Industrial Auctions is the company to buy or sell your food and beverage machines. A well-known brand within the industry with years of experience organizing auctions for many renowned companies. Over the years, the company has proven to be a reliable partner in the world of online auctions. No challenge is too big for them and with great passion, the team of Industrial Auctions strives to make every auction a success. Recently, the company proved itself once again by organizing a major auction at the former production location of Homann Feinkost GmbH in Dissen (Germany). A project of several months, with several factories, with thousands of machines auctioned off.
They don’t make a secret about their way of working so there is not much insight information to reveal here. But let’s look at the company’s future plans. What are they working on behind the scenes and what are their goals?
In a conversation with current CEOs Ad van Kollenburg and Jeroen van Kollenburg, they talk about their vision for the future of Industrial Auctions. Where Ad van Kollenburg takes a few steps back, his son Jeroen van Kollenburg will follow in his footsteps. Both have big dreams for the company and growth is a high priority, but they also stress the importance of staying true to their current way of working. Jeroen van Kollenburg elaborates, “This growth should never come at the expense of the additional services we provide as these are our unique selling points that we must not lose sight of.” Over the years their team has grown tremendously, where they started 13 years ago with a small team, their team consists now of 30 employees. Ad van Kollenburg said, “This growth is great to see, but what I am most proud of is that despite the growth, the team is still very close with short lines of communication, allowing us to rely on each other.” With great confidence in their team, they look forward to welcoming new employees to keep up with all the work. With the number of auctions organized by the company increasing every year, Industrial Auctions’ future looks bright.
Of course, this growth does not come overnight. The company works hard to achieve this and always strives to stay one step ahead of its competitors. To realize this growth, the company is expanding its network and increasing its brand awareness. At Industrial Auctions, this is more complex because of the two-sided aspect of its platform. Ad van Kollenburg explains, “Because we are a platform that connects sellers with buyers, growth is only possible if both parties are taken into account. This makes our strategy two-fold, looking for potential buyers but also for potential contractors.” On the one hand, looking for potential new contractors is always a high priority. “We do this in an Industrial Auctions way, no cold sales but we focus on personal contact to get familiar with the people we work with,” Jeroen van Kollenburg said. One of their goals is to organize auctions in more and more countries in Europe. Soon, they will organize an auction in Spain, a country where they have not auctioned often before. Where new countries bring new challenges, Ad and Jeroen stress the importance of gaining knowledge of the market in that particular country. To gain these insights and ensure credibility, they work closely with business partners from across Europe. These connections ensure that the company is always up to date about the different markets and it makes it easier for them to get in touch with reliable companies that can help with dismantling and transport in a particular country. Jeroen van Kollenburg explains, “For example, we have partners in the UK who help with the auctions there. This is especially important now that regulations have changed because of the Brexit.”
On the other hand, the marketing team is working on increasing brand awareness to attract new customers. Jeroen van Kollenburg said, “We work with many media partners for both online and offline advertising. We advertise not only in European magazines, but also in global magazines or specific magazines for any region within the world, as our customers are all over the world.” While they are already in contact with many media partners, the search for new advertising opportunities continues.
All in all, we can definitely say that the company’s future looks bright. Ad van Kollenburg agrees, “We are looking forward to what the future will bring and I am confident that it will be good for Industrial Auctions. Where I will take a few steps back in the future, I have full confidence in Jeroen and with him the entire team that they will make a success of all the auctions that will follow. No challenge is too big for us, as long as we do it together!”