Company news AL-KO VTE
Trento, Italy
Arco, Italy
Gaiarine, Italy
Arad, Romania
Soliman, Tunisia
AL-KO VTE: the perfect merger Now that a few months have passed since CBE and Nordelettronica merged into AL-KO Vehicle Technology Electronics S.r.l., let’s take a look at the current situation, in the light of the challenges experienced by the industry and new promising synergies Words Giorgio Carpi
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he merger of CBE and Nordelettronica into AL-KO Vehicle Technology Electronics S.r.l. opens up new horizons for the industry. They are both renowned European brands, specialised in the supply of electronic equipment for the recreational vehicles market, including battery chargers for camper vans, low voltage distribution modules, cable harnesses and control panels. Their strong brand reputations convinced the DexKo Group to maintain the two trademarks without change, to avoid cancelling their 40 years of successful operations in the market. We visited the AL-KO Vehicle Technol-
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ogy Electronics S.r.l. factory in Gaiarine, in the Veneto region (in North-East Italy), to see how the two companies are handling the difficulties of the current situation. “While in the previous year the shortage of components was limited to just a few types of products, especially microprocessors, by the end of 2021 this problem had affected nearly all electronic components even minor items, and in some cases prices have grown out of control,” says Alessandro Chies, one of the MDs of AL-KO Vehicle Technology Electronics S.r.l. “We have made every effort to mitigate the situation, especially in our
relations with our clients. We have always been client-focussed, both when Nordelettronica and CBE were competitors and equally so now, as members of a large Group. The situation at the start of 2022 was very challenging, due to the continued difficulty in procuring raw materials, with Covid affecting our vendors’ supply chains. In this situation, which is something we’ve never had to deal with before, we still managed to close the first quarter with almost as good sales figures as 2021, which was a record year. But the prospects for 2022 are dogged by uncertainty. A shortage of chassis
