During its 50th anniversary celebrations as a provider of handling & storage products and solutions held at its headquarters in Meisenheim (Germany), Bito-Lagertechnik Bittmann GmbH, the parent company of Nuneaton-based BITO Storage Solutions Ltd, was pleased to give an optimistic outlook despite the current difficult economic environment that is affecting the handling & storage industry.
Compared to the cutback in order rates experienced by other companies in the sector, BITO has registered only a moderate decrease, which according to Ganz, can be attributed to the broad range of products and services that BITO offers.
“We currently have to deal with a 20% drop in incoming orders,“ commented BITO’s managing director, Detlef Ganz, during the company’s anniversary celebrations. This drop, in Ganz’s view, is due to the low number of large projects currently on offer in the market.
However he added: “Our broad range suits customers from diverse industries with very different requirements.” Moreover, BITO has expanded its distribution network to cover the whole of Europe.
“Thanks to this strategy, BITO still receives enough orders to achieve a satisfactorily high capacity utilisation ratio for our plants in Meisenheim and in Lauterecken,“ continues Ganz. “We therefore do not have a reason to be pessimistic. We know from talks with our customers that most investments have only been postponed. We assume that many of these projects will be realised in 2010.
“Last year, we achieved a turnover of 150 million EUR with some 740 employees. That’s an increase in turnover of 20% compared to 2007 and a 5% increase in the number of employees. And in 2007 the company had seen a 25% increase compared to the previous year and had been able to provide 60 new jobs.”
Commenting on the UK sector, Edward Hutchison, MD of BITO Storage Systems Ltd, said: “We have continued to develop our sales in the UK in 2009 having seen a definite benefit from moving into our new premises last year and we are now holding stock in the UK and distributing small orders, so we are developing our services.”
BITO Storage Systems Limited
Edward Hutchison
Tel.: +44 (0) 24 7638 8850
Email: info@bito.co.uk
www.bito.co.uk
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