LMT Direct Sales: the multi-specialists
If a company working in a particular tool sector needs help and support, then specialists are needed. And that is exactly what the LMT Tool System marketing company is: experts with high levels of know-how, who offer specific consultation on a tool application. But what about customers who need tool solutions for a wide spectrum of applications?
"That is our special field", explains Tilo Höbel, Direct Sales Manager of LMT Deutschland. "You could say that we are the multi-specialists within the multi-specialist LMT group." Since the beginning of 2010, Direct Sales have been working within a new structure. Three regional teams – south, central and north/east, the experts for cutting applications and metallurgical techniques, the central customer service department and the sales controlling department are all under the Direct umbrella.
The sales manager for the central region, Gerold Fessen, describes the demands and the procedure followed by the tool all-rounders: "We visit our customers with an application specialist and with a sales representative. In that way we get to the best possible solution as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Seven focus products each year
This also includes drawing customers' attention to the possibilities offered by special tools. "Focus products" are presented against this background. "These products let their users achieve significant increases in performance", explains Stefan Möller, team leader for the thread tapping and milling sectors.
The modular HPF thread formers provide a topical example of this. "Until now it has mostly been companies who make long production runs who have used this tool. Customers with products that change often have not so clearly seen the advantages, since the sheer tool costs are, at first, rather higher than those of solid carbide tools. The tool, however, provides a huge leap forward in performance. The higher procurement costs are amortized very quickly" explains Möller.
Service is part of the package
Ludger Ignaszak, from Direct Sales South, provides another example for cooperation between LMT Direct Sales with customers and their highly varied requirements. "It is really helpful for many of our customers that we have our own Service Centers for tool reprocessing in Karlsruhe and at other sites around the world. Whenever it is particularly important to keep tool costs down, the refurbishment and recoating of tools are, of course, important", explains Ignaszak. "In discussions with our customers we can put together a total package – from developing the optimum machining strategy, through selection of the tool that will be best suited to that strategy, and on to planning the reprocessing cycle."
Flexibility in demand
This assessment is also shared by Miguel Tojo, Customer Service Manager: "Our customers, if they want, can be given a combination of products and services that is optimum for them." The importance of this customer orientation is illustrated by the example of the North/East sales area – a region with a high proportion of smaller, independent companies. Tojo explains the situation: "We haven't even got two companies that need the same tools". Here again, the formula for success is maximum flexibility, high delivery compliance and the best possible solutions. In a word – multi-specialism.