“Our Customers Show Great Interest In Our Newly Introduced Products”
Kurt Lamkowski, Picanol Worldwide Sales Manager
Picanol, one of the leading manufacturers of weaving machines, presented its latest developments at the end of 2021 at the ITM 2022. Four machines from the Connect generation were exhibited at the Picanol booth. At the same time, PicConnect, a new and completely digital platform, was introduced to the visitors. Picanol Worldwide Sales Manager Kurt Lamkowski, with whom we interviewed for our Tekstil Teknoloji magazine, said that Turkey is an important market for Picanol. Lamkowski stated that they were pleased with the intense interest shown to their products at the ITM 2022.
What do you think about what the ITM 2022 Exhibition, which was held after a 3-year break due to the pandemic, brought to the industry?
We held virtual exhibitions during the pandemic period. However, it is a great pleasure for us to meet with our customers after a 3-year break. For us, ITM 2022 was the first face to face exhibition to see our customers again.
How was ITM 2022 exhibition for your company? Did the interest meet your expectation?
Firstly, we were a little suspicious before the exhibition. We thought that people would not visit the exhibition there was really no need for the exhibition. However, we were pleasantly surprised. There were visitors not only from Turkey, but also from surrounding countries such as Iran, the former Soviet countries and Pakistan. We’ve even had guests from Mexico.
What are the features that distinguish the products you exhibited at the exhibition from your competitors and what will be the advantages that it will provide to users?
We have seen that there are certain trends in the market during the pandemic. One of them is sustainability, which everyone is becoming more and more aware of. The second trend is that people want to make their lives easier. So digitalization has also become an important element. All the investments we made during the pandemic and after the pandemic were made according to these two trends. We are analyzing the data we have collected. We also offer these services to our customers. This adds extra value to our machines in the future.
What are your opinions about the Turkish textile sector and the Turkish market?
Turkey has always been one of our major markets. We see that the importance of Turkey has been growing more and more in the last 10 years. In addition, our market share in Turkey has also increased in importance. Looking at the wave of investments, even during the pandemic, the Turkish market retained its strength. We believe that Turkey will also take a more prominent position in becoming a supplier to the European market. In addition, large companies that purchase products from China have begun to turn to Turkey. This leads to more investment in Turkey. In other words, Turkey is an important market and it will always be important.
How is ITM 2022 going so for Picanol?
2022 is going well. Investments around the world were also strong during the pandemic, but they were mostly aimed at home textile products. We have also seen a jump in the clothing sector after the pandemic. So they balance each other out a little bit. As a result, 2022 is a really good year for us. Especially in Turkey.
As Picanol, you have made the world launch of your new product at ITM 2022. What are the advantages of this product and the benefits it will provide to users?
As I said, we took care of developing new products during the pandemic process. We had new products and 4 machines from the Connect generation that we presented live for the first time at ITM 2022. The biggest advantages of these machines are that they offer extra value to customers in the fields of sustainability and digitalization. We are also launching a digital platform. We bring the data we collect from our machines to this platform and analyze it.
Are you satisfied with the interest shown at the exhibiiton for the products you launched?
Although it was the second day of the exhibition, we received a great deal of attention. I think that the products we have just developed have been well received by our customers and have attracted their attention a lot. We have even sold a lot of these products in Turkey.
