06 November, 2024During his years working at the Palmera company, Bernhard Groten spotted a business opportunity in the production of hand drills and sharpeners, and founded the company Zenten Bernhard Groten SL in 1966. What was ‘a small workshop where these instruments were manufactured, evolved into a company that manufactures plumbing tools and other complementary tools’, explains Eider Roa, manager of Zenten.
The company has ceased manufacturing sharpeners and hand drills to focus on lines such as pipe cutters and scissors for cutting pipes, plumb bobs and colouring powder, as well as a range of knives (cutters), both trapezoidal and split blades. In recent years, ‘Zenten has focused its efforts on becoming a benchmark in the plumbing hand tool market’, says Eider Roa.
What used to be a small workshop is now a company that occupies almost 5,000 square metres, employs 50 people and has had a turnover of around 9 million euros a year in recent years. It exports 96% of its production to approximately 40 countries, although its main market is Europe. Zenten intends to increase its presence in the American market, with special emphasis on the United States. ‘This initiative can contribute significantly to the development of our own brand, given that, to date, most of the company's business has been done through private labels,’ elaborates the company's manager. She also aims for the Zenten-branded product range to reach 20-25% of total sales within five years.
Since 2016, the company has become more aware of the needs of its environment and the importance of continuing to work in this area. For this reason, the SDGs have been marking a path of work. It donates machining tools and checking fixtures to the La Salle training centre in Irun to give them a second life.
Since 2017, it has only consumed 100% certified renewable energy. It attaches great importance to local suppliers and monitors them on a monthly basis. It is eliminating plastic from the packaging of its own brand products and has launched EcoPack packaging, made exclusively from cardboard: ‘it is 75% recycled material and manufactured in a local company’, says Eider Roa.
In the short term, it aims to ensure versatility in key positions, recycle or reuse single-use slings, and maintain a safe and healthy working environment for employees. In the long term, ‘the objectives focus more on the development of new product lines or improvements to the assembly lay-out’, according to Zenten's manager.
The Irun-based company made a major investment to implement a new ERP system, which it started up at the beginning of the year. Its aim is to ‘include new functionalities integrated into the system, which will increase Zenten's productivity’, says Eider Roa. But this is not the only restructuring project she has in mind. She intends to carry out an internal reorganisation with the intention of professionalising the different posts, in order to retain talent and develop people, ‘who are the backbone of the company’.
Source: Spri.eus
