Interview FKV Italy

Partners for Analytical Excellence

FKV is one of the most prestigious providers of analytical equipment and expertise for laboratories in Italy. The Bergamo-based company has been one of the closest partners of Analytik Jena for 15 years. We spoke to Angelo Agazzi, Sales Manager at FKV and resident Analytik Jena expert about the nature of the cooperation and how both companies bring analytical excellence and higher customer focus to the labs of Italy.

Mr. Agazzi, what is the focus of FKV’s business in Italy?

Our business is mainly focused on analytical instruments for chemical and physical analysis, sample preparation systems and industrial process.

What are your main priorities and core competencies?

We concentrate our efforts on analytical laboratories, for both chemical and physical analysis. Our goal is to meet the needs of our customers and support them to the best of our abilities. Thanks to excellent partnerships with the companies we are representing and the strong expertise support of our employees we are very successful in pursuing our targets. We believe the combination of those two ingredients is the key for our success. Our FKV motto "Passione, Idee e Soluzioni" which stands for "Passion, Ideas and Solutions" represents this as well. The strength of our activity is in the professional support, both in applications and technical matters. We are highly dedicated to our customers. Our sales strategy is based on hands-on demonstration of all instruments we sell in order to prove our customers that the solution we are promoting can overcome their analytical challenges. Furthermore, an excellent after sales technical and application support is of utmost importance to strengthen our partnership with our end-users.

How did the cooperation between FKV and Analytik Jena start in the first place?

We met Analytik Jena in 2005. We were looking to expand our product portfolio in analytical chemistry. At that time, FKV was very well known for its knowledge in sample preparation and very often our customers asked us to supply them with analytical instruments as well. Among our customers there were some users of the novAA and ZEEnit spectrometers by Analytik Jena. They gave us a very positive feedback on performance and reliability proving the brand's excellent reputation to us. We decided to approach the management of Analytik Jena to propose a partnership in Italy. In retrospect, that was a very wise decision. We started our partnership with a company that gave us, for the first time, the possibility to distribute top class chemical analysis instrumentation.

What is the nature of the partnership between FKV and Analytik Jena?

We are partners for sales and service covering the entire chemical analysis portfolio of Analytik Jena. In our application laboratory we have several instruments from Analytik Jena because we believe that a good demonstration is the best way to gain the loyalty of customers. We installed almost the complete Analytik Jena portfolio in our demo lab – ranging from ICP-MS, atomic spectrometers, UV/Vis spectophotometers and mercury analyzers to TOC analyzers and elemental analyzers.

How would you describe the partnership between your company and Analytik Jena over the years?

In Analytik Jena we have a partner who combines technical innovation, very high production quality and customer orientation in a unique package. Furthermore, we receive excellent support from  the entire Analytik Jena team. When offering highly technical products it is important that there are experts you can rely on in order to provide best customer satisfaction. Analytik Jena has such experts easily available for us. Overall, it is an excellent package to compete in the market.

What were the highlights of the cooperation between FKV and Analytik Jena so far?

We have many success stories to be told that cover the whole portfolio of products. For example, one of the very first contrAA we sold in Italy back in 2008 was such a highlight. The customer was a company dealing with galvanic bath analysis. We made a successful demo giving them excellent results proving fantastic performances in terms of productivity, ease of use and reduced costs of ownership. A couple of years later the customer purchased an ICP-OES from our competition to increase the analytical capacity of his lab but after a few months they did not see any improvements. So, since the contrAA they already had was so powerful and the ICP-OES from another manufacturer could not compete, they decided to purchase one more contrAA instead. Recently, we even installed a third contrAA in their lab. Another success story was the first ICP-MS we sold. It was installed in a lab where a competition device was running. They made a comparison between the performances of their current unit versus the Analytik Jena PlasmaQuant MS and they decided to choose our proposal. The PlasmaQuant MS works six days a week, 24 hours with unmatched sensitivity – that completely convinced the customer.  Also, our first PlasmaQuant PQ9000 Elite ICP-OES we sold is a very similar success story. Our customer had chosen us among different competitors. He is absolutely happy about his choice. He says they gained analytical sensitivity which is far superior from every single competitor ICP-OES they have seen. These are just a few of many stories illustrating the capabilities and quality of the Analytik Jena solutions for our customers.

Which advantages do you think the Analytik Jena equipment offers your customers in Italy?

Customers value the very high quality and robustness of the Analytik Jena instruments, as well as the unique features, high performance and reliable results. Beside the many unique technical features integrated in Analytik Jena instrumentation, there is one detail which is most beneficial to our customer base: The extended warranty terms related to some vital components. That is a great idea. Overall, Analytik Jena offers customers a great package consisting of best analytical performance, high quality of components, highest production quality and a high respect for customers. When you choose a partner to invest your money in it is wise to also consider those special benefits.

In terms of individual solutions, we believe that the continuum source high-resolution technology – the concept behind the contrAA atomic spectrometer – is a fantastic improvement of the classical AAS technology. Customers almost get the level of an high performance ICP-OES for the cost of an AAS system. Another feature which impresses a lot of customers in our demonstrations is the easy maintenance and the quick restart of the PlasmaQuant MS ICP-MS instrument. That is very impressive especially among users of competitor ICP-MS devices.

How do you experience the everyday work between our two companies?

We have an excellent interaction with our contact persons in Jena and we see a very high level of trust and a strong human relationship. There are people who listen and are ready and eager to support. The Analytik Jena team is very proactive in supporting us. As I said before, it’s just the right mix and this makes us very happy and proud to cooperate with Analytik Jena.

Anything else you might want to add or highlight?

We really want to thank everybody at Analytik Jena for their trust in FKV and the great support we receive in every situation. That is very motivating! We work for our mutual success in Italy – Analytik Jena and FKV together!

Thank you for the interview.