The Komax Group has taken a further step in optimizing its sales and service network by appointing Smans, its long-standing partner in the Benelux countries, to distribute the Komax Group's entire product portfolio. Since recently also including Schleuniger products and solutions. The Komax Group not only shares a passion for technology, innovation and excellence with Smans, the two companies are also united by the motivation to always find the right solution for customers and to support them in their day-to-day production. For more than 40 years.

Smans is a family business with almost 50 years of experience, specialized in the distribution of solutions in the areas of cable and wire assembly as well as electronics and can call itself the market leader in the Benelux region. Smans is characterized by an innovative and future-oriented approach, is valued by customers for its independent expertise and extensive portfolio and emphasizes technical support. The Smans Academy, for example, offers training programs that improve the process knowledge of staff and thus contribute directly to increasing productivity.

The long-standing partnership with Komax has given Smans additional strength. Looking to the future, Smans and Komax are pursuing joint strategic goals to consolidate and further expand their leading position in the industry. We spoke to Jan Van Lieshout, Managing Director of Smans since 2017, to find out what the partnership with Komax is all about, what unites the two companies and what are the key factors for Smans' success.

Jan Van Lieshout, Smans has been Komax’s sales partner in the Benelux countries for more than 40 years. How did the partnership between Smans and Komax originally begin?
Back in 1977, Norbert Smans, the founder of Smans, met Max Koch, the founder of Komax, at a trade fair in Paris. He was promoting his own products, including a fume extractor and a prototype of a cutting machine. Our company was founded in 1975 and its name by then was Smans Technical Sales Bureau. Komax was founded in the same year and called Komax Electronics. There was a distributor in the Benelux market by then, but they weren’t very successful, so Komax and Norbert Smans saw their chance and he took over the distributorship in 1978. First serving only Belgium, later also Luxembourg and the Netherlands. Norbert Smans was one of the first distributors from Komax and we still stay in contact and drink a coffee together from time to time, even if my two colleagues and I took over Smans in 2017.

What can you tell about the cooperation with the Komax Group?
It’s a successful long-term relationship and like in every relationship there were ups and downs. Both parties always stayed attracted to each other and I think that was mainly because we both are solid market leaders and share the same focus on customer satisfaction, quality and innovation. Since my colleagues and I took over Smans, the relationship got stronger and grew in a positive way. I think mainly because we brought into the company a breath of fresh air and new energy when we took over in 2017. This gave everything a bit of a boost and ended up in a good and successful growth of the company.

Can you name some milestones that have been achieved through the cooperation with Komax?
One of them was for sure the successful start together and that time in the nineties, when Max Koch packed a crimping machine on a trailer to bring it to Belgium, showcased and presented it on a trade fair and then drove with it to some special, selected customers. For me personally a big milestone was the taking over of the distribution business from Exmore in 2020 and of course the current developments with the merger of the Komax and Schleuniger businesses.

Smans is a company with over 45 years of experience and is market leader in the Benelux region. What are the key factors behind Smans’ success?
Next year we will celebrate our 50-year-anniversary and in all those years we always put ourselves in the position of our customers and asked ourselves what they really need. We are not only interested in our customers’ needs, we always ask about their dreams too. This because customers often think that dreams are not achievable but by analyzing them thoroughly and adding our expertise, things often look different and we can offer solutions that not only fulfill needs, but even dreams. All our customers are partners to us and we maintain a close partnership with many of them. We always focus on the solution first and want to enable our customers to continue doing their job, no matter how big the challenges are. And we always want to go beyond expectations and surprise our customers with a little more or a better solution than what they initially expected. This also motivates our employees, who always try to do a little better than what is demanded of them.

Smans has recently taken over the sales and service of Schleuniger’s products and solutions, including three of its employees. How did the integration proceed?
At the beginning, every party had its own identity and we had to find ourselves. Today, after just two months, I have the feeling that we have already found a good basis of trust and that everybody is happy with the new setup. We can give a new family and a stable environment to the former Schleuniger employees and serve and consult our customers even better. Generally, we try to stay as independent as possible from our suppliers, in order to really be able to suggest the best solution available on the market for each and every customer request.

The Komax Group wants to strengthen its partnership with Smans even further. Please tell us more.
This is true. We want to intensify the partnership in order to work together more effectively and closely, learn from each other and ultimately grow together. After moving closer together, we can discuss the worldwide market situation and the needs of the industrial market, share information and adapt to each other. Today, we certainly share information on another level and can, overall, make our customers even more happy.