Al-Ko as systems provider

The group’s core business consists of lawnmowers, lawn tractors and shredders. Water engineering offers submersible pumps, domestic water systems and storage tanks, the wood working programme consists of precision circular saws, band saws, bench circular saws and accessories. Added to these are concrete mixers and transport equipment such as sack trucks and wheelbarrows in the building programme. The owners of detached or semi-detached family homes are the group targeted by the Al-Ko brand.
All the products of the Al-Ko umbrella brand are presented in a uniform yellow and black corporate design and are sold through large-format stores and specialist dealers. The Ginge and Sigma brands occupy a position similar to that of the Al-Ko umbrella brand, though their deployment in Europe shows regional differentiation: Ginge in Scandinavia and Sigma in Italy. Other brands in existence besides these are Ravendo (transport equipment), Trallfa (snow and transport equipment) and Orion (special promotional products in the areas of lawn care, garden and water systems). The portfolio of brand names is completed by Concord, which is marketed exclusively through specialist stores.
Recipient of the “iF Product Design Award 2000”:  the Al-Ko Comfort 40 E lawnower.
One of the group’s most important goals is to build up the Al-Ko brand name. Customer awareness is to be increased through advertising, sales promotions and public relations efforts in particular. Media advertising has been massively boosted this year in order to achieve this goal.
The area of sales promotions offers a whole catalogue of different measures for selection in co-
operation with retail customers according to the specific problem involved. These include informative and direct mailings, consumer brochures with the dealer’s imprint, plus in and out promotions and posters.
For the first time in its 68-year history the Al-Ko Kober group of companies crossed the thousand million sales threshold at the beginning of December 1999. The group is made up of more than 40 production and distribution subsidiaries in Europe, the USA, Africa and Australia. It employs a total workforce of about 3 900. Al-Ko is organised in three divisions: vehicle technology, gardening and hobby, and aviation systems. The group’s latest export figures came to 61.8 per cent of turnover; in the gardening and hobby division exports accounted for 67.3 per cent.