GEALAN continues growing and investing in the future

While Covid-19 has now been a challenge to the global economy for almost 18 months, a tense situation in the marketplace owing to scarce and increasingly expensive raw materials has been an additional problem for several months now. Despite these turbulent times, GEALAN managed to stabilise quickly after a two-month slump in sales in the spring of 2020 – since then, the plastics systems provider has been back on track for growth. By the end of the coronavirus year 2020, GEALAN’s turnover had increased from 239 million euros in 2019 to 245 million euros in 2020. And the trend is continuing: at the end of May 2021, GEALAN can already report a further growth in turnover of around 35 per cent (compared to the end of May 2020)!

 

Maurović: “We managed to really focus on our partners and customers even in these difficult times”

“In these challenging times, we’ve been very quick to find new solutions and have continued developing even in the face of resistance. GEALAN launched not only new systems and products in 2020 and 2021, but also digital tools. And when every face-to-face trade fair was cancelled in 2020, we created our own virtual exchange platform with our Digital International Future Forum. We’ve also received several awards, for example the FLG Oscar as the best supplier in the industry and the Heinze Award for our BIM solution. This shows that even in hard times, we’ve managed to really focus on our partners and customers, to support them flexibly, quickly and precisely and to inspire them with our innovations”, says Ivica Maurović, spokesperson for GEALAN’s management, summing up recent months. He promises: “We continue to develop and grow, and we will continue to support and inspire in the future – that’s in our corporate DNA”.

 

 

Investments in the double-digit millions

Numerous investments in these times underpin this. “GEALAN has invested more than 15 million euros across the group – even in the challenging year that was 2020”, explains Tino Albert, GEALAN’s Managing Director for Technology and Finance. Among other things, the in-house tool shop at our headquarters in Oberkotzau has been digitalised and a new training workshop, two canteens, new storage areas and a new employee car park have been built.

For 2021, a further 16 million euros have been earmarked for the group as a whole, with which GEALAN will continue to position itself for the future: this includes machinery expansion in toolmaking, more capacity and new technologies in the recycling process, further optimisation of delivery performance, a research laboratory at our Tanna site and a new high-bay warehouse, which will be built there within the next two years.

 

Focus on people

Above all, GEALAN’s people should also benefit from these investments: optimised working conditions and state-of-the-art technical equipment enable our employees to contribute their knowledge and skills in the best possible way. Through investments such as our new training workshop in Tanna, young people in particular will find an optimal working environment for learning and expanding their personal skills.