Walking around the National Diesel Dirt and Turf Expo in April, it was interesting to see the different coloured machines and talking to Fleet Managers that recognised a colour before they say the brand. The common description of ‘yellow plant’ is being blurred with orange, red, and the distinctive harmony of the Kobelco blue-green.
We spoke to Chris Wolf, General Manager – Marketing and Direct Sales at Kobelco Australia, about the 90 year old Japanese company that only sells excavators in a crowded and competitive market for plant and equipment.
“All Kobelco does is excavators, globally,” explains Wolf. “So as a company, we’re actually owned by Kobe steel group, but subsidiary Kobe steel group is Kobelco Construction Machinery Japan. And so we’re pretty unique in the industry that we don’t have a broad range of products but we’re really sort of laser focused on just excavators.”
“Kobelco if you’re not familiar with us, in New South Wales, we’d be the number one selling heavy excavator in the industry. We’ve got a range of products that go from 800 kilo excavators all the way up to 85 tonne excavators and we’ve got a pretty good representation of our range here today. The smallest machine we have on the site over here you can see SK17SR, very popular machine with hire companies and residential construction companies, landscapers, it’s a really versatile bit of kit. All the way up to the 50 ton SK500XD that you see there in the back corner. Obviously that machine weighs in close to 52 tonne. It’s purpose built for quarry, demolition, and your general heavy civil tier one or two customers are buying those for infrastructure work and quarry work.”
The expo was in Sydney so some manufacturers were represented by local dealers and Wolf explained that STM Trucks and Machinery were the NSW dealer for Kobelco and that’s their preferred sales model.
“So all of our dealers in Australia are independent businesses,” says Wolf. “We’re maybe a bit different in that way as well. They are very relatable sort of businesses; family owned businesses. Generally speaking the Dealer Principal is very active in the business day to day in Sydney. They’ve got a very high volume of turnover of Kobelcos, but he’s in there every day and knows the customers.”
“And I think that is definitely a benefit of dealing with Kobelco and STM Trucks and Machinery; you’re dealing with real people. You’re dealing with people that are invested in the business at all levels. There’s no bureaucracy, there’s no red tape, if you ever have dramas, you can deal straight to the guy that owns the business and we’re pretty flat organisation Kobelco in Australia. So we know our customers really well as well and one of the things that we do; a bit differently than than our competitors is we’re really empowered to make things happen.”
