Growing together: Massenza’s Diego Massenza and Strassmeyer’s Ryszard Sowa
This year’s bauma provides the perfect opportunity for bitumen technology firm 6805 Massenza to promote its new relationship with Strassmeyer, a Polish-based company which makes equipment for road repair and maintenance. Massenza became the majority shareholder in Strassmeyer at the end of last year, adding a complimentary range of plant to Massenza’s established range of bitumen handling equipment.
“We are now starting to promote the brand through our network of agents which covers almost 100 countries in the world,” said Massenza director Diego Massenza. “We have started the process of integrating the new range of products into the Massenza line.” Strassmeyer’s range includes jet patchers, surface repair machines and cracksealing machines.
The Strassmeyer brand was originally established in Austria over 70 years ago, producing its first bitumen spraying machine in 1966. Around five years ago, the Strassmeyer family sold it to a Polish family, led by general manager Ryszard Sowa.
Strassmeyer will most definitely be keeping its own name, said Massenza. “The Strassmeyer brand is very well-known, so we don’t want to lose that: we want to take advantage of it.”
Sowa said that Massenza was a good fit for Strassmayer - they are both small-to-medium sized, family-run businesses with a similar culture. “We are both family companies with an open way of working,” said Sowa. “I am sure that if we had cooperated with a huge company, there would not be the same openness between us.”
Strassmeyer is already realising the benefit of using Massenza’s well-established distributor network. Although Strassmeyer had European distributors, it was less well supported in other regions such as Russia and Africa. “We have already made sales in Russia,” said Sowa. “We are very happy with our new distributor there.”
Having grown significantly, Massenza’s turnover has remained stable since around 2006, and cannot grow much higher, said Diego Massenza. However, his ambitions for Strassmeyer are to double the turnover of the business in the next five years.
“We are now starting to promote the brand through our network of agents which covers almost 100 countries in the world,” said Massenza director Diego Massenza. “We have started the process of integrating the new range of products into the Massenza line.” Strassmeyer’s range includes jet patchers, surface repair machines and cracksealing machines.
The Strassmeyer brand was originally established in Austria over 70 years ago, producing its first bitumen spraying machine in 1966. Around five years ago, the Strassmeyer family sold it to a Polish family, led by general manager Ryszard Sowa.
Strassmeyer will most definitely be keeping its own name, said Massenza. “The Strassmeyer brand is very well-known, so we don’t want to lose that: we want to take advantage of it.”
Sowa said that Massenza was a good fit for Strassmayer - they are both small-to-medium sized, family-run businesses with a similar culture. “We are both family companies with an open way of working,” said Sowa. “I am sure that if we had cooperated with a huge company, there would not be the same openness between us.”
Strassmeyer is already realising the benefit of using Massenza’s well-established distributor network. Although Strassmeyer had European distributors, it was less well supported in other regions such as Russia and Africa. “We have already made sales in Russia,” said Sowa. “We are very happy with our new distributor there.”
Having grown significantly, Massenza’s turnover has remained stable since around 2006, and cannot grow much higher, said Diego Massenza. However, his ambitions for Strassmeyer are to double the turnover of the business in the next five years.
