MMK develops cooperation with consumers in Siberia

Deliveries of MMK's rolled steel to pipe companies in the Siberian Federal region have doubled since the beginning of the year. The region accounts for about 10% of the plant’s sales of the relevant products. The Company plans to further expand its presence in the domestic market.

Deputy General Director of Sales at PJSC MMK Sergei Ushakov spoke about this at a conference for consumers of MMK's steel products in the Siberian Federal region. The event was held in Novosibirsk on the premises of metallurgical company Ferrum.

"MMK is in the top 30 of the world's steel companies and ranks first in Russia in the iron and steel industry in terms of production of finished products (excluding semi-finished products)," said Sergei Ushakov, "The Company is a leader in the production of flat products, as well as galvanized and painted products." He added that the strategic priority for MMK was and remains the Russian market, whose share increased to 77% in the first three months of 2019. The Company plans to further increase its presence in the domestic market in 2019.

The main market segments where MMK are presence are the pipe industry, as well as the metal trading and metal processing industries. They account for more than half of all the plant's Russian sales. MMK is one of the key suppliers of rolled metal products for Russian manufacturers of welded pipes of all diameters. Deliveries of rolled steel to pipe plants are showing steady growth. At the same time, the Urals region accounts for more than half of the supply of rolled steel to pipe manufacturers, while the Volga region accounts for a further 30%. Siberia accounts for about 10% of supply deliveries, however since the beginning of the year the share of the Siberian region in MMK supplies has doubled.

Another important area of direction for shipments of MMK products is the construction industry, which is supplied through metal trading companies and service metal centers (SMC). Half of the supply to metal traders and SMC is for hot rolled and coated products (on average 25% of each group of rolled products). Around 30% of demand is for long products. The Siberian region consistently ranks third in MMK's supply structure for this segment, after the Urals and the Central region.

The Company is continuously working to improve sales efficiency, said Sergei Ushakov. New markets and product segments are being developed, the quality of products and customer services is improving, modern information technologies are being actively introduced into the sales process. An example of successful development of new market niches was the introduction of high-strength and wear-resistant steels under the general brand MAGSTRONG, as well as the development of sales of premium types of rolled products with polymer coating, produced in MMK-Lysvensky metallurgical plant under the brands SteelArt and Moir.

Since 1 April 2019, MMK has been operating an automated system of operational and calendar planning of production (AS OKPP). It allows consumers to quickly and reliably place orders, find "fellow travellers" for consolidation of low-tonnage orders and see the date of a future shipment at the time of order and monitor the execution of the order through processing.

For maximum customer convenience, a technical support office has been created, which operates on the principle of "one window", using a single centre for claims work and technical support. The most modern information resources are widely used in the workings of the office. In particular, with the help of a special mobile application, you can send quality questions to MMK directly from your smartphone.

According to Sergei Ushakov, the future of the highly competitive market of metal products is for customer-oriented companies that invest not in the expansion of capacity, but in the growth of overall efficiency and competence in the production of niche products. That is why MMK's strategy for the coming years is to invest in the renewal and modernisation of equipment in order to improve the efficiency and environmental friendliness of production.