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Sandvik Construction look ahead with 2020 strategy

Dinggui Gao has been in post as president of Sandvik Construction since October 2013, and in that short time has travelled thousands of miles meeting customers. He and his team now have a clear idea of the company’s strategy up to 2020, a strategy that was finalised in the last quarter of last year. “To me the best value in meeting our customers is to understand their needs and understand how they operate their business,” says Gao, who is known by his initials, DG. Understood to be the first Chinese pers
March 6, 2014 Read time: 3 mins
Dinggui Gao president of Sandvik Construction
Dinggui Gao has been in post as president of 2403 Sandvik Construction since October 2013, and in that short time has travelled thousands of miles meeting customers.

He and his team now have a clear idea of the company’s strategy up to 2020, a strategy that was finalised in the last quarter of last year.

“To me the best value in meeting our customers is to understand their needs and understand how they operate their business,” says Gao, who is known by his initials, DG.

Understood to be the first Chinese person who has made it to the very top of a Western company, he was previously at MAN Group as its executive representative at one of its invested companies, Sinotruk Hong Kong. Before that he was employed by Honeywell, Eagle Ottawa and for over ten years he held progressive leading positions in the 3405 Bosch Group.

“From meeting the customer you can get an idea of how we can help them, whether it is with products, services, innovation or business models.

“We can provide value to our customers. If we can do this we will win together. This is my belief. This is the reason why we always go out to meet our customers.”

Looking at the marketplace he feels that in 2013 many operations were optimistic about the market and while in 2014 the consensus is that there will be a certain degree of growth, in the first few months he says there has been slow growth. The US and Asia has seen slow growth. Europe has been pretty strong, particularly the UK, Germany and Turkey.

“From a growth perspective and based on our knowledge I think the best opportunities will come from the US and Asia.

“I am really happy being at Conexpo and I have been in contact primarily with US customers, although I have been meeting customers from all over the world as well. Every customer is telling me stories of how they feel more confident about the market. This gives me confidence that we can grow the business together.”

He said that together with his team at Sandvik Construction the company is now focusing on five objectives to support its aim of long-term growth: services packages to offer the best value for customers; sales; operational efficiency; a competitive footprint and partnerships.

“In 2013 we launched 37 new products and in 2014 we will see more than 20 new products,” he said.

“These products have been the result of interaction with our customers and these are designed to meet the demand from our customers.

“New products and innovation have always been one of the strengths of the Sandvik group. Indeed, Sandvik has been nominated as one of the 100 most innovative companies in the world for two consecutive years.”
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