For the Wirtgen Group, the bauma show represents a substantial business opportunity at a time when its operations are on a high.

Joint president of the family-owned group Stefan Wirtgen said, "Like everybody we have nice financial numbers to show. We had a turnover of 830 million Euros in 2005, we had a turnover of 1.04 billion Euros in 2006 and we estimate an increase of 20% for this year."

Moreover, this strong performance is spread evenly across the group and the brands. Stefan Wirtgen said, "The nice thing is that all the company divisions grew at the same rate and all our sales and service companies worldwide are growing as well. At this time you get orders from every market."

Joint president Jurgen Wirtgen said that demand is also spread right across the range, which comprises mobile roadbuilding equipment. "All the divisions are booming," he said. "We have taken a lot of orders at the show in the last two days. It is an exceptional situation and we haven''t seen such times before."

Predicting the market too far into the future can be difficult. But looking ahead to 2008 Stefan Wirtgen said, "At the time being we are optimistic and we don''t see any sign of change at the moment."

Internationally, business is well distributed and despite the problems affecting some competitors in the US, the Wirtgen Group is still strong. Stefan Wirtgen said, "We had excellent years in the US and we still believe we can increase turnover. We suffer a little bit from the exchange rate but other than that we are happy."

The US represents a huge market for the Wirtgen Group while Western Europe is almost as large and the importance of the Russian market is growing. Stefan Wirtgen said, "There is particular market growth in Russia."

Stefan Wirtgen continued that both China and India are also developing well. "We believe both countries will develop in the long term," he said.

The issue of copying machines by Chinese manufacturers is one that affects the Wirtgen Group. A number of the Wirtgen milling, Hammer roller and Vögele paver models have been copied by Chinese companies. However Stefan Wirtgen emphasised that research and development in new models will help provide a competitive advantage. We have to go quickly to the next stage and let them copy what is history. We don''t like it but at the end of the day it''s more competition that helps us to get better."

Jurgen Wirtgen explained that simply supplying machines is only a part of the business though, as service, aftersales, product support, spare parts and operator training are all crucial to delivering a complete package. He continued, "We''ve had feedback from customers who bought these machines and they''ve had problems with them that they''ve never had with Wirtgen Group machines. We''re seeing customers step back from Chinese products because of these problems."

Business growth for Wirtgen

While organic growth has been key part of the Wirtgen Group''s business development in recent years, the company has made acquisitions too. Most recently it bought an 80% stake in German crushing equipment company Kleemann, which is entirely complimentary to its existing operations. Jurgen Wirtgen said, "We have been looking for growth but at the same time we wanted products that were not far away from our own range. Kleemann is a good opportunity for us. We closed the circle because the asphalt we pave needs stone. We are extremely optimistic and we plan to invest 35-40 million Euros in the new factory. There is a lot of technology that is comparable. We want first class products in all areas."

Looking to the future, both Jurgen and Stefan Wirtgen agree that there will be specialists from the Kleemann operation within the Wirtgen Group''s worldwide sales and service team. "We are still quite new in that business. We have to build the new factory and integrate Kleemann step by step with our sales and service network," Jurgen Wirtgen said.

Overall the Wirtgen Group is investing strongly in expanding its German and worldwide facilities and developing new products. In the last three years the company has spent 200 million Euros in its manufacturing operations and Jurgen Wirtgen added, "We will continue this process to be present for our customers in every part of the world."