Lemken eyes NZ expansion
The German cultivation and seeding machinery maker Lemken is chasing more business in New Zealand.
It had distributed the brand here for at least 20 years, the company said.
“The decision... formed part of a wider customer strategy aimed at ensuring Norwood will continue to be best placed to meet the needs of agricultural customers,” says Tim Myers, chief executive.
“That includes our ability to build and maintain brand expertise to support our products, and to ensure we have the commercial and operational support from those brands to deliver on our customer commitment.
“With the range of products available from many suppliers continuing to expand, and with many products becoming ever more technologically advanced, building and maintaining product expertise has become a critical business challenge for all modern agricultural dealerships.
“Unfortunately, and despite the strong relationship Norwood has enjoyed with Lemken, we... felt our ability to offer best-in-class support and service would be compromised by recent changes Lemken made to their supply model in the Australian and New Zealand market.
“We respect their decision and wish them all the very best.”
Myers says releasing the Lemken brand will enable Norwood to consolidate its brand offering. A New Holland plough range will be introduced later in 2019.
Norwood will continue retail sales of existing Lemken stock, and stock sold or to be sold will have the full 12-month manufacturer warranty support.
It will offer parts, service, warranty and technical support for all Lemken products sold or still to be sold.
Any Norwood sold machine remains under the manufacturer warranty period.
