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14 April 2008  

A DAY of press conferences means a fascinating glimpse of what’s to come at the Commercial Vehicle show.

More interestingly, it gives a taster of some of the different corporate styles and strategies employed by some of the top companies.

Things started today with the Maxon Lift Corporation announcing plans for dominance in the UK market, and how it hopes to translate its success in the US into tail lift sales in the UK.

Proceedings were kicked off by Anton Griessner, the hard-voiced vice president of marketing and business development. Living in California, but with a strong Austrian accent, he had the same directness and striking business presence as his fellow Austrian-turned-Californian Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Fleet solutions company Omnibridge titled its talk ‘We’re mixing it up’. They never quite revealed what, precisely, they thought they were mixing up but, judging by the huge number of brand names and companies mentioned, it was the very minds of anyone trying to understand what the company’s name actually is.

After careful studying of the press releases, it turns out that they have rebranded themselves to become MiX Telematics, a ‘global provider of fleet management solutions’. The rebrand follows the merger of previous companies OMNiBridge with South African vehicle tracking company Matrix Vehicle Tracking.

Award for the most stylish of today’s press conferences probably goes to Continental Tyres. Some of the company’s big bosses and engineering brains from Germany had flown out to announce the launch of their latest HTR 2 trailer tyres and appeared in matching black suit-and-tie combos complete with Continental logos.

With golden flags everywhere and a board of three men sat behind a desk, it resembled a concert by those other purveyors of Teutonic style Kraftwerk.

Anyway, must dash. There’s a Tom Tom WORK conference in five minutes and I’m off to find out about vehicle tracking and navigation.

Tom