NPM Capital acquired a stake last year in Ploeger Oxbo Group, a Dutch manufacturer of advanced agricultural machines. The niche player built its name through its strong focus on product development and innovation. “We can quickly and flexibly adjust our machines, whereas for larger competitors it wouldn’t be worth the trouble commercially,” Niels Havermans says.
The Ploeger Oxbo head office is tucked away in an industrial estate in the southern Dutch town of Roosendaal. But don’t let its unassuming setting fool you: this is the Dutch home base of a multinational agricultural equipment manufacturer – a company with six production sites across Europe and North America and operating in more than 40 countries worldwide. But as Sales and Marketing Director Niels Havermans explains, Ploeger Oxbo is nevertheless a minor player in the world of specialised harvesting machines: “You shouldn’t compare us to major competitors such as John Deere and CLAAS, who are mass producers of standardised machines for harvesting bulk crops such as wheat, soybeans and maize feed. We primarily serve customers who grow ‘small’ crops such as vegetables, potatoes and seed maize, as well as olives and grapes,” he says. “These are niche markets, and within these markets we tend to focus on the higher end. We are not interested in developing and selling single units, or in mass production, for that matter. We are a mid-sized player in our market, producing several hundreds of machines a year – but we cater to a very wide customer base and use highly sophisticated technologies.”
One of the keys to Ploeger Oxbo’s success in this market over the past few decades is its strategy of regularly launching new generations of its machines, typically involving a significant upgrade in performance. Havermans explains that each of the company’s manufacturing facilities is in charge of its own product development, as well as handling production, sales and after-sales in-house. The company clearly knows what it’s doing, having found that direct customer interaction is essential to innovation.