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If you have a large area of grass and would like to keep it neatly trimmed without mowing it yourself, Henri Thijssen would like to hear from you. He is managing director of Belrobotics, a Belgian company that is trying to turn robotic lawnmowers into an established product.Robotic mowers, which are powered by electric motors and guided by sonic sensors, have been sold for about 10 years without making more than a dent in sales of mowing equipment. According to industry estimates, 5m walk-behind mowers were sold in Europe in 2006, worth $2.5bn at retail prices, while sales of 300,000 ride-on garden tractors, mostly for professional use, amounted to $1.2bn.Global sales of robotic mowers amounted to no more than $136m. But Mr Thijssen thinks his scaled-up, more powerful version could grab a substantial share of the ride-on market.The 47-year-old former engineer, who joined the business last year after working for 18 years at Heidelberg Cement of Germany,has spent the past year focusing the business on this market.He has refined the product and expanded the distribution network to reach the all-important professional users, which include racecourses and golf clubs.“When I arrived at the company, I found it had some very good products from an engineering point of view, but not enough had been done to make it into a profitable business,” Mr Thijssen says.“I’ve tried to introduce more commercial thinking, making sure we support our dealers properly and reacting more quickly to technical problems experienced by customers.”Belrobotics was started in 2002 by Michael Coenraets and Andre Colens,two robotics enthusiasts.They put plenty of energy into the technical side of the business but left the sales side relatively undeveloped.Since Mr Thijssen joined, he has doubled to 12 the number of countries in which Belrobotics has distributors, spanning most of Europe plus the US and Canada...To read more go to:
As in the days of Noah...
