When Australian Pump Industries got started only 25 years ago, their basic aim was to develop products to deliver better value to end users. The product line was essentially simple, self-priming pumps and very basic engine drive pressure cleaners. With partners both in Australia and overseas, Honda included, they quickly established that the products they built were designed not for some corporation’s bottom line, but rather as a genuine desire to provide users with the best in terms of safety, time saving, efficiency and longevity.
THE CHALLENGE
There is no point in having a great product if nobody knows it. It is no good having a great product if it doesn’t have access to the market. The company decided to develop a distribution throughout Australia that would provide them with access to the market and solid distribution.
“Our basic plan was to be “No Frills” said Aussie Pump’s Operation’s Manager, Hamish Lorenz. “We also knew we had to relate to the people we were servicing. That’s why you don’t see Aussie Pump sales folk driving around in fancy sedans. They drive Utes, just like the people they service” he said.
DEALER PROFILE
To establish that dealer profile we had to pick people who we knew were financially reliable (the company couldn’t afford any bad debts.) They also had to have the know-how and technical knowledge. To not only sell the product properly but to support it as well. “We chose Honda dealers, Stihl dealers and other key dealership candidates who were pre-qualified as complying with our needs” said Lorenz.
LIFE IS A JOURNEY
Over the last 25 years the company has established a great dealer network. They supply a range of product line using Honda, Yanmar, Kubota and even Hatz as power equipment drives.
“We focused on Honda petrol engines, Yanmar and Kubota diesels and, for those Mercedes Benz driving farmers, we even build Hatz powered product as well” said Lorenz.
The idea was to supply the best quality product but at the same time keep the company lean so that prices could be competitive with the bigger corporations who obviously had in the early days, economies of scale that were vastly superior to Aussies!
THE GOLD DISTRIBUTORS WERE A JOURNEY
The company decided to call their distributors “Gold Distributors” because they saw them as being of solid gold value. “The quality of the distributor is everything” said Lorenz. “There is no point having a great product distributed by an amateur. That never works” he said.
Success stories are now a legend with Warrego Water, Brown Wigg, Sprayer Barn, Southern Cross Darwin, and Brierley Hose & Handling, multiplied hundreds of times all around the country.
THE JOURNEY IS LONG
It takes a long time to build a network like that and it takes a huge amount of work. The company still runs on the basis of being lean and mean even though they operate from a 2.1/2 acre factory complex in Sydney’s Norwest business district. “We don’t have a bunch of voracious shareholders demanding dividends, nor do we have executives desperately looking for $100,000 bonuses at the end of the year! What we get is long tenure employees who feel like they are part of a family that is dedicated to supplying the best products at the best prices” said Lorenz.
SOLID GOLD RETURNS
Aussie Pump’s profits are being ploughed back into stock and product development. They now ship Aussie Pump products all over the world and to every continent on earth!
“The benefit in achieving that was making products that deliver better results at a reasonably competitive price, compared to those made in Europe, the United States or any other first world country” said Lorenz.
The company’s product development and engineering base is solid enabling them to dual with multi-nationals.
SECRET WEAPON
The company has a simple philosophy of product development. Like Dilbert the cartoon character, they believe in the philosophy of “Ask the customer what he wants, then give him something that is even better than he imagine was possible”.
GOLD DEALERS MAKE IT WORTHWHILE
“Everything the company does is based on the support of its distributor network. At first we had dealers who were hungry for inflated prices to make supposedly bigger margins. What we found was that although the prices might have been inflated from their present suppliers, they wound up giving it away as discounts anyway.” Aussie Pumps decided to offer fair dinkum prices that were real with genuine margins that did not have to be discounted again in the market. “That’s why we can offer a firefighting pump at a price that is hundreds of dollars below our competitors and yet still offer that product with a 5 year warranty and a significantly higher level of quality” said Lorenz.
