself a market champion. “This success is mainly due to the great efforts of the colleagues at the French VSG in Torcy near Paris, as well as the colleagues in Spangenberg who have actively provided support in the areas of administration and production,” says Karsten Klein, CSO WIKUS France S.A.S., on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of VSG.
The WIKUS management – represented by Dr. Jörg H. Kullmann, Chairman of the Management Board and Managing Director of the Technology and Manufacturing Division, and Michael Möller, Managing Director of the Corporate Group and Sales Division – took the opportunity to personally travel to France to congratulate their French colleagues and thank them for their commitment. The anniversary was duly celebrated with a ceremony, a dinner together, and a boat trip on the Seine.
The success of WIKUS France shows that the decentralized concept of WIKUS with subsidiaries in important sales countries and local employees on site strengthens the proximity to the customer. This strategic development of the company had already started in the second decade of the 2000s. In the context of internationalization, worldwide customer requirements were to be served more quickly and thus more flexibly by establishing VSGs in strategic markets. France, as the second largest economy in the EU, represents one of these formerly future markets – and there, too, the high-quality products from WIKUS have enjoyed high demand since VSG WIKUS France entered the market. These successes are embedded in an increased demand for precision tools from French industry also in 2021 and is today a further incentive to implement the new measures of the “WIgrow25” growth strategy of WIKUS initiated in 2021. The project continues to ensure comprehensive market and customer penetration in all potential markets and is increasingly pushing the expansion of service and support competence in digital channels. WIKUS France, as an elementary part of the company, is also the focus of these measures and looks forward to the next successful decade as an important driver of growth.
Diana Thiel, Marketing Officer