COVER STORY Mission possible
It’s a while since Phil Matten really spent time with Masterfix in Maastricht. The last occasion was when the blind fastening specialists launched an eye-catching marketing campaign. Don’t remember it? You must be one of the few. Anyway, word that a new campaign was on the way was incentive enough to ‘enjoy’ the Ryanair flight and get a sneak preview.
there had to be questions about how much Masterfix had changed, and whether for better or worse. Assailed immediately by a string of wry
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comments about Ryanair not delivering to the door (previously, and obviously never to be forgotten, snow forced the Eindhoven flight to divert to Maastricht) there was no question that the inimitable Masterfix humour remains irrepressible. Nor clearly has acquisition by one of
the biggest corporations in the world suppressed the intensely personalised Masterfix approach to business. What it certainly did do, as Emhart Teknologies European vice president sales & marketing, Christian Lubascher succinctly puts it, was to provide “an extra tank of oxygen” during some of those critical periods. Financial stability apart, integration into the Emhart European operation, which has probably correctly taken a bit of time, has in the end obviously delivered really significant advantages to Masterfix. Worth, then, a step back to look at
exactly how that fit works. Stanley Black & Decker has three divisions – Construction & DIY, Security and Industrial and Auto Repair. Within the latter is Engineered Fastener Solutions, which means primarily Emhart Teknologies, divided in turn into American, Asian and European operations. In Europe there are two big teams, emphatically teams not divisions says Christian Lubascher. One is dedicated to the automotive OEM market, the other to general industry. For general industry, Emhart now has
an integrated organisation across the whole of Europe, including manufacturing, logisitics, sales and customer support and the two major brands of POP®
and
Masterfix - which is where it all starts to get interesting. Logistically, all of Emhart
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n the intervening seven years a lot has happened, by no means least the acquisition of Masterfix by Stanley Black & Decker. With this in mind
Europe’s sales and customer operations as well as distribution centres now support the Masterfix as well as POP® brands. Masterfix retains its headquarters and main warehouse, now housing an expanded packaging operation of which more later, in Maastricht. In the end what differentiates POP®
and Masterfix as much as anything are the characteristics of their end consumers, as Christian Lubascher explains: “The difference is in the markets we serve. POP is about the technology - so we talk to engineers, to very big companies, to
Hall: 21 Stand: D58
director, Peter Brans warms to a theme, which knowingly or not reverberates strongly with thoughts he expressed six years ago. “Masterfix is about service. That is what delivers the added value. In a way the product is more like a minimum requirement in the distribution business. We continue to have the personal touch, because over more than 25 years we have seen how important it is.” Easy on paper, perhaps not so easy to
operate in practice? Christian Lubascher and Peter Brans are of a single mind on that one and central to their argument is
end users, line operators, production engineers. It is straightforward business focused on the product itself and the solutions it delivers. Masterfix is in the distribution business and to support distributors you need to have the relationship. People like to do business with other people and Masterfix has done an outstanding job building this type of relationship.” Emhart Teknologies European sales
Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 74 March 2012
the experience, knowledge and above all responsibility of the people in the Emhart European network. “The key is being close to your customers,” emphasises Peter. “If you simply handle sales as an administrative process there is no way to avoid potential difficulties and misunderstandings. It took us a while to develop the right level of understanding in our teams. It is not about some formal rulebook followed mechanically. It is about
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