Biesse recently held a special event for their customers and partners at their showroom in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to showcase their technology solutions for the wood, glass and stone industries.
Taking place over a two-day period from July 31 to August 1, Inside Biesse Southeast Asia featured demonstrations of the competencies of the company’s profiling and milling, edging, panel-cutting, edgebanding and drilling machines, as well as experience sharing from their regional partners.
Even though the Covid-19 pandemic showed the possibilities and effectiveness of remote communication technologies, such as video calls, it also reminded Biesse of the importance of face-to-face interactions.
This is the reason why the company is resuming physical events, now that the restrictions have been lifted, to increase their presence and be closer to their customers and partners.
“We want to be the main reference in the industry as a provider of machines,” Ettore Vichi, Biesse’s Chief Regional Officer, EMEA & APAC, explained.
Over the years, Biesse has invested heavily in different regions and have set up local offices across the globe to service their customers better. This includes the acquisition of a production facility in Thailand and the creation of a dedicated Southeast Asia service team.
“We want to be a local partner for our customers,” Mr Vichi said. “And we have strong investment plans for the next three years in Southeast Asia.”
Currently, the company has also began a trial service that provides 24/7 technical support to customers, regardless of the time zone they are in.
Shift to Automation
Adoption of automation solutions may, perhaps, be a little slower compared to the rest of the world, particularly in the west, but more and more furniture makers in Southeast Asia are now moving from simple standalone machines to automated and networked systems.
It is no coincidence then that the solutions on display at the event are designed to reduce manual labour and increase productivity and efficiency through automation, while ensuring consistency in product quality.
“This is a big transition that we are seeing in Southeast Asia,” Mr Vichi said. “We believe that the level of automation in the region to grow by 20-30% each year for the next three years at least.”
In the past, automation solutions came at a price that may have scared off customers in the region, but now they are becoming increasingly more affordable. As a result, Biesse has been receiving more orders for more sophisticated solutions over the last few years.
Creating Value for Customers
As the economy recovers from the after-effects of Covid-19 pandemic, Mr Vichi doesn't believe that the world is “struggling”, but acceleration in growth has slowed down.
Against such a climate, he believes that the secret is to be more attractive to their customers and create more value for them.
“Our customers in Southeast Asia are trying to survive and to explore different businesses to catch the opportunities and with automation, they can find better competencies than before,” he added.
With Biesse’s global footprint, they are able to transfer design concepts from Europe to Southeast Asia. At the same time, the company’s local teams can reach out to the customers to understand their needs and empower them to manufacture the products they want “from a sketch or design”.
“In the world economy that we see, there are a lot of opportunities, and we are here to help our customers maximise it,” Mr Vichi said.
Besides the shift towards automation, Mr Vichi also observed greater demand for integration, not physically, but at a software level to connect the different machines that Southeast Asian customers already owned in their factories.
As a result, Biesse is working with their partners to provide a software platform that enables such machine interconnection.
The other area of growing prominence involves raw materials, more specifically, sustainable materials. “There are a lot of requests for materials that are recycled or for new materials that come from alternative sources,” Mr Vichi said.
Importance of a Strong Partner
Biesse is expecting that by the second half of 2025, the market will return to pre-pandemic levels. Based on the current trend, Mr Vichi expects that the end of this year will be better than the start and that the upward momentum will continue into 2025.
He also believes that the company’s ability to offer a wide spectrum of process capabilities and expertise would allow them to stay ahead of the competition.
“With this strategy, we are acquiring multiple companies that will provide us technologies in new machines. And I think this is our very unique feature that I don’t see in our competitors,” he added.
One advice that Mr Vichi would like to give to customers is to select a partner that can be there for you in the long run.
“Sometimes, cost doesn’t mean longevity for businesses,” he said. “The quality and reliability of the partnership can be the difference because at the end of the day, with the challenges, customers need a really strong partner that is close to them and that can help them solve issues and that can help them achieve their vision for the future. These are the really strong elements that customers must be aware of.”
“If the partner is strong, then the customers will be strong as well,” he added.
