It’s no secret that the last year has presented a broad array of challenges to a host of economic sectors and the electrical enclosure industry has been no exception. Along with other major players in our industry, we at Eldon have seen sales drop by nearly thirty percent this year. While sales have stabilized in the last few months and we have started to see some uptick in our numbers, uncertainties still exist. The banking sector is still fragile, unemployment is still on the rise in most markets, consumption is still weak and government spending programs are coming to an end. 2010 could still be a challenging year for us all. 

 

Our management team has made a series of moves designed to not only enable us to weather this crisis, but to place ourselves in the strongest possible competitive position going forward.  First, we have increased the pace of investment at our new Romanian production facility. At this point all of our major product lines can be reliably manufactured at this state-of-the-art factory with the same high standards of quality our customers have come to expect. With the added production from our Romanian plant and the continued operations of our factories in Spain and the United Kingdom, we have decided to close our production facility in Holland. The Dutch company will still act as both the logistical hub and headquarters for Eldon’s sales and marketing efforts for Western Europe.

 

Our new joint venture in India is progressing well and we are now producing most of our main product lines and accessories locally and delivering daily from our Indian facility. This represents  a new and exciting market for Eldon which we expect to grow substantially during the coming years. Eldon has also been aggressively opening up sales channels around the world through partnerships with experienced, highly successful local distributors in other growing markets, including Italy, Russia, Mexico, Peru and Chile. These, together with others, will all help us to grow and to be able to give global customers a better service going forward. Furthermore, our portfolio of automation and control products as well as our new power distribution line will positions us to take advantage of the growing market for these systems as increased emphasis is placed on new systems to lowering energy consumption, alternative energy generation and controlling greenhouse gas emissions.                        

 

Even though conditions have been challenging, I am more excited than ever about the future at Eldon. We have taken the right steps to position ourselves for growth. By developing the right cost-structure for current market conditions, manufacturing state-of-the-art products, investing in new productions facilities and selecting the right partners in new and growing markets, we have laid the groundwork to move forward through these difficult economic times and guarantee a continued strong role in the electrical enclosure industry.