Bertschi Group invests massively into its international expansion
In 2012 the Bertschi group based in Dürrenäsch launched a globalisation strategy, based on a strong market position in Europe. As a result, more than one third of group sales is now taking place outside Europe, being responsible also for a large part of the achieved Group growth in 2017.
The European business units – supported by the positive economic business cycle – were as well increasing their turnover. Together with an acquisition in Belgium, Bertschi Group achieved in 2017 more than 20 percent turnover growth to around 900 million Swiss francs. Group results were on a good level, despite the challenging closure of the Rhine Valley railway, reads a press release.
“The outlook for 2018 is positive. To be able to cope with the growing demand of our customers, we decided to again spend substantial amounts for the expansion of our capacities in 2018”, comments Hans-Jörg Bertschi.
In mid-2017, Bertschi acquired a large industrial site in the port of Antwerp. As from 2018 the area will be reconstructed step-by-step to a logistics hub for chemical products. The first phase is currently under construction – a hub for import, handling and storage of plastics from overseas. With the start of this plastics hub’s operations in only a few weeks, further planning steps are already under preparation.
At the end of January 2018, the Bertschi hub in Singapore went operational with the doubling of its capacity for the storage of dangerous goods to now 50,000 pallet positions. In the course of the year a cleaning station for tank containers will be added to the range of services of this hub offering drum filling, storage and distribution of liquid chemicals in South East Asia.
In addition, Bertschi will expand its container fleet by more than 2,000 units. In response to the Group’s strong growth, two floors will be added to the company headquarters in Dürrenäsch in 2018, an office building constructed six years ago.
A strong focus in 2018 will be placed on the digitalisation of the business processes. «Digitised transparency in the logistics chains will enable us to further improve our service quality for our customers and to optimise our internal processes. The enhancement of our own software as well as its integration with digital projects of our customers and our own smart devices are in the center of the planned efforts», says Bertschi. The company currently employs 40 people in teams for software development. This capacity will be further increased in 2018.
Bertschi is a global logistics service provider for the chemical industry specialising in the logistics of liquids and granulates. The family business headquartered in Switzerland was founded in 1956 and has 2,800 employees working in 75 subsidiaries in 38 countries. Bertschi has a fleet of 32,000 tank and silo containers, 1,100 trucks and 30 container terminals.