Thirty years during which Italy, with its extraordinary variety of territories, grounds, corporate sizes and productions has proved to be not only an interesting market but a real ‘gym’ to experiment technical solutions and innovations and even customized solutions afterwards extended to other Mediterranean agricultures, such as Greece’s and Spain’s. “In these years– tells us Giovanni Donatacci, Managing Director Kuhn Italia – we have lived, but also accompanied, the sector change in Italy. Today we work in a deeply different context compared to when, after ten years of presence on the domestic market through importers, the Group decided to establish directly the Italian branch. In comparison with that time, we can essentially notice the increase of the average business surface, which has reached 8 hectares with peaks of 11.5 in the north. Companies have reorganized, concentrated and today they are bigger and bigger, having to deal with the competition of globalized markets, the need of decreasing costs to remain competitive while maintaining and if possible improving the product quality and accepting new challenges like sustainability.
Moreover, we have witnessed the birth and the evolution of subcontracting companies, which today are more than seven thousand”. While the reference context was radically changing, Kuhn Italia, from its headquarters strategically located in the south of Milan, has consolidated and grown, today relying on a range that includes 10 product lines (with some ‘exclusives’, like the seed drill produced in in Brazil and imported by the Italian subsidiary, unique in Italy), a net of over 100 partners and a stabilized turnover scoring the amount of 26 million Euros, with an average of 2300-2400 machines that every year operate in end users’ fields. “These figures–adds Donatacci- allow us to hold an excellent market share, starting from the consolidated leadership ranking in the haying sector, which today represents about 35% of our total turnover. I believe it is a significant datum, as it proves how Kuhn has succeeded in diversifying its offer and in being competitive in several other agricultural ambits, thanks to strategic takeovers accomplished over the years to be able to offer the most possible competitive full line of products. I think of the takeover of Blanchard, with its heritage of spraying machines or the baler division of Kverneland, up to fertilization products that can boast top-level technological content. This offer differentiation allows us to face with more soundness the unavoidable ups and downs of the market for the single segments”. Once laid the bases for a sound presence on the Italian market, it is unavoidable to talk about the challenges the team of 27 people (“affectionate and passionate”, as Donatacci defines them) will have to face in the short and medium term. “I believe – ends the number one of Kuhn Italia – we should confirm the winning formula of these thirty years, essentially based on the capability of offering high-quality products, availing ourselves of competence and experience. In the future, however, all that will be no longer sufficient. In an agriculture that introduces technology, connectivity, management in real time of increasingly precise data and information, our work cannot be based simply on an excellent offer of solutions. It is necessary that, besides suppliers, we become advisors and trainers for the sector players that, in years of ‘identity crisis’ of the sector may feel wrongfooted or suffer from this shift from a conventional agriculture to a sector with a high technology degree. A concept that is true for customers as well as for dealers. We have entrusted ourselves with the task of supporting them in this crucial change phase and we intend to do that at best”.
