TPi May 2014

Interview with Stefan Reiners, Steffen Knese, Claudia Renz and Christopher Klose of Starofit

Stefan Reiners, Steffen Knese, Claudia Renz and Christopher Klose are sales managers at STAROFIT and work in the export team. In total they have more than 30 years of experience in the steel trade industry.

n What does your company specialise in and why is it the best at what it does? Please tell us briefly about your main products. Christopher Klose: STAROFIT specialises in distributing buttwelding elbows and fittings in steel, alloy steel and stainless steel. We are a major supplier in Europe; our extensive stock programme enables us to satisfy unusual demands and cater for complex requirements. Furthermore, STAROFIT’s success relies on know how, motivated and well-trained employees and reliability. I believe the confidence our customers place is reasoned by our excellent customer service. n Could you tell us about some of the recent projects you have been working on at STAROFIT and about the role and responsibilities of STAROFIT in the market? Claudia Renz: STAROFIT is known as a reliable partner in the market, exclusively serving trading companies. Due to our deep product range, we are not a typical supplier for entire piping projects; rather we maintain the role as the niche supplier for complementary piping products. This means we provide our partners and customers with the ability to supply complete project packages to their customers.

Stefan Reiners: We are continuously working on the extension of our stock programme with new material grades and dimensions to provide products that are sustainable under extreme conditions. Our mission is to provide high quality goods and services to customers, which makes it also our responsibility that we are able to fulfil demands immediately. n What are the future plans for your company? Do you see a lot of potential for growth in the developing areas of the world, for example? Christopher Klose: Globalisation of the market is still going on, which means the process of the internationalisation of the market hasn’t stopped. It is obvious that STAROFIT can’t ignore this development, which means we have to extend our global network of partners to serve existing customers on a new level and to reach new potential customers. In this regard, we follow our philosophy to serve other trading companies in the piping sector only and treat them as partners. Additionally, as already mentioned we work continuously on the extension of our stock programme. We are extending our stock programme regarding the diversity of dimensions and the variety of material grades. We see our future as a niche supplier for value-added piping products and excellent services to our partners and customers.

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May 2014 Tube Products International