27.04.2009

Tight Control and Tough Competition

By: Susan Sills

Just last fall, an enthusiastic Yury Makarov told SAP.info how SAP Business One was helping Mettler-Toledo attain its goals. Now, with the recession raging in Russia, the company has changed its focus.

Measuring technology by Mettler Toledo (Photo: Mettler Toledo)

With GDP growth shrinking steadily, industrial output plummeting, and oil wealth hemorrhaging, the global recession has hit Russia hard. For Yury Makarov, Director Business Development at Mettler-Toledo C.I.S., Russian subsidiary of the global Mettler-Toledo Group, this has meant a radical change in the company goals of sales expansion and control.

Customer caution is the order of the day. In the current atmosphere of fear, customers are very careful about making major investments in weighing equipment. A number of projects that were expected to start in early 2009 have been postponed six months or more. “These postponements can create havoc in our balance books,” says Makarov. “So we have to fill the gap.” Now the sales staff at Mettler-Toledo is concentrating on short-term projects that pay up within the month, or at the latest, within the quarter.

“Our days of negotiating big projects with long payment periods are temporarily over,” states Makarov. However, the focus on short-term projects does not automatically ensure smooth sailing for the company. The domino effect of the recession means that the Russian company is directly affected by the financial woes of its customers. In recent months, some customers have told the company upon delivery of equipment that they can not make the second payment – and occasionally have even offered to break their contracts.

“Our sales reps did a great job and got them to pay up in the end,” says Makarov. “But all this takes time – and so is another cause of delays in payment.”

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