In August 2017, I had the opportunity to accompany the Sales Manager for North- and South America from Zürn GmbH & Co. KG, a German engineering firm, leading in the manufacturing of highly specialized plot combines. For about one month, we travelled through Brazil, a country with an enormous agricultural sector and therefore a very promising, yet highly challenging market for the Zürn GmbH & Co. KG.
At the time, Zürn’s products weren’t established in South America yet. Revenue and Sales in Northern America and Europe were growing frequently, but South America never showed huge interest in Zürn’s products. Zürn GmbH & Co. KG wanted to change this, and sent the two of us to Brazil with exactly one mission: Find out what is holding Zürn GmbH & Co. KG back, what the needs of the Brazilian – and therefore the South American – market are, and what Zürn GmbH & Co. KG needs to do in order to make its products viable for the South American market.
In order to accomplish this, we met up with many different potential customers, from large agricultural and chemical corporations to smaller businesses who were experimenting with seeds. During these meetings, I learned a lot about identifying the needs and concerns of customers and, most importantly, acting respectively in order to tackle potential concerns. After a few days that consisted solely of car rides and meetings, we had a pretty good idea of what most Brazilian customers demanded from a plot combine.
Brazil is a huge country that is very spread out. You can drive hundreds of kilometers without seeing signs of civilization – a situation that is very different from that in Europe. This means that certain things – which are rather unproblematic in the European market – suddenly become very important.
One example for this are spare parts. In Europe, in case of a machine failure, you can order spare parts online, and they usually arrive via mail a few days later. In Brazil however, a sudden machine failure almost always means that the machine is useless for the next few weeks – a huge problem for plot combines, which are used exclusively during harvesting season and therefore can’t just stand still for a few weeks. Because of this, the durability of a plot combine and the access to spare parts play a huge role in the decision-making of South American customers. In Europe however, customers do not care as much about these aspects.
While I travelled with Zürn’s Sales Manager, I learned a lot about such intricacies which seem to occur more and more as companies from very different countries collide in today’s globalized economy, and which can determine the success of a product or service in a certain market.
In addition to meeting up with potential customers, we presented Zürn’s products on agricultural fairs. Due to the fact that the opening hours were quite long, there were times were I was managing Zürn GmbH & Co KG.s booth on my own. This was a great opportunity to practice interacting with potential customers and clients, and at the same time I could use my knowledge of Zürn’s products which I obtained during the previous customer meetings.
Even though my internship lasted only about one month, I was able to take away so much from it. Due to many domestic flights, navigating through airports became something I could do subconsciously while answering mails or phone calls. I experienced how you can find out about the concerns and demands of customers, and how sometimes, tiny aspects can decide whether or not a client is convinced of a product or not. And finally, I got to meet many exiting new people.