“As of today, the Landini and McCormick brands are a solid point of reference in Spain’s agricultural machinery sector”. This was the message that brought the Argo Tractors press conference to a close during FIMA, in Zaragoza, where the Industrial Group had put its entire range of McCormick and Landini tractors on show along with the technological innovations, besides presenting the achievements of the most recent past and announcing the developments planned for the immediate future.
Products of excellence such as the McCormick X6.4 VT-Drive, winner of the Tractor of the Year 2018 award in the Best Utility category and the Landini Rex 4, awarded at Zaragoza as Tractor de España up to 100 HP, were displayed in a stand covering over one thousand square meters which, during the 5-day event, hosted thousands of visitors and most of the Spanish dealers.
“Thanks to lengthy research and development activities, and the daily commitment of women and men who work with passion and team spirit” affirmed Antonio Salvaterra, Marketing Manager of Argo Tractors, “we can now offer a comprehensive, reliable and highly technological product able to address market needs. All this while caring for the environment and ensuring safer and more comfortable conditions for those who work in the fields and farms”.
In this respect, “The Human Factor” device, which won the FIMA Technical Innovation award, was also much appreciated at the Zaragoza venue. “The Human Factor” explained Salvaterra, “is a software which focuses on man. It allows the operator’s driving style to be optimized by measuring three performance indicators: comfort, safety and running economy. Use of an algorithm allows the data acquired as the tractor is driven on the road to be analyzed and used by the operator to improve his driving style”.
The major Digital Transformation project in which Argo Tractors is now involved focuses on customer satisfaction. The aim is to decisively “enhance the guaranteed service level” also thanks to new global agreements such as the one recently concluded with Japanese multinational TopCon Agriculture, leader in the application of precision agriculture solutions.
Product range and technological innovation are the foundations of what Franco Artoni, Argo Tractors Business Development Manager – Global Marketing and Parts describes as a genuine “corporate transformation process, which can be summed up in 3 words: digital, customers and dealers. Both farming professionals and distributors” continued Artoni are ready to take a decisive step towards digitization as a means for improving efficiency and profitability”.
“Last but not least” concluded Franco Artoni as he addressed the Spanish dealers, who had expressed great appreciation of the innovations that had been presented, “the transformation process now underway focuses on expanding the sales network until we achieve total coverage of the country, while facilitating our work thanks to digitization processes and ongoing training to improve the recognition of our brands and corporate image.”
Simeone Morra, Shareholder and Corporate Business Director, provided some perspective on the results achieved and the next set of corporate goals: “Ours is an important, rapidly growing family-owned group of international standing. We have an excellent product range and constantly invest in both products and production processes. This is evident in our 2017 global results where both sales volumes and net turnover achieved double-digit growth. We propose a high-technology product range under the McCormick brand while Landini is a leader in the production of specialist tractors, such as those for vineyards and orchards. The new strategies and new projects will allow us to strengthen the image of Argo Tractors and its brands to an even further extent. This will certainly lead to benefits as to sales volumes, but will especially increase the satisfaction of long-standing customers and help us to acquire new ones”.
This growth trend was confirmed by Andrés Moradas, General Director of AgriArgo Iberica, the local branch of Argo Tractors, who mentioned a few statistics relating to the Spanish market: “We can now count on a complete product range, on a new branch – that of Villamarciel, which has received over 2,000 visitors since it opened last September – on more than 500 farming professionals engaged in field trials and demos, on corporate training initiatives and development of the sales network. Most especially, we increased our market share for both McCormick and Landini tractors in 2017, for the second year running. We aim to keep to this course and are certain to succeed thanks to the support of the mother company”.
The enormous enthusiasm that surrounds Argo Tractors and the fine reputation enjoyed by the McCormick and Landini brands were fully confirmed by the number of visitors hosted on the stand.