The situation

Greenvironment Oy is utilizing state-of-the-art technology within a narrow market segment. The main products are Passim burners, which are designed to treat a variety of land-fill gases (LFG) from a variety of sites. They can also be used in closed dumping grounds or in those still in use. They are essentially to treat the gas from the dump where a centralized gas system doesn’t yet operate. The size of the site is irrelevant – Passim can be installed at small or large sites with no upper size limit. They can be controlled remotely via telephone links and have the automation capability to control other equipment. With the addition of Capstone microturbines to the product portfolio of the company, it now has a strong platform to provide solutions to deal with different biogases at different greenenergy installations.The first important market to reach is Europe but with limited resources to build and maintain its own market network, it has to seek suitable local partners to market its products in different target areas. The partners need to know the right markets and the application potential of Greenvironment technology in the selected country. Dumping ground biogases and their utilization is a new and demanding business area.Greenvironment Oy already has business contacts and representation in most EU member states. However, in the new member countries, their marketing has not been satisfactory even though the market potential for Greenvironment products is good. Another important factor in the company’s development was improving reliability and cost-efficiency as considerable growth is expected in the business in a few years. Greenvironment will have to be prepared to increase its production to satisfy the growing demand.

The process

Greenvironment signed a co-operation agreement to cover sales, service and partial manufacturing with Hungarian partner, Montivo Kft. In geographical reach, the agreement covers Hungary and its neighbouring countries. Montivo is a Finnish-Hungarian company located, with its main business activities, in Hungary. Montivo has been able to cover a wide market segment of Hungarian energy installations and services. “We do see this agreement as a bounce board for quite a many different co-operation possibilities and we’re definite that this co-operation will be successful. First we need to enhance our capability to serve Hungarian and neighbouring country customers, but the possibility to manufacture the products of Greenvironment for other regions is quite attractive too, at least in the future” said Mr Malkamäki.

The outcome

Through the signed co-operation agreement, Greenvironment has achieved two goals at the same time: It has found a capable partner for the marketing and sales of its products in central Eastern Europe. Also, the new partner is able to take responsibility for some of the product manufacture and thus enable Greenvironment to increase, swiftly, its production capacity, which would otherwise have required considerable investment in its Finnish operation.

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Learning points

Initially, to reach new markets, Greenvironment Oy had sought sales agents operating outside Finland. Now, they noticed, that with the right kind of foreign partner, collaboration can be much broader. It can bring technology transfer and manufacturing opportunities.

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