Clearview National December 2014 - Issue 157 | Page 9

INDUSTRYNEWS City of Water opens up the Future of Roto Frank »»Roto’s annual press day, held in the luxury backdrop of Venice, Italy in November marked a fresh new look at the way Roto consider their position in the market place as a supplier of high-security hardware products. Roto Frank is a world-wide leading authority on producing window and door security hardware, earning credibility from its humble beginnings, nearly 75 years ago. Wilhelm Frank was a pioneer of his time, with engineering ideas which paved out a generation of new window hardware. From producing the first industrially produced ‘Tilt and Turn’ hardware in 1935, under the direction of Mr Frank, and his wife, Elfreide who played a major role in the development of Roto during this time, the business grew to be the multinational supplier it is today. Roto Frank AG, whose head office is in Leinfelden-Echterdingen, Germany, saw record net sales of €658 million in 2013. They employ on an annual average, over 4371 members of staff worldwide, presenting themselves has a plausible supplier. But, this accolade hasn’t deterred Roto Frank from wanting to develop its business further and understand their customers better, in every continent they operate in. At their recent attendance of one of the industry’s largest trade shows, Fensterbau, Roto took the opportunity to conduct an in-depth, professional survey; interviewing 184 visitors from over 10 different European countries to understand if the show was the best placed platform to present its business and products to customers. The findings, presented at Roto’s Annual Press Day, by Dr Peter Matuschek, Head of Department for Political and Social Research, at Social Research and Statistic Analysis Llc, proved to be extremely positive overall with visitors rating Roto’s presence at the show to be ‘excellent’. Wishing you a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year The results also showed, 80% of visitors had ‘felt very welcome’ at the stand, with visitors spending 43 minutes; longer than usual, touring on the stand and 18% staying for two hours. The average hours spent at the entire show by visitors was 14 hours. A good percentage, 77%, agreed that the company demonstrated the appropriate number of new products at the show and felt that on whole Roto is in touch with current market/product trends (92%) and is a forward looking partner (88%). In spite of a negative market environment, Roto hopes to maintain sales volume in 2014 and Michael Stangier CFO, Roto, commented “Looking forward, we believe that another year with a positive company trend is highly likely, and a strong and positive financial contribution of sales last year, will allow for further planned acquisitions.” “Our consistent international strategy, which has been implemented particularly forcefully in the window and door technology markets has again proved successful