PILZ New Zealand turns 20
Pilz New Zealand is turning 20 years on 22 September 2022. Being part of the Pilz family for 20 years is a journey the team in New Zealand is proud of.
Pilz New Zealand was first established in 2002 to provide local support to the growing customer base of Pilz Australia. From its humbling beginning, it now has an ever-increasing customer base throughout New Zealand. The NZ team provides local sales, technical support, and safety services from its head office in Auckland and a home office in Hamilton.
How was it like in the beginning
NZ started with a small home office in Auckland, Tony Catterson, Pilz New Zealand Manager, and pioneer, remembers how it was like in the beginning.
Starting up commercially in a new geographical location was never easy. It was a very steep learning curve for Tony Catterson. All tasks from building the brand up to operational stuff like administration, logistics, approaching potential clients, delivering end to end sales, technical support, consulting, and training were done by Tony.
“We have grown since then. We now have dedicated people for various tasks like administration and logistics, internal and external sales, services and technical support engineers and myself, the NZ Manager. Looking back, it was tough but, definitely, a journey worthwhile. We can only grow bigger from here.” – Tony Catterson
What makes the subsidiary unique?
New Zealand or as they call it, “The Land of Two Halves” is modest in size but a geographically spread-out country. It is also the furthest from where our Headquarter is, Ostfildern, Germany, making the team in New Zealand work in completely opposite time zones. This makes delivering Pilz products and services a little trickier compared to other countries that are smaller in size or more cohesive in shape.
“Being the furthest away from Germany, even DHL express shipping takes around 5 days or sometimes even more than a week to arrive in NZ from Germany with customs clearances and local shipping.
Our small team must be able to cover a range of tasks and must be very solutions focused and be able to always look for alternatives that are in stock. Everyone in the team can do both sales and services. We must be adaptable,” said Tony.
Adaptability and Creativity – the team’s greatest strength proved its worth with the recent setbacks experienced by Pilz subsidiaries, worldwide. The team approached the cyberattack and the recent pandemic similarly to how they operated prior these setbacks – making use of what they have and the adaptability they have developed to deliver quality products, services and trainings in the most cost-efficient way.
Pilz New Zealand was able to come out of those challenges stronger and is now more confident to take on any challenges that may come their way. Hard work, dedication and teamwork are also at play which helped the team to achieve their greatest sales revenue in 2021, a year when the rest of the world was struggling.
How do you see Pilz New Zealand 5 years from now?
In the next 5 years, Pilz New Zealand plans to expand geographically and grow their market reach. Continuous growth and learning of the current team itself and focusing on expanding their service businesses are the two key strategies of the team.