B&J Rocket United

B&J Rocket is one of the "keystone" suppliers to the tyre repair and retread industry. Yet rarely does an opportunity arise to focus on the company's activities. So, for this issue of Retreading Business we took the time to ask Andreas Müller a few questions to enable B&J Rocket to update our readers on their operations.

Now that B&J is a global single entity, what benefits does this bring the company in terms of marketing and economies of scale? One presumes that the Americas still require a separate marketing and sales team?

Certainly being global brings numerous benefits to our operations. One of the biggest advantages is that B&J Rocket is repositioned in the global market "again" as one single strong player, with one strategy and general direction.

Until the reunion both parts (B&J Manufacturing Company USA & B&J Rocket Sales AG Switzerland) had their individual product and brand development, marketing plans, sales strategies and channels. Certainly there has been a loose cooperation between the "sister" companies, but still like every company, being independent, both focused naturally on their own targets. This sometimes created competition within the brand B&J. It also meant that both companies had their own network of sales channels / distributors. The result, post union, has been that we have, in some limited areas of the world, more than one distributor competing in a single market and that now requires from us a careful adjustment and fine tuning so that each single distributor still receives the fair and cooperative treatment he was used to experiencing prior the reunion. Another remarkable advantage of the reunion is the fact that we now have two manufacturing facilities. One located in Europe, at Tarm, Denmark, and another one in the USA, at Middlebury, Indiana near Chicago.

Both factories are modern production facilities, staffed with highly experienced workers. This allows us now to compare and strategically optimize production lines.

One of our biggest manufacturing changes will be that we will centralize the blade production in the US factory. This will have the effect that we will drastically increase the production size of the blade line in the US. Needless to say, this will have a great influence on our capability to make large investments in the process, and enhance product development which will further increase our product quality and performance. On the sales side, we will keep the two sales operations, as well as our representative office in Hong Kong. We see this necessary as there are different demands and there is a different mentality of customers on different continents. Also we want to be available for our customers during working hours wherever possible. The time differences between US, Europe and Asia simply require more than one sales office. Another reason is that our philosophy is that we need a continuous dialogue with our distributors and customers, "we need to maintain the grip on the market" in order to develop, manufacture and offer the perfect product portfolio and quality the customers need to do their daily job.

Does B&J have plans to develop more extensively in the growing markets of the Far East?

We have run our representative office in Hong Kong now for over 20 years. We are present, and represented by various loyal distribution companies throughout Asia. So this means, our products have been available in the Far East long before the boom took place. Nevertheless, it is our goal and motivation to further position ourselves in this important market. Since we are now running two factories, which both will be specialized on the various product ranges, thus increasing our capacity, we will be able to supply the increasing demands from the Far East with a well known and respected excellent product quality.

Is the African market of interest to B&J Rocket, and if so how will you approach the complex politics of dealing with businesses in what is by comparison to Europe an economy in its infancy, impacted by a dynamic political scene, which can change from day to day?

In general every market is an interesting and important market. We do not have appointed official B&J distributors in every state of Africa. However the coverage of the African continent with B&J is ensured by local and internationally operating distribution partners. Already, over many years the numerous loyal African customers have recognized the advantages of B&J's ultimate product quality serving their needs.

We believe that our current market share in this difficult area will over the forthcoming years increase even further.

The Australian market is one that we hear little about, yet we know that OTR retreading, in particular, is strong. Have you made inroads in Australia?

Downunder is not at all unknown to B&J. We have served the Australian and New Zealand markets for many years through loyal and successful premium distributors, which are well known by every local retreader and tyre shop. And we are proudly to be able to make the statement that due to our excellent service and product quality we are the market leader in shares of the Australian and New Zealand retreading and tyre repair market.

What marketing schemes have you in mind for 2010?

An important event will be the REIFEN show in Germany Essen 1- 4th June. During this worldwide respected tyre show, we will be present for the first time as a reunited global company.

We plan to have a number of interesting launches at the show; all of which will be beneficial for our customers throughout the world. In the run up to the show we will be completing all the changes and implementations we have on our agenda since the reunion. So the show will represent the publication of the new and global B&J Rocket. Further, we plan to introduce, next year, a new, and global catalogue, have our webpage and online presentation upgraded and also to strengthen once more our unique "ProTeam" program which we initiated to improve the direct dialogue between ourselves and the end users and operators of our products in every single retreading plant around the globe.

Issue 2009/4