[WRE | SPOTLIGHT]
INDUSTRY EXPERT, KNUT BUSCHMANN, Highlights Several Key Issues Affecting Our Industry
industry. We recently spoke with Knut Buschmann, President of Unirope LTD, in an eff ort to address some of the issues folks in the industry are faced with today.
T
he lifting and rigging industry is constantly changing, and it comes as no surprise that within this constant, companies of every size and specialty need to adapt to these changes if they plan on both surviving and succeeding. It pays to be well informed of trends and issues that are currently shaping the
You may have heard of Buschmann; as a former president of both AWRF (Associated Wire Rope Fabricators) and OIPEEC (the International Organization for the Study of Endurance of Wire Rope), he tends to have his fi nger on the pulse of the industry. (He continues to be a member of the AWRF Technical Committee, where he develops Test Method Procedures for the rigging industry.) If that’s not enough, Buschmann is also a member of the Cordage Institute’s Technical Committee. And, of course, as President of Unirope LTD, he’s heavily involved with his own company—headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with fabrication locations in Montreal, Mississauga, and Edmonton.
Buschmann is a German native, and was transferred by his parent company (WDI– Python Wire Rope) to Canada in 1989. He’s spent his life working in the wire rope and rigging industry—starting out as a merchant seaman before joining a rigging shop in Hamburg, Germany. He also has a degree in commercial banking, along with several engineering certifi cations. And
Knut Buschmann is President of Unirope LTD, headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, with fabrication locations in Montreal, Mississauga, and Edmonton.
he even knows a thing or two about mergers and acquisitions.
To that end, with the amount of consolidations in the industry today—allowing certain companies to grow larger, while others maintain their local base—many industry folks are wondering how this is going to ultimately aff ect the industry—in terms of advantages versus disadvantages.
“THE ORIGINAL OWNER AND MANAGEMENT IS STILL IN PLACE, AND THE DECISIONS ARE STILL BEING DONE BASED ON AN IN-DEPTH KNOWLEDGE OF THE MARKET … THESE COMPANIES WILL HAVE A GREAT FUTURE AHEAD OF THEM.”
“T e net eff ect of mergers and acquisitions by fi nance/ investment groups will be that the companies they acquire lose their entrepreneurial spirit and drift into a ‘corporate’ organizational structure,” Buschmann believes. “Management will be more busy producing monthly statistics and reports rather than fi nding time to make better products, do innovation, or, generally speaking, think about what their company needs to do the day AFTER tomorrow.” He also sees risk in the fact that companies are being purchased because of their success in the marketplace. “What the new ‘investment owners’ don’t realize is that this industry requires a strong private ‘boss’ leadership to drive a small business. And even the largest of sling shops around are still small business in the big picture.”
WIRE ROPE EXCHANGE SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2014 17
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