A European leader when it comes to the distribution of wear resistant and high yield strength steels, it is a hugely important belief within Abraservice that it should be seen to be more than just a supplier of such products. Rather it has successfully fashioned itself into a specialised provider of its customers’ complete solutions, from the analysis of their needs to the supply of finished and machined parts, ready for assembly.
Part of the Jacquet Metal Service Group, Abraservice’s experience and technical knowledge ensure that it fully understands the needs of its customers and can offer support during quoting, following delivery and during service. It also acts as an advisor to the customers when it comes to selecting the right type of steel with the appropriate properties and during the processing phase. These customers operate in a diverse range of industries and environments including power plants, yellow goods, steel production, mines and quarries, cement works, recycling, civil engineering and the chemical sector. What these environments do all have in common however is that in each of them the quality and durability of materials is paramount.
Abraservice today boasts a presence in more than ten European markets, including Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, and employs over 230 people across these subsidiaries. "What makes the Netherlands a unique market to operate in is that it is a dredging country and what this inevitably means is that our focus here is on providing wear resistant and high yield steel to this market,” explains Lars De Goede, Sales Manager at Abraservice Nederland. “If you look at some of the core products that we sell, Creusabro for example, these are extremely well suited to this important market sector.”
Creusabro is a high performance wear resistant steel and Abraservice is the exclusive European dealer of this highly reputable metal. “The success of this product has contributed to much of our growth in recent times as we have been able to convince an increasing number of customers to switch from traditional wear resistant steels,” De Goede continues. “With an average wear resistance that is between 40 and 45 percent higher than conventional 400HB water quenched steel, Creusabro delivers these users significant cost savings over the life of use. It also lends itself extremely well to processes like bending and rolling, which is vital when it comes to its use in dredging tubes.”
Creusabro also possesses a rather special self-hardening quality that makes the product stand out from other wear resistant steels. By being able to be delivered in a softer condition users of the steel benefit from the fact that the drilling and machining of the piece is a much easier, less time consuming activity. Once this is complete Creusabro then reveals its last trump card in the form of its self-hardening qualities which strengthens the steel over the course of its lifetime.
Meanwhile, when it comes to high yield steels, Abraservice Nederland again supplies its customers with proven, reliable solutions that conform to international norms and standards. “Like our wear resistant steels, when it comes to high yield steels,” states COO of Abraservice Holdings, Michel Raets, “what we are always aiming to do is create higher value for our customers in the form of things like greater mechanical properties, bending and shaping properties and impact toughness. In doing so we further differentiate ourselves and our offering from that of our competitors.”
The market environment that Abraservice Nederland finds itself in today is undoubtedly a challenging one, defined as it is by increased competition and record low price levels. Despite these conditions the company has managed to again break the mould by recording increased tonnage growth in the first half of 2013 compared to 2012.
In Raets’ opinion, the reason for the continued steady growth of the business is down to several core factors. “For starters we are always focused on the service that we provide, after all that word forms part of our name. One of the ways we are trying to make life easier for our customers is by providing, where required, the material they need complete with holes drilled and welding, bending and rolling complete. This means that what they receive from us is a product that can be used straight out of the box, so to speak.”
Even though the company has exceeded all expectations when it comes to its growth, its success does remain tied to a number of external factors, for example the level of investment in public expenditures in the Netherlands and of course the performance of the steel works industry. The existence of blast furnaces across Europe plays an important role in Abraservice’s own performance, so one can imagine the negative effect that the closing of no fewer than twelve in 2012 had on the company.
Nevertheless, there is room for optimism within the company. “We believe,” Raets says, “that even in the face of an environment that is very fragile we our strategy of bringing added value options to our customers and exclusive products to market will result in Abraservice remaining one of few suppliers of its kind to prosper going forward. We are certainly of the opinion that our higher levels of knowledge, experience and production capabilities place us in a much better position today than other non-differentiated players out there.”
After a 2012 that both Raets and De Goede openly admit to being difficult for the company as a result of business levels and the need to restructure the organisation accordingly, it is pleasing to find that Abraservice today retains the full support and confidence of its shareholders, confidence that has clearly been well founded what with the company now back in the black in terms of profits and investing massively across the organisation.
“Throughout the group,” Raets concludes, “significant work is underway to improve Abraservice’s business and to guarantee its long-term success. Perhaps what is most important to note however is that unlike many other companies out there, we are not just hoping and wishing for better times to come, rather we are taking a leading role as actors in making this future a reality.”
Written by Will Daynes, research by Marcus Lewis
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