Assignment 2014 Autumn Business School



The Autumn School 2014 assignment will be about helping the company FAWIC from the town of Almelo, The Netherlands, to become active on the Russian market. Fawic is a company specialized in the production of high quality durable transport containers. Fawic is member of the WTC Business Club of the WTC Twente organization. On this page you will find background information about the company and a description of the main research questions that the participants of the Autumn School 2014 will be dealing with.


About the company FAWIC

Fawic is specialist in returnable packaging: offering excellent protection for valuable goods. Since 2001 Fawic is a reliable partner in the development and production of industrial packaging. Fawic focuses on finding an optimal solution for the secure transportation of the products of her clients. Through years of experience and knowledge FAWIC is capable to work with its clients to think about an optimal solution from design to delivery. A thorough product analysis, an accurate engineering process and a prototype and test phase ensures quality. Equipped with a unique and extraordinarily strong locking system, their boxes can be easily dismantled after delivery and sent back to be reused! Fawic has an expert team of staff that provides expert advice and takes all the needs of her clients into account.



Fawic's unique and extraordinarily strong mounting system ensures that products are well protected in their boxes. The use of standard profiles enables them to produce the containers simply in the dimension that is desired by the customer, up to a maximum length of 6 meters. Besides industrial flightcases and containers Fawic also supplies industrial plastic containers and aluminum pallets and containers. Fawic clientele consists of well-established national and international companies, municipalities and museums.

The main group of customers consists of transport companies, individual consumers (with the special needs), exhibition halls & museums, pharmaceuticals companies, etc.
The Fawic office is located in Almelo, the Netherlands. A large part of the manufacturing takes place there too.
Among the customers of Fawic are: Porsche, Honda moto GP, Speedway GP, Madame Tussaud Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Central Museum Utrecht (The Netherlands), National Museum Oslo (Norwegian), MHKA Museum Antwerpen (Belgium), Brandl Transport Cologne (Germany), DHL Express & Logistics (Germany), Fujitsu Siemens Nürnberg (Germany).

Fawic thinks Russia might be a good market because there are a lot of exhibitions going on at the moment and there are no doubt a lot of individual consumers who need the transport their high-price pictures, sculptures or other products in safety.

FAWIC Product portfolio selection for this assignment (See also www.fawic.com)

PowerPoint Company presentation of FAWIC See it here!
FAWIC's transport boxes are lightweight and strong, as well as completely foldable, as this small videoclip shows. See it here!
Loading and unloading times are greatly reduced, as can be seen on this demonstration video: See it here!
FAWIC's motorbike transportation containers offer protection for the transportation of expensive motorbikes, for example for the racing industry.
This videoclip shows how this FAWIC system works: See it here!
FAWIC's art transportation containers offers protection for the transportation of expensive pieces of art or statues, for example for the museum industry.
Besides this, the containers are fitted with an easy to use transportation system. This videoclip shows how it works: See it here!

The research assignment

The research assignment will focus on the questions below:

Marketing research:
• How large could be the demand for Fawic's products?
• What are the risks of doing business in Russia and what possible barriers can their be (both legal as well as cultural)?
• How should Fawic position their products?


Entering strategy:
• What strategies you can suggest to the company for a successful start of their business in Russia? How to conquer the Russian market, the vision of your team?
• Find out what could be the most successful market entry strategy: agents, production, sales office, joint venture, or others?
• They would like to know who are the contact persons of exhibition halls and museums, who may be a possible consumers.
• They are looking for contacts with transport companies, museums and/or agents in Russia.
• Which model for development of the Dutch company in Russia can you suggest?