Alumil YUI is the region’s absolute leader in the production and distribution of aluminium systems. As an intelligent, vertically integrated company, it can quickly comprehend new market standards and reform its strategy to overcome all potential challenges
During the pandemic, the company succeeded in continuing to implement its investment plan, which is to be completed over the next four years. That includes constructing new industrial buildings, installing new extrusion and anodizing lines that will double Alumil YUI’s capacity and create more than a hundred new jobs.
During a year filled with limitations and problems, you nonetheless succeeded in outdoing your previous great results. How?
It is a fact that 2020 was indeed a hard year for everybody, at both the personal and business level. The near instantaneous economic recession triggered by the COVID-19 shutdown wreaked havoc on businesses large and small. Our very way of life is also said to be threatened. On the basis of sweeping proclamations about “the end of commuting,” “the demise of retail,” and “the collapse of globalisation”, we came to assume that we needed to react fast to adapt to the new challenges and reform whatever had to be changed in order to sustain our business and remain successful despite the difficulties. Our outstanding performance throughout this year is the best proof of our efficiency.
You’ve continuously increased your production capacities, range, sales and employee numbers since you launched the first greenfield investment in Serbia in 2002… Others are making redundancies, while you are hiring!? How many employees do you have today?
Alumil YUI has been developing continuously since 2002, by increasing its capacity, manpower and investments. We currently employ 350 people. Even during the year of the COVID-19 crisis we still managed to sustain and even increase our manpower, and to remain devoted to supporting the local community, contributing to the local economy by increasing our exports to Europe and contributing to the industrial development of the country.
For Alumil YUI, the construction industry is always a challenging market that we monitor
The pandemic raised a lot of substantial challenges for our employees. We suddenly had a lot of new territories to handle during the crisis. Along with trying to diversify revenue streams or digitise our business model, we also had a difficult time trying to balance the privacy of employees, ensuring communication-related transparency, providing a boost in morale to those who were particularly struggling with navigating their way through this unprecedented crisis.
Did the expansion of the construction sector represent a big challenge for you? Are you focused on large projects or are you equally committed to all clients?
It’s an interesting time for the construction industry. Growth has been strong over the past several years, with a short recession during the months of the curfew caused by the pandemic crisis. For Alumil YUI, the construction industry is always a challenging market that we monitor. Rising material and labour costs, labour woes, increased competition and shrinking profit margins are some of the challenges construction firms face. We therefore reformed our strategy in order to serve this market more efficiently, differentiate our services from those of the competition and provide solutions to assist our customers in overcoming these problems. Our strategy does not distinguish between retail and large scale projects. For Alumil YUI, all market segments are equally important and we remain focused on best serving both, by increasing our technical support, investing in our branding and improving our products and our presence on the territory of Serbia.