October 2013: A.P. van den Berg wins FME International Business Award 2013

On Thursday 10 October during the annual network event at the Rabobank head office in Utrecht, the Netherlands, A.P. van den Berg has won the FME International Business Award 2013. The company from Heerenveen, the Netherlands, that globally markets its Dutch Cone Penetration Testing (CPT) technology for soil investigation, was elected by their peers in the audience as the most successful internationally active technological company. With this award FME wants to inspire international success in companies. FME president Ineke Dezentjé Hamming cites A.P. van den Berg as “undoubtedly such an inspiring company”.

FME International Business Award

With this award FME underlines the importance of the Dutch export industry. Besides A.P. van den Berg, nominees for the award were KSE Process Technology b.v. and TSS4U. The three nominated companies were asked to present a so called elevator pitch of three minutes during the FME Conecta event. The pitch should make it clear why the company deserves special credits for international business. A.P. van den Berg’s Commercial Director Mark Woollard managed to convince the audience with an inspiring story, supported by flashy background images. The winner of the award in 2012 – Piet Mosterd, General Manager from AWL Technics – presented the award to Mark Woollard.

A.P. van den Berg and her pitch

A.P. van den Berg is specialized in the development and production of advanced instruments and systems for onshore, near shore and offshore soil investigation, mainly based on the CPT technology.
 
The pitch emphasized the importance of export for the company, the structuring of sales and service in the various markets and the achieved successes. To stay technologically ahead in the market, 10% of the sales is invested in product innovation year by year. However, the size of the Dutch market is too small to justify this investment, so export was a logical step. Knowledge and expertise are built up by keeping all engineering and production in house, but also by sharing knowledge with international universities and institutes and by participating in exhibitions and trade missions from, among others, FME.

On the hugely fragmented onshore market A.P. van den Berg is cooperating with agents and distributors on all continents. They act as the eyes and ears in their market, according to the local (business) culture. In the offshore world however, direct customer contact is essential, as well as a service facility that can fly out for support at any time. The success of A.P. van den Berg is displayed by the fact that 85% of sales consists of export to over 75 countries. They are market leading with their digital data acquisition systems and offshore they set the standard with, among others, systems that can perform CPT tests in water depths up to 4.000 meters. With technological guts A.P. van den Berg has put herself on the world map.

​About FME and FME Conecta

The FME is the largest organisation in the Netherlands representing employers and businesses in the technological industry. They actively protect their members’ interests nationally and internationally, provide services to individual member companies and clusters of member companies, and support 120 trade associations. Each year they organize the Conecta event. This is the network event for internationally active companies in the technological industry. Visitors are informed about global developments in the industry. Speakers this year were Reneé Jones Bos, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Fred Weenig, head Wholesale Clients Netherlands, Rabobank International and Theo Bruinsma, Member of the Board of Directors of Stork Marel.