New Priva office in Mexico marks a significant step forward
Since mid-May of this year, Priva has had its own office in Quéretaro, Mexico. The base for Central and South America is located in the office of Ceickor, the knowledge and consultancy centre in Mexico with which Priva has collaborated for around two years. Opening its own office seemed the logical course of action for Priva in view of the local developments in horticulture. This improved level of support is regarded as a significant step forward for the dealers and end-users: the quicker and cheaper service, stock of parts, knowledge transfer and training opportunities from Priva are within easier reach than ever before.
Priva’s interests in the North-American continent are being served from the office in Canada. However, this situation meant that the considerable market potential in Mexico and in Central and South American horticulture industries was not being sufficiently utilised. Priva successfully embarked on its activities in the area surrounding and to the south of the equator some 15 years ago. Niels van Rooyen has been the person responsible for organising its activities in Latin America for the last three years. He has worked as Priva’s full-time Account Manager for Latin America since 2007. “Even back then, the idea of establishing our own office already existed,” said Niels, “but that isn’t the type of decision to be taken lightly, of course. I soon discovered that there was a lack of knowledge and a rapid, high-quality service in existing Priva projects. For support of the dealers, a service engineer was frequently required to come over from Europe and that cost a great deal of time as well as money.”
Tentative beginnings
In order to establish a firmer foundation for the plans, five students from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam conducted research into the horticulture market. “The results confirmed our feeling that there was a great deal of potential,” explains Van Rooyen, “not only in the high-end segment in which we were already operating as a company, but also in the middle segment, which we are just as interested in serving.” On the basis of the outcomes of this study, the final decision was made over the course of 2009 to open an office.
Entering into a collaboration with Ceickor soon seemed like an obvious choice, according to Van Rooyen. “We are now offering Priva training courses through Ceickor and the company had office and storage space available. That met our requirements perfectly: it provided us with accommodation that would allow us to begin our activities relatively tentatively, but at the same time signalling that we consider Mexico important enough to open our own office there. And Mexico is important to us: developments covering 700 or 800 hectares already represent considerable technological advancement and the medium-tech segment immediately below is rapidly gaining in importance. This is all to do with the favourable climate of trade with the United States of America and Canada. It is, in fact, a development that can be seen all over Latin America.”
China sets a good example
The office has been officially in use since mid-May 2010. It serves as a base for Niels himself, who will not be there very often due to travelling, and for service engineer Jimmy Jaktlund, who is living in Mexico on a permanent basis with his family for several months. An in-house staff member is responsible for dealing with ongoing matters that occur on a daily basis, such as queries, courses, post, e-mails, telephone calls, and so forth. In the not-too-distant future, Jimmy will be joined by another member of staff from Mexico who will provide technical support.
“The Priva branch in China provides us with a good role model,” says Niels van Rooyen. “Our activities at our Priva Beijing office are expanding and our aim in the short-term is to develop all those activities in Querétaro too. Naturally, of course we treat this with great care. It is not the case that we want to expand in a hurry; the market will create the demand.” It has been established that the market is growing: Priva has sold an increasing number of high and medium-tech systems over the last few years, the demand for training causes rose sharply and the number of Priva dealers in the region has quadrupled.
Prepared for dealers and growers
The new office is therefore not only intended to serve Mexico, but also acts as a ‘springboard’ for the rest of the continent. “Countries such as Brazil, Peru, Chile and also Guatemala and Ecuador are developing extremely quickly and the first systems are sold in Columbia recently. We have noticed that growers across the entire region are realising that they can produce much more from their crops by using the right technology and know-how. They realise they can increase the yield per square metre and the quality of their produce, reduce costs and achieve a much greater profit. We are helping them to achieve that goal through our dealers”.
Dealers and trainers have all responded positively to this development, which is only logical: Service, maintenance, parts and knowledge transfer or training will soon, quite literally be provided closer to home. “We are more prepared than ever to serve our dealers and their clients,” says Van Rooyen. “Whether they want to know how to set up their processing computer or need help with calibrating and programming irrigation systems. Thanks to our new office, we are forming the foundation for further growth in the horticulture sector in Latin America.
Further information about Priva América Latina is available on our website.
Product information of Priva is now also available in Spanish on our new Spanish-language website: www.priva.mx.