Phoenix Contact was founded in 1923 in Essen, Germany, by Hugo Knümann. It entered the South African market in 1969 through a local distributor, and was later established as a wholly owned subsidiary in 2001.
The company’s South African headquarters have been in the current location in Strijdom Park, Randburg for more than 25 years. Four years ago the building was completely revamped to be more in line with its corporate identity – the new facility now includes a state-of-the-art auditorium and product showroom. The company also has offices in Port Elizabeth, Durban and Cape Town, which have also recently been upgraded.
Phoenix Contact’s primary course to market is almost exclusively through EPCs, consultants, panel builders, distributors and system integrators. However, the company appreciates the value of staying close to the end users, which is a combination of hands-on, face-to face-interaction, online and media, as well as offering regular training and seminars.
With over 60 000 products, Phoenix Contact has a very diverse portfolio. Its products are the result of decades of intensive development and consistent customer focus. Together with customers and partners, it designs solutions for the future using trend-setting connection and automation technology, wherever they are needed – for example, in transportation infrastructure, e-Mobility, for clean water, regenerative energies and intelligent supply networks, or energy-efficient machine building, mining and systems manufacturing. The diverse product portfolio includes products and components for industrial connection technology, automation technology, electronic interface systems and surge protection.
The company is in a very fortunate position to have specialist product managers that are dedicated to various product groups, offering technical backup and support to the entire product portfolio, as well as application engineers assisting with complete solutions and communications between different products and technologies. It also hosts a ‘Value Added Centre’ in its Randburg offices, where it is able to assist with the design, assembly and marking of rails.
The company that was started in 1923 manufacturing terminal blocks, has grown the product portfolio and changed their corporate identity over the years to become an international player. Today it has 52 sales subsidiaries worldwide with production facilities in seven different countries around the world, and employs 17 600 people globally.
Phoenix Contact has a unique culture, and family orientated staff complement which sets it apart from other companies in the market – its valued customers have also become its friends over the years and are also an integral part of the Phoenix Contact culture.
The company’s high-end technology products are aligned to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world and market with IoT and Industry 4.0, ideally positioning it to offer complete solutions in these new markets and enabling customers on their way into a smart world.
Who would have thought?
Josef Eisert, one of the founding members of Phoenix Contact and father of Klaus Eisert, who had only been to the USA once in the late 1960s, said: “We will never sell anything there” – today it is the number one subsidiary in terms of turnover.
| Tel: | +27 11 801 8200 |
| Email: | info@phoenixcontact.co.za |
| www: | www.phoenixcontact.co.za |
| Articles: | More information and articles about Phoenix Contact |
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