Quite unlike high profile Swedish brands such as Volvo, Scania and Ericsson, Gunnebo is relatively unknown.
This is quite astonishing for a company whose origins go back 250 years when it first started producing hammers in a village southeast of Sweden.
Yet, the real action began only in 1995 when venture capital company, HIDEF, acquired Gunnebo and decided to focus on delivery of security systems/solutions as its core objective.
A spate of acquisitions followed subsequently as the company built on this mission statement.
Today, it has made a staggering 40 buyouts across the world, including India, in its quest to be ahead of the curve in providing security solutions.
These are offered in the areas of cash management, entrance security (turnstiles and gates at airports, malls etc) safes & vaults, electronic security (CCTV, access control) and so on.
Yet, from Henrik Lange’s point of view, the key to profitability lies in shedding the ‘island mentality’ which he referred to at Gunnebo’s recent AGM in Gothenburg. It is barely a year since he took charge as President and CEO after a 24-year stint at SKF where the name of the game was processed thinking and constant improvement.
The world of Gunnebo is, however, different, and Lange believes there is a lot that can be set right.
“From my point of view, there is potential to change if we worked slightly differently. I think Gunnebo is a well-hidden secret in many people’s eyes externally and sometimes internally too,” he said during a recent visit to India.
This is a reasonably accurate perception considering that the brands it acquired, be it Steelage and Minimax (India), Fichet-Bauche (France), Chubbsafes (UK), Hamilton Safe (North America) and Rosengrens (Sweden) are better known than the Gunnebo mother brand.
As soon as he got into the driver’s seat last year, Lange travelled around in his first year to the 30-odd countries where Gunnebo has its operations.
While the “depth of security issues” being handled was amazing, he could not help but notice that “if only we could package it in a smarter way and be a little bit more productive in the back-end and more customer-focused in the front end, we can have a better profitable growth”.
As Lange explains, it is important to find out what “your neighbouring island” which is also part of the group is up to.
“What I am attempting to do is to strike some kind of balance. We can be more efficient and give better service to our customers while not jeopardising the foundation built over the years,” he adds.
Broaden portfolio While Gunnebo has a strong presence in India’s banking sector and security systems, its CEO believes that there are other areas it could develop that can better meet customer needs.
“If you look at the capabilities Gunnebo has, we are not using them optimally in India,” he says. There are plans to broaden the portfolio but this drive needs to be preceded by putting capabilities in place and ensure greater levels of localisation.
Safes and vaults coupled with fire management solutions dominate the India business, while options are being explored to increase the scope of entrance security solutions at metros, airports, malls and embassies.
“We have a nice modern factory in Halol with good sales set up. Nearly 20 per cent of our global workforce operates out of here. It is a big market and could play a bigger role for us in the future,” says Lange.
As part of its vision statement to ensure a safer world, product development becomes critical which means investing more in R&D which is today 1.5 per cent of turnover.
“We have good ideas but need to implement them well across regions.
“The key is to bring down costs and innovate constantly as part of the roadmap,” he says.
And while 40 acquisitions is a mind-boggling number, Lange reiterates that the absence of organic growth is not good for business.
“We have not grown organically and this shows that we have not reaped all the benefits of the company we actually are,” he says.