ADVANCING INTO NEW MARKETS Pier Balloi is the director of Bitron HVAC Systems, the new Bitron group business unit dedicated to the production of systems and components for the HVAC industry. This unit has been recently launched and has plans for an important future expansion, with the objective of increasing its turnover from the current €40 million to €80 million in 2015. Barbara Rossi reports.
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he Bitron group was founded in 1955 in Turin, Italy, by Giovanni Bianco. Globally the group has 12 production sites, about 5000 employees, a turnover of €530 million and product distribution at worldwide level. It is a leading company in the development, manufacturing and distribution of systems and components for the automotive and household appliances industry. Every year the company reinvests about 7 per cent of its turnover in research and innovation. In the past decade the company, in order to enter new markets, started producing components for the HVAC industry. In 2004 this activity was extended to the production of complete hydraulic systems for boilers
and in a few years the company became the Italian leader in this field. This led, last year, to the idea of creating this third business division, following the existing automotive and household appliances activities, in order to dedicate resources to HVAC, for which there is increasing demand at worldwide level, due to both a general expansion of the heating sector and also to a need for replacement of older systems with renewable sourcesbased technology. This third division, which aims to become an independent operation, intends to take advantage of the quality focus for which Bitron is renowned in the automotive sector and the competitiveness focus that the group has in terms of household appliances.
Expansion
Growth will mainly be generated from outside Italy and six extra people are being taken on in order to follow new markets, starting with Europe as a priority, Germany, the UK, Holland, France, Spain and Italy, then followed by Turkey, China and Korea. At a later stage will be included eastern Europe and the USA. All these new markets will be approached both in terms of existing products and through the offering of new systems. Up to now Bitron HVAC systems has exclusively supplied boiler manufacturers, but recently they’ve widened their customer portfolio to include all potential HVAC industry producers, including heat pumps, solar
