Demarec 20 years interview with founders

The challange of being an entrepreneur

Constantly wanting to introduce innovating products is an ambitious goal, but it also poses its challenges, Ruud experienced: “Guaranteeing the continuity of constantly developing new products has brought its share of pressure. You can never stop, otherwise your planning will overrun, and you won’t be able to sell your products any longer. We really believe that this is our strength and, in order to become successful, you need to believe in and rely on your own strength. You need to know that you’ll be able to live up to it and persevere with your long-term goals in the back of your head. You don’t want to divert from those, because you’ll lose the grip on your company. Personally, I believe that it is very important to trust your gut, because that is your best advisor. It should always feel right, because we have experienced that our guts are our best advisors.” Marcel agrees: “You should have a feeling for what you do and really enjoy it, because that is the only way to get energized by you what you do and turn it into a success.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean that Marcel hasn’t faced any challenges during his entrepreneurship despite his passion for his job: “We have really had to fight to gain our current position and to generate business. Every time you launch a new product on the market, you are constantly occupied with how to do so and which arguments you can use to sell your product’s added value. Because the company and the arguments you introduce are so in sync with each other – you have put in your soul – you can carry those arguments. Some things come naturally. You might have finished your studies and have degree, but that doesn’t mean that you master the profession. Without a degree, you can act on your gut feeling and still be received well by the market. The knowledge, experience and knowledge that you have are much more important and those are, in my eyes, the best components to start a company with.”

Being flexible

When you’re in the profession for 20 years, you experience quite some changes and that requires some resilience and flexibility from an entrepreneur. “The market has changed quite a bit in a couple of areas compared with 20 years ago,” Marcel states. “However, our vision has remained largely the same. We noticed that the market is becoming more and more price-centred and that requires us to keep adjusting along the way.” Ruud confirms this: “In 20 years’ time, more competition has arisen and that leads to price-centred selling. We have had to adjust our vision a little bit, even though we still focus on developing and delivering qualitative products with which we distinguish ourselves from the rest. Of course, it can cost a little bit more, but the gap between us and our competition can’t become too large, it should remain affordable and sellable. Also, you can tell that customers have become more critical; everything has to be right, from the cost price and the quality to the performance a product can deliver. We have all become more critical, which is very logical as parts can be bought over the Internet and you are able to demand a certain service from a producer. That is quite a difference compared to back in the days and that’s what we are focusing on more right now.”

Future

The future, according to Marcel and Ruud, is in line with the aim they have always had; introducing innovative products to the market. “We don’t work in an industry that is constantly moving at a fast pace, such as automizing,” Marcel states. “Our products have not been refined as quickly as, for example, mobile phones, which have become indispensable in 10 to 20 years. In our industry, we will turn our attention to dust production, vibrations and sound, some things that we are currently working on. Furthermore, the biggest challenge for us in the future is developing our tools with a better cost awareness. We have customers that spend a million euros on a machine, but rather opt for a cheaper tool that can cut 25% less than ours. We always say: “In the end, it is only about the tool”. That challenge, to make people aware that investing in quality will provide you with better results, is one that will be on our minds over the next period of time.”

In the end… It’s only about the right tool

Cost is something that will also play a bigger part for Ruud: “We are engineering with a better cost awareness as we speak, whilst striving for the same without settling for less. We still want to create better products with our product know-how. We always compare it to car brands: Volkswagen sells more cars for a lower price, Audi and Porsche sell a lower number of cars, but for a higher price. They are of a strong quality and are expensive, but not unaffordable. That is how you have to look at our products, too, since we develop them to perform better. That is the red thread that runs through our daily activities and the reason we started Demarec in the first place. Therefore, we will always keep working on cylinder technique, valve development and developing technology of a higher quality. We have those competences, and it has always been our strategy to make use of those and make use of that strength. We will definitely keep doing that.”
It does require a different way of engineering than the men have been used to, they noticed. “Eventually, there other demolition techniques will arise due to the evolution to circularity. You can tell that the demolition industry is professionalizing in that area more quickly as well, it is not as rough and crude as it used to be,” Marcel remarks. “We can’t avoid that the industry will eventually shift to disassembly for reuse, which is also beneficial for the production of dust and sound, because that will make it more controllable. Luckily, we can explore the borders of what is possible with 3D-design on the computer and, in that way, make sure that our tools maintain their power, velocity and efficacy, but meet the new demands/development, in accordance with our customers. In this way, we can keep doing what we like and do best; innovate and launch new, improved products!”