Growing its national footprint to support contractors across Australia and New Zealand, KOR is succeeding in the vision to make it simple for its customers to secure and maintain world leading products.
Founder and managing director Steve Pewtress established KOR in 2011 after identifying a gap in the market to deliver high-quality equipment to the trenchless industry.
After finding himself in a senior leadership role overseeing procurement of large equipment at another company, Pewtress became disillusioned with the current supplies in Australia.
“Through varied circumstances I was introduced to Cappellotto Spa – an Italian manufacturer – and through commercial dialogue and discussion, that opportunity was extended to me to take on the distribution and start my own company,” he says.
“With the support we had, and continue to have, those discussions 10 years’ ago were the right ones.”
A key to KOR’s success over the past10 years has been a constant focus on seeking the world’s most innovative products, identifying industry best practices, and collaborating with supplier and internal engineering capabilities to supply the Australian market.
Pewtress says its manufacturing partner in Cappellotto Spa has delivered the world’s highest quality, most efficient and ergonomically designed vacuum trucks for more than 65 years.
“Supported by our extended range of products from KEG nozzles, Duebre, Southland Tools, Polyflow Cobra Sewer Hose and Uraca water pumps, our Cappellotto product is supported by the highest performing accessories from across the globe,” he says. Following an aggressive start-up, Pewtress employed industry professionals that believed in the Cappellotto products and supported the business. He says this was another key aspect that helped the company grow to what it is today.
KOR has further expanded its product offering with a leading street sweeper provider, Schwarze Industries. This complementary partnership provides the market with sweeper units and parts across KORs Australian and New Zealand distribution network with mobile service options already deployed in a number of locations.
The ongoing vision for the company is to secure a great product, develop a great team, and service the market by way of a customer-faced business.
This includes a full-service support capability, spare parts centres across Australia, unit availability to support the demand for contractors, and a 24/7 customer service focus to support its clients.
“Organisations that embrace the commercial power associated with proactive fleet management are able to become highly profitable,” he says. “They realise the value of preserving capital, leveraging finance, procurement and retirement modelling with maturing equipment specification development.”
KOR has the experience and expertise to assist its clients in creating these fundamental financial strategies for their shareholders with fleet development and flexibility.
In 2016 Pewtress formed a commercial partnership with Marcus Birrell, an industry leader in the Automotive sector. This partnership allowed Pewtress and Birrell to accelerate KORs growth strategies and advance the service offering to customers Nationally and in New Zealand.
“We are now operating in QLD, NSW, four sites in VIC, one in WA, and continuing to grow and looking at further geographical expansion,” he says. “KOR continues to invest in its people with a team of close to fifty staff. As our footprint of units grows with support from the trenchless community so does our commitment to aftersales support.”
Looking towards the future, KOR continues to identify world class specialized equipment to compliment the Cappellotto and Schwarze product line.
With a strong presence in Australian, Pewtress also has his sights on expanding to Asia with Cappellotto’s support.
“The other dynamic change in our business is leasing and lease-to-buy opportunities with our equipment and supporting our customers,” he says.
“We have also commenced the KOR Academy, which is an all-inclusive internal and external training set up. It is early days; however, it continues to support our centre of excellence to help our own people develop further skills and evolve and continue to be highly capable in everything they do.”
“We currently provide external training to customers and operators of KOR units and are looking to further extend the offering to provide a full suite of training services with flexibility to the marketplace.”
KOR has developed a market reach where it is able to facilitate trade-in purchases from its clients and reposition preowned units into a different environment.
Pewtress says it can manage any unit brand that still has genuine service life and is proud of the maturity it has introduced into the market that enables customers looking to renew or wanting to gain the great experience on offer when contractors buy a new Cappellotto unit.
“We have created our own showroom with the Cappellotto range supported by the strength of our supply chain which has been instrumental in the landscape of the market because we backed ourselves, and the market, to ensure we have stock to service the industry,” he says.
“Often with manufacturers in this space, you are looking at a 6-12 month wait. But with us, within reason, you can get it in 2-4 days. We pride ourselves on servicing our customers yesterday, today and always.”
With over 20 years experience in the industry, Pewtress is extremely grateful for the people who have interacted with KOR. He says as a result of the platform he has put in place, the company is now in a position to continue to evolve and grow to become better at enabling customers to yield their financial aspirations as it becomes “the best strategic supplier we can.”
“As the founder and leader of KOR I am extremely proud of everything we are achieving with our Australian-owned company that employs a rapidly growing team of people across Australia and New Zealand who continue to deliver despite the pandemic,” he says.
“Customer engagement is high as we all look to press our economy forward helping all Australians climb back to where we must be.”
For more information visit the KOR website.