Supporting Fibo Intercon a Danish OEM fast-track circular inspired business models to break into new export markets

Watch the Danish television Interview with Fibo Intercon and Rodin Genoff regarding the company’s results generated from Winning Connections here.

Fibo Intercon

Transitioning from old economy to the new economy

(Case study excerpt from Winning Collaborations, Cluster Project in Denmark - see Publications page)

Picture if you can a traditional engineering design, plant and equipment manufacturer. As with so many other engineering SMEs across Europe, the global financial crisis took its toll on Fibo Intercon.

As a plant and equipment manufacturer supplying cement mixing plants to the building and construction industries, the severe property and building slump during the crisis resulted in demand for new plant and equipment evaporating overnight. The company struggled.

But under the stewardship of Henrik Jeppesen, the company’s new Managing Director, it is fast becoming a new economy champion: open, collaborative and embracing Industry 4.0 and circular economy thinking. “We couldn’t go on as before,” Jeppesen says. “We needed to create new value for our customers.”

By developing innovative new business models based on providing services, not just selling products, Fibo Intercom is winning new contracts from downtown Copenhagen ranging from innovative building and construction projects to breaking open new markets in Austria and Germany.

Jeppesen has achieved this by building what he calls the “war room”. This gives his senior managers a sense of urgency to forge new business models and attack global markets. And, as a core part of the company’s business strategy, they broker new collaborative partnerships that can fast-track the company into new markets.

“The economy is being disrupted,” Jeppesen says with a sense of urgency. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a digital start up or a plant and equipment manufacturer, the logic’s the same. Traditional designing, manufacturing and selling doesn’t cut it anymore. We need to do more for our customers than just sell them something. They’re demanding more. If we don’t deliver, someone else will.”

Winning collaboration

At our first meeting, Jeppesen had been in the job a mere two weeks. Naturally curious and open to new ideas, he quickly responded to the Business Council reaching out to the company offering support.

There were immediate and practical things achieved by the Business Council and its project team, such as collaborating with the Væksthuset to support funding towards new engineering and marketing positions. Meantime, a series of meetings we conducted with the company helped it to unpack and calibrate its business strategy and focus on the development of new business models.

Of particular relevance were circular economy models and providing services, not just selling products. This had dramatically increased the company’s new sales and ability to diversify into new markets. And, at this moment, Fibo Intercom is entering fresh collaborations with a local company to develop innovative new solutions for its concrete business.

Company perspective

“The Winning Connections project came at just the right time,” Jeppesen says. “It opened up my thinking to new business models, introduced me to new business contacts, and supported the company’s access to local funding programs. I recommended other companies to get involved.”