stories on hard material matters - Ceratizit S.A.

Today, CERATIZIT is already the world-market leader
for carbide products in wood and stone machining
as well as Europe‘s largest supplier for industrial
wear parts. The group is also gaining strength in
the USA where we are catching up in the ranking.
Furthermore, CERATIZIT counts on the segments where -
thanks to our expertise – we can achieve the best
customer benefit and growth opportunities. In the
coming years CERATIZIT will focus on Cutting Tools and
consistently implement their multi-channel strategy.
They will concentrate on niches and develop exclu-
sive solutions for the automotive, engineering,
aerospace and oilfield sectors. We want to strive for
continuous organic growth above average worldwide.
Ever since its foundation CERATIZIT has grown notably
quicker than the market. This is how we wantto continue,
amongst others through targeted acquisitions. In this
context new companies have to adapt to the CERATIZIT
group strategically, culturally and also financially. With a
turnover of approx. 600 million euros the carbide producer
ranks among the TOP 5 worldwide. We are now striving for
a turnover of one billion euros by 2012. In order to reach
this ambitious goal we have several levers that we can
activate efficiently.
Pressing ahead with internationalization
CERATIZIT has a strong position in Central and Eastern
Europe, thus we were able to benefit extraordinarily from
the economic growth in Eastern Europe and will be further
extending our success.
CERATIZIT is excellently positioned in the NAFTA area, which is
still the strategically most important market in the world. We
have companies in the USA and in Mexico where we have
been gaining market shares for years. After the acquisition
of Newcomer Products last year CERATIZIT has become a
‘household name’ also in the American Cutting Tool sector.
Latin America for us is an independent market with high
potential. For years the company has achieved doubledigit
growth rates, and after Eastern Europe and East Asia,
Latin America will remain the growth region where we will be
investing most intensively. East Asia is at the top of our
A WORD
FROM THE BOARD
A WORD FROM THE BOARD
agenda, as we have companies in the three most important
markets, China, Japan and India which contribute in a
higher-than-average way to the group’s growth. We will
certainly press ahead with our efforts in the Asian markets.
“We consistently optimize our processes”
Rationalization is always a topic as the cost pressure from
competitors never ceases. This does not however mean
that we are trying to attain the cost structure of our Asian
- namely our Chinese - competitors. And we will also not be
moving our entire production to low-wage countries as we
obviously want to maintain our high standard with regard to
quality, products and services and above all our customer
proximity. This however does not rule out production being
transferred in single cases.
In the framework of our current project, FOCUS FUTURE, our
aim is to interlock production and sales, also geographically,
in such a way that the customer‘s requests are fulfilled as
quickly and efficiently as possible. At the moment this project
“We prefer to be the number 1 in selected segments than the
number 3 overall”, says Board member Wolter.
basically concerns the West European production sites.
But the more we grow in Asia and Latin America, the more
we will extend our production in these regions to maintain
customer proximity.
We want to optimize all the processes which are necessary
to fulfil the customer’s requests. For this purpose we have to
continuously increase efficiency in all areas, i.e. research &
development, acquisition, sales, production and logistics.
CERATIZIT and our employees have already attained a lead
over competitors.
Thierry Wolter
Member of the Executive Board
thierry.wolter@ceratizit.com
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