Success in a year of crisis
KRANKIKOM is closing the financial year 2009 with a marked increase in business
Emerging unscathed from the effects of the economic and financial crisis, KRANKIKOM Alexander Kranki Kommunikation GmbH has achieved a growth in sales of more than 20% in the financial year 2009. The Duisburg-based internet service provider has thus bucked the trend and once again appreciably improved its market position. KRANKIKOM‘s business volume has trebled since 2002.
Director Alexander Kranki sees this ‘outstanding set of results’ as the fruit of consistently focusing the business on projects which are demanding both in terms of content and technology. ‘With projects of this kind, customers have very high expectations, but are at the same time also prepared to pay appropriately,’ said Mr Kranki. ‘Cheap and quick is not sustainable. Penny pinching is not cool.’
He said that the company was now working internationally at the cutting edge of online developments, with more than half of its turnover now coming from other EU countries such as England, Ireland, Belgium, France and Austria. ‘People looking for specialists are now looking beyond national borders’, is how Mr Kranki explained the success abroad. The biggest new project in 2009 was the construction of a world-wide content management system for the Belgian pharmaceutical company UCB. The biggest single customers were the English cinema chain ODEON and the AQA examination board, responsible for managing national examinations in Great Britain. ‘Even I am surprised that Europe’s borders have lost their significance so quickly. Just ten years ago I would never have imagined it. I would have thought that, for a long time to come, our business would be at a local or at most a regional level.’
We are always looking for new staff. ‘The internet has now developed into a global process which we have to be involved in. If you want to hold your own against international competition, it’s no good being in the chasing pack, you’ve got to be involved in shaping developments, forever pushing back the boundaries and overcoming the limitations of online provision.’ It’s not just a question of copying the tried and tested, but finding new and surprising solutions, breaking new ground and giving customers a competitive edge. ‘That’s why we’re so dependent on flexible, adventurous and, above all, intellectually curious staff’, Mr Kranki explained. As a result we are also able to create additional training places and offer dual programmes of study. KRANKIKOM also supports Duisburg-Essen University with a scholarship programme.
At KRANKIKOM we’re also optimistic about 2010. ‘At this moment we’re working very much at capacity and have every reason to hope that things will remain so.’ This year the company is celebrating its 15th anniversary and, as one of the sponsors of Capital of Culture RUHR.2010, we are helping to realise its ‘Schachtzeichen’ project, which involves marking the sites of hundreds of old mine shafts with enormous yellow balloons. ‘I’m pleased we’re part of it and I can also see opportunities for business involvement in other cultural activities. Especially in a city like Duisburg, we regard it as no less than our duty.’
If you would like any further information about KRANKIKOM, please contact Marianne Pfeifer on 0203/30597-17.