Interview with Ignacio Ugarte, partner and Manager of THN
on April 4, 2011
How many years it does your company up?
Born as a company in 1995, both my partner Jesús Zúñiga as I already came from the sector, in which we had been working for several years and decided to form the company. We are dedicated, pneumatics and hydraulics, to the gaskets and specialize in this.
How they decided to enter the business of pneumatics and hydraulics?
There was an interesting proposal by a well-known brand to open a new headquarters for distribution in the North and from there all started.
What impact do the pneumatics and hydraulics in our lives? What would this world without them?
There are many hydraulic and pneumatic applications used on a daily basis, such as the opening and closing of doors, the change of the wheels of a car, the systems for collecting garbage collection or transport of samples or medicines in hospital systems. Virtually all industrially machines are hydraulic or pneumatic applications and also all the machinery of public works is powered by these.
On its website explains that in 1999 they received ISO-9001 certification but what is based on its policy of quality?
Our quality policy aims primarily to meet the needs of our customers and improve our management system to differentiate us from our competitors. So we try to have a system organized, that our service is perfect and, on the other hand, we try to keep abreast of all developments in our sector. To this end we have to travel a lot, go to fairs, get good products so that the client has a range of possibilities when perform us a query.
In your web page can access the stock of their products and buy them online have what impact had Internet in their annual sales?
Industrially, it is not yet very introduced. If we have a base of 700 customers who are buying us during the year, little more than a dozen are still encouraged to buy on the Internet. The email is charge today. I remember that when we started, virtually all the activity was carried out by telephone, then fax and phone and email is now the winner, we welcome all enquiries and orders in this way and we also communicate with our suppliers hereby.
Via web page yet the people are not very lively, but times are changing and sure that within a few years buying over the Internet will be as usual. We must also think that every website has a way of working and need to know it, and a buyer is clear, not by the work of knowing all the web pages of their suppliers. In time it can be a great comfort and a high speed, but it is an effort at the beginning, with the current work rate, sometimes is not possible.
What performance they expect to get your Web site in the coming years?
The web is already amortized. We have had many consultations at the international level of customers looking for a specific product that does not find in the distributor in your country and ask us if we still have in stock. That happens quite regularly and we have sent products to many parts of the world.
Do it is therefore a good investment in image, more than in direct sales?
On the Internet should be today, it is the means of communication for excellence. But we should be in the right place so that when someone does a query your you aparezcas and this is already more complicated.
How important is Internet in your sector? You are pioneers or there are other companies that use it to sell their products?
When we did our website Yes we were pioneers, we were the first to create a page of online purchase, but now almost all of our competition has option to buy.
How do you see the sector? Do has been greatly affected by the crisis?
As with everything, there are more hit than other Spain areas. When started the crisis in 2008 hit the peninsula in general, but then the recovery has been different. Us we could recover better in the North which elsewhere in Spain, which is most punished. The Basque country is heavily dependent on the industrial sector and while countries like Germany function we are more protected, because that always comes part of its activity. That saves us from the great crisis that has been in the area of the brick in the rest of Spain and it will take to recover.