Engcon continues its path to global expansion, fuelled by twenty key staff appointments made in 2019
Strömsund, Sweden was where Engcon was founded and remains the site of it’s tiltrotator development and production facilities. As a world-leading tiltrotator manufacturer Engcon continues to grow, recruiting 20 key strategic positions in 2019 to prepare the organization for further global expansion.
When Strömsund-based Engcon was founded back in 1990, it was on a small scale, made up of just a few people. Founder Stig Engström designed, assembled and sold his products directly to the end customer. As sales picked up speed, each part of the business grew, but the head office, factory and most of the administrative functions have remained in Strömsund.
Over time, Engcon has built up an international organization. Today, the company has established sales offices in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, France, Benelux, the USA, the UK, Germany, Korea and Australia.
Being an international company places major demands in terms of skills supply, and this makes the past year's strategic recruitments all the more important for Engcon’s global growth plans.
Engon’s global presence means that there are always active customers somewhere in the world at any given time of the day or night.
“To better attend to this, we've reinforced our team with two Region Managers. Their work is integrated with our sales offices around the world, and they act as a link to the head office in Strömsund," explains Krister Blomgren, CEO at Engcon, who continues:
"We've also recruited a Head of Marketing to boost our branding efforts, and their assignment includes standardizing our central communication, in addition to supporting our markets at the local level. Furthermore, we've recruited an International Sales Manager to head up a team that will focus on the markets we’ve yet to establish our own offices in."
From local to global Stig Engström, Engcon's owner and founder reflects on Engcon's development:
"The difference compared to when I started is in reaching out with information to everyone in the organization. The creation of a common vision and trust in our values, regardless of where in the world our employees are located, is an important challenge," says Stig, before going on to say:
"If we are to continue growing we need to safeguard our company culture, and this is where personnel care is important. It's why we've also strengthened our HR department with a new employee whose primary task is to focus on personnel who work in our growth markets, i.e. outside Sweden.
As Engcon's business has grown, the company has seen an increasing need for structure, processes and procedures that enable it to go on delivering the very best to customers, who these days are at the four corners of the earth.
"When all of our 300 employees do the right thing, it has a very big impact on the outcome. It's important to create a company culture and organization that works equally well in good times and bad. For this reason, the past year's strategic recruitments are absolutely essential for our continued growth," says Stig Engström.
In 2019, Engcon also recruited a Head of Production and Purchasing to review the company's production and purchasing processes. Engcon also boosted the management team with the skills it previously lacked.
"Before, we were solutions-oriented in the extreme. These days we structure our operation without sacrificing flexibility, which is one of our most important watchwords. When we brought our Head of Marketing and Head of Production and Purchasing into the management team, we also got a more balanced team. This is an important change for our future development," declares Stig Engström.