Kmd Panel Systems

2. What does the case-study of the KMD Panel Systems tells us about European Business Culture? Analyse the company’s approach to expand their business in the EU, the process they had to implement to increase their turnover and the issues they had to tackle to become competitive.

KMD Panel Systems is a company producing fire safety sandwich panels since 1974. They are medium sized and based in the Netherlands and until 1998 they sold their products only on the Dutch market. Then, in 1998 they received an inquiry for these safety panels from the German construction company BlitzBau, which was starting a considerable construction project in several locations in Europe under public procurement. Of course KMD Panel Systems was very happy to accept this order, however there were many regulations that had to be observed in order for the business deal to be completed. At the beginning of the negotiations, BlitzBau engaged a German law firm to study these regulations. KMD itself accepted that, however, they made no effort of hiring a Dutch law firm to cross-check the situation. The first issue that was raised was the user manual, which, according to German but also to European legislation had to be translated in the language of every country that the product was sold in. As the construction project was to be conducted in several locations in Europe and it was not clear yet in which ones, the companies agreed to translate it in all official European languages and to split the costs of this procedure. But there was an even greater issue the German law firm came up with: The company demanded two product certification marks, a German one, the GS mark and an international one, the CE mark. The law firm stated that it was essential under European law to provide the CE mark in order to sell the product. At this point the KMD company decided to take action themselves, as they as well consulted European law specialists. However, their answer was not what they were hoping for, as...