With its focus firmly fixed on ‘business intelligence’, coding and marking specialist Matthews has expanded its Queensland operations, growing staffing levels and overall business.
Matthews’ David Alexander explained that “Queensland has a very vibrant economy. Incentives from the Queensland Government have driven a lot of business growth – particularly in the industrial sector – with many companies relocating here, along with key staff for those and other firms.
“As far as that goes, Matthews’ move to expand its Sunshine State operations were quite timely.”
The who’s who
Among the multi-national and corporate customers Matthews serves in Queensland are Coca Cola Amatil, Cadbury Schweppes, National Foods (Berri), Bundaberg Brewed Drinks, Parmalat, Golden Circle, General Mills, Goodman Fielder and Weston Milling. Other industrial customers include James Hardie and Iplex Pipelines.
Alexander said that while Matthews has grown in Queensland, they still have the flexibility of their smaller roots.
“As we’ve grown, we’ve increased our resources in the state to ensure our ability to support and care for our customers has not diminished,” Alexander explained. “For Matthews, our accessibility has been up there with product knowledge and product line-up as a reason for winning some key accounts.
“Often, however, smaller manufacturers have exactly the same needs regarding traceability and gaining business intelligence from their systems, rather than mere compliance. For instance, we’ve had very successful installations into Coastal Hydroponics, Lockyer Valley Packaging, Erie Australia, Vikind Australia and Rockcote, just to name a few.
“It’s the Matthews’ ethos that coding, marking and data-capture systems must do more than just scrape in as offering ‘compliance’. In some cases, a company might only need a stand-alone coder, and that’s fine, we can give them the best to suit their needs simply because we’re a full-line supplier.
However, we win many installations on our innovation with what data can be captured, and how to give the company a real ‘intelligence’ in its data. And this doesn’t just win us installations, it wins us customers who keep coming back.”
Further Queensland growth
Alexander emphasises that “in Victoria and NSW, Matthews has been around for more than 30 years, with a significant presence of staff, and hence a strong customer base.
“We’re in the terrific position in Queensland now that our reputation has grown to the point that people are recommending us and offering their installations as reference sites.
“We pride ourselves on technical performance but those recommendations are among the highest compliments that we can be paid.”