Firstly, Castolin produces brazed products for the Castolin Group. In France, the company sells commodities, own brand devices and services.

“We started off with commodities for brazing and welding exclusively,” says Sales Director Jean-Francois Petitet. “Later, we added devices and recently, we established the service section. For sure, there is much more potential in the service area. Our goal is to enhance our service activities up to 50% in the coming years.”

This means that Castolin will take on brazing and welding jobs at its customers’ premises, especially for big companies coming from the cement, paper and recycling industry and running 24-hour operations.

“In fact, we will be our clients’ maintenance and repair arm which has been outsourced in order to focus on the core business,” explains Mr. Petitet. “Of course, we will also carry out brazing and welding jobs for our customers at our own premises.”

Usually, all service activities are coordinated at national level. Yet, key accounts are serviced by special international teams.

The products made by Castolin are used by tradesmen such as plumbers and fitters. They are serviced through a network of distributors. Consumers are supplied via do-it-yourself markets.

The heavy industries, such as sugar refineries, cement, paper, automotive and pit mines are directly serviced by the company’s own sales team and technical service people.

“We service a wide range of different industries which need brazing and welding jobs and we work for both OEMs and manufacturers,” says Mr. Petitet. “In order to stay in touch with our clients we draw on an in-house sales team of 80 people.”

Today, around 10% of the total turnover is realized outside of France, mostly in the French-speaking regions of Africa. Here, Castolin collaborates with distributors.

In addition to this, the company follows clients who delocalize their productions.

“Of course, our business was hit by the severe industrial crisis in 2008, too” says the sales manager. “Though, we were able to balance losses as we are active in so many different fields. We have a huge number of customers and none of them makes up the major share of our revenues. This gives our business stability.”

Last but not least, Castolin lays great emphasis on environmentally friendly production – in times where the political discussion about saving natural resources keeps prevailing this is another important argument to work with Castolin.

“We offer solutions with added value,” Mr. Petitet explains the company’s success. “In the long run, it is often cheaper to repair/protect a single component against wear instead of replacing it, for example with a special surface treatment in order to prolong its life cycle. The old component, reinforced with a special alloy, might actually last longer than a new part, since we are able to strengthen it. We only set up our service department around five years ago. We are positive that we will be able to reach our goal by 2020.”