Frans Fransen of FHT: “Our compressed air at Efteling – that’s a dream”
- 3 min reading time
WATT is always on the lookout for unusual entrepreneurs, concepts and ideas that deserve a bigger stage. This time we’re meeting Frans Fransen of FHT Perslucht.
Let’s start with Frans Fransen, who are you?
48 years young, I live in beautiful Vlierden, am married to an Asten beauty and am the father of a daughter who is 17 and a son who is 15.
And what is FHT?
It’s a company that has been around now for nearly 24 years. I started it with my friend Rob van Horssen and we’re still owners together. In the meantime, with over 30 employees, we supply Europe with pneumatic parts through the web shop pneuparts.com. We also supply and install compressed air systems mainly in the southern and central regions of the Netherlands. Including maintenance service for the compressors that companies purchase.
What do you mean to this great company?
Together with my colleagues, we dedicate ourselves to growing our business every day by delivering quality and service. More recently, my focus on the business has been more strategic rather than tactical. This has resulted in some very nice developments. I can recommend taking that step to everyone.
Selling air. What’s that like?
Roughly 10% of the total energy used in the industrial sector is for compressed air. Being in this enormous market with major players means you need to be able to stand out and be highly visible. We try to position ourselves prominently in the market through our quality and service. We are working extremely hard on our brand pneuparts.com by building a very comprehensive webshop and achieving good findability and visibility online. The resource is freely available, so it can’t come down to that.
What challenges do you face?
Recruiting and retaining technical staff is a huge challenge. Apart from that, we need to continuously invest in marketing and logistics processes to be able to respond quickly to market demands and changes. This is happening at a much faster pace than in the past, so you have to keep innovating.
And what are the apparent solutions?
Data, data and more data. Any challenge can be solved when you have the right data. Creating solutions based on the way we think they should be is really a thing of the past. And we just still need a bit of basic common sense, too. Fortunately.
How do you go about managing customer satisfaction in your industry?
Luckily, we don’t have to manage that. It’s natural, part of our DNA. When a customer is satisfied, we make sure they stay satisfied. If there’s a complaint, we do everything in our power to turn it into a solution that leaves the customer satisfied. If a customer is still dissatisfied after that, then we know we’ve done everything feasible and reasonable to resolve it. At that point, we have to seriously question whether it’s appropriate for them to remain customers.
What dream customer would you like to provide compressed air for?
Of course, we could list all the high-tech companies in the region that we do not yet do business with directly, but often indirectly through suppliers. But the dream client I would like to provide compressed air for is Efteling. A lot of compressed air is used there. It would be nice to be able to say to my future grandchildren that grandpa makes sure there is air at Efteling.
Who would you like to have a coffee with from Brabant?
Besides Hollebolle Gijs, I’d like to have coffee with anyone from Brabant who can inspire me. That gives me a boost of energy.
Finally, what’s something people need to know about you that hardly anyone knows?
Me and a bunch of my friends once played a prank. We sent birthday cards to people from our village from people they didn’t know. You inspire the most amazing conversations. Then once we had run an ad as well, we became world-famous in Brabant and far beyond. Just Google Theo and Marleen…