XtraBlatt Issue 02-2020

GRÜNLAND-MANAGEMENT: NIEDERLANDE
PARTNER
Separate sales structures will continue
to exist for individual main makes. But
servicing in Abemec’s 21 locations will be
carried out in the same way for all makes.
NUR QUALITÄT
AGRIMEC/ABEMEC
THE
SPECIALISTS
Leading machinery makes in the product
range and benchmark status in service have
helped the Abemec Group establish a powerful
presence in the southern half of the
Netherlands. Interesting thereby: sales and
service facilities now exist as separate subsidiaries.
The aim is clear: “Optimally, none of
our customers should have to drive
further than 30 km (18 miles) to reach one
of our sales or service locations”, emphasises
Hans Quint. He’s managing director
of Abemec b.v. which has its head office in
Veghel, around 25 km north of Eindhoven
and therefore in the heart of Noord-Brabant,
one of the Netherlands’ three southernmost
provinces. But the operative area of this
company specialising in sales and service of
farm machinery stretches far further afield.
14 of the now existing 21 branch depots
run by this 70-year-old organisation lie in
the “home ground” of Noord-Brabant and
Zeeland. As part of a carefully planned expansion
strategy, a further seven locations
have been added in the centre and north
of the country.
NEW STRUCTURE
But why did Abemec open, in February 2020,
a further, completely new-built, facility
in 10,000-soul Beek en Donk, just 12 km
from Veghel? After all, purely from business
logic this close positioning of specialised
facilities makes little sense. In this case,
though, there’s a logical explanation, says
Hans Quint. Between 2014 and 2019, the
Munich-based agricultural supplier BayWa
AG gradually took over Abemec.
This led to the challenge of retaining the
Fendt exclusive sales strategy, as carried out
by the business for the preceding 55 years
in Veghel. “The concept we’d so far successfully
followed, as far as our customers were
concerned, involved always listing strong
brands from specialised manufacturers in
the individual product sectors”, explains
Hans Quint. “We had worked with most
of these firms for decades. For example,
with Krone since 1995. To relinquish this
policy would have set us back enormously
in the market. So we made up our minds to
continue this strategy, and to unite it with
that of our new owner for best possible
synergy effect.”
This has resulted since 2019 in a trio of
self-contained companies under the roof
of a single holding: Agrimec. One of the
daughters, Agromec, focusses exclusively
on customer-advice and sales for the complete
Fendt range. Abemec Machines, on
the other hand, is responsible for sales of
the other core brands – except for tractors.
And the third part of the trio is responsible
only for technical customer services, as
emphasised by the company name Abemec
Service. The highlight here is that the
service division supports all products from
both sales companies. And so the question
on locational nearness of the Veghel and
Beek en Donk facilities is explained. “In
Veghel, we concentrate on Fendt sales and
presentation of new Fendt machinery. In
Beek en Donk, the head office of Abemec
Machines, our interest is centred on Krone,
Dewulf, Agrifac and other specialists”,
explains the managing director.
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