Insight

Welcome to the 2024 Janus Perspective, a unique feature that includes a wide cross section of global fastener business leaders. Named after the Roman God 'Janus' – who had the ability to look to the future and to the past, and was often depicted with having two faces – this feature brings together thought leaders from every facet of the industry, from around the world, to give us their retrospective on 2023, as well as prospects and challenges for 2024.

Thomas Christoffel, CEO

Supply chain disruptions were still one of the main challenges for the entire metal forming industry in 2023. Although the situation improved compared to the years before, uncertainties remained, especially in the electronics sector. 

Reacting to these uncertainties wasn’t always easy, but at Hatebur and Carlo Salvi our team managed to be especially flexible and handle a high workload throughout the whole year – ensuring that we were able to deliver our formers and machines on time in our key markets all around the world. Of course, not everything always went perfectly smoothly – but all in all we had a good year. 

2023 was also a year in which we implemented some organisational changes, bringing the two brands of Hatebur and Carlo Salvi closer together – strengthening the group and thus laying the groundwork for a successful future. The expanded sales division is now located at group level and takes care of both brands, improving the efficiency and unlocking important synergy effects. We will continue and deepen this strategic process in 2024 and beyond. Over the course of the last year, we were able to grow in new market segments, such as the medical devices industry, as well as reduce our dependence on the still very important automotive field. In the fastener industry, we continue to have a strong foothold thanks to the Carlo Salvi machines.

We also used 2023 to work tirelessly on new technologies in order to provide added value to our customers. The main R&D focuses were on servo drive technologies and Industry 4.0 applications – with our Hatebur specialists already capable of reliably extracting and processing data in highly dynamic processes. Another emphasis has been on strengthening our daughter companies in global markets – especially in China, Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom. 

Although we had a successful 2023, we did notice economically difficult conditions in many international markets – especially in Europe. However, there are still business opportunities and chances for growth, and we aim to make good use of them. We still see a lot of potential in the Chinese market and expect India to continue gaining in importance.  

We start 2024 with confidence, Hatebur and Carlo Salvi will continue to grow together and we will reinforce our group’s structure. We will also continue to focus on research and innovation, which includes organisational changes to further boost our innovative power. We are also putting a lot of efforts in developing new machines and technologies. During this year, we will also launch a brand new Carlo Salvi machine that will offer new opportunities in the fastener industry and complement the broad Carlo Salvi product range.