Bright future to prompt VSL expansion

Educating clients in this respect is absolutely vital, according to Santome

All the news from Big 5

VSL Middle East is looking to expand in the Middle East region, as it predicts a bright 2010 for the company.

VSL has a wide range of products, but works mainly in the field of post tensioning systems for bridges and for buildings. The company works with different grades of steel with different diameters.

“I think as all companies have, we have faced problems with the crisis and sales have been lower. However, the region is now behaving in a positive way, and there are a lot of projects in Qatar and Saudi,” revealed Mariana Santome, engineer operations and technical support at VSL.

Advertisement

FEATURED COMMENT Please click here to comment on this article

“We are looking to expand our business into Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain, the whole region,” she added.

Santome also revealed that the company has recently been awarded a project in Abu Dhabi and is looking to secure contracts in Doha in the near future. “We think 2010 will be a good year, the beginning of the year might be a little slow but this will give people time to plan for the rest of the year. We expect things to pick up,” she said.

One of the issues that the company is facing is getting the message to clients that sometimes paying more in the short term can result in savings in the long term.

“There are a lot of companies in the market from China and India, but quality wise our products are much better. We feel that companies should be looking for quality rather than price. Nobody can afford having an accident on site,” said Santome.

“It makes more sense to invest a little bit more on quality product. The market is difficult and challenging, but we have seen things pick up. The outlook is positive,” she added.

Educating clients in this respect is absolutely vital, according to Santome. “We definitely have to educate our clients, it is not easy to approach people and say we have very good quality and these different applications. It is not a matter of just sales; you have to let them know what we are offering. You have to approach the client, explain and educate them on our products.”

“In this region some people can be more price focused, but once they learn the advantages they discover it is a lot more valuable but sometimes it needs a little bit of education from our side,” Santome concluded.
 

---