Bucharest-based Marcom, the largest distributor of construction equipment on the Romanian market, held by businesspeople Constantin and Monica Marcu, has moved to significantly cut costs related to fuel, phone bills, electricity, gas and stationery, after the market plummeted in the first half of the year, with just 220 units sold, compared with 1,865 in the similar period of last year.
Marcom, a distributor of Japanese equipment manufacturer Komatsu, has been badly hit by the decline of the constructions sector, having sold only 41 earthmoving pieces of equipment (used for loading, digging and transporting construction materials), 11 times less compared with the 467 units sold in the year-ago period.
"The main problems were the small number of projects active on the constructions market, the fact that it is almost impossible to get good funding terms, the long time needed until a project financed with European funds is finalised and, not least, the bankruptcies that have and will continue to affect construction firms," says Razvan Marcu, Marcom’s marketing manager.
Under the circumstances, the company has reduced its number of employees to 90 and has cut auxiliary costs.
"Instead of two people travelling in a four-seat car, we use it to transport four; rather than talking on the phone excessively, we are clearer, and instead of printing out tens of pages for a report, our reports are now more concise, and require less paper," explains Marcu.
The company expects turnover to decline by a third this year, to around 60 million euros from 91 million euros last year.
"We think we will gain market share towards the end of the year, because many of the companies on the market have financial problems and are on the brink of bankruptcy. We also have revenues from equipment sales for which we have no clear statistics, such as cranes, material handlers and hydraulic hammers," says Marcom’s marketing manager.
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