FIGHTING A BAD MOOD
Are you often in a bad mood this year?
We are overwhelmed with news on all
sides with information about the war
in Ukraine, inflation, rising energy prices and what increased costs and prices mean for business as for household
budget. This confusion is not improved
by politicians who sometimes give the
impression of living in an ivory tower on
a glass rock with their heads in the
clouds. I am not just referring to the
Czech Republic, but somehow to a number of other countries from which I read
the news. Although the Czechs, with their
bureaucracy and slow decision making,
sometimes seem to want to take the top
spot in this discipline.
Walking through Prague, where I live, one
can see numbers of closed business as
a result of the covid pandemic. Now some
companies, shops and restaurants are
also closing because of inflation and the
sagging energy market. The situation is
not easy for our company either. With the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has
been a significant drop in sales virtually
overnight. Even after eight months, the
market situation has not calmed down
and it is still not certain whether we have
hit bottom or not. The current negative
development period is now longer than
the whole 2008-2009 crisis.
These worries add on top of what the
past two years have given us. We are
still dealing with the rise in the price of
production materials, the sharp increase
in the cost of international transport,
accompanied by the delays and unreliability of delivery times.
We consider innovation to be the main
tool to deal with the crisis. We have always been an innovative company, but
the current issues pushed us to accelerate our innovative activities. Since the
last spring, we have been investing heavily in 3D printing technology. We have
already bought four printers and are in
the process of buying two more, we are
improving our production processes and
thanks to this, despite the crisis, our sales of Brassins are growing compared to
last year. We are also planning to purchase two new injection machines for the
press shop to increase production capacity. We have introduced new procedures in the production of metallic moulds,
such as 3D scanning to review progress
of tooling, which helps us to reduce production time, saves costs, and also ensures optimal fitting of the components of
the kits. The reviewers don't write any-
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thing about it, they probably take it for
granted, but it's not.
We are also innovating our marketing
activities, for example, we have set up an
Instagram account, the number of people who follow it has already exceeded
five thousand, and thanks to their active
involvement it is still growing. Another
big change is ahead for Eduard INFO magazine, we are preparing the introduction
of the Triobo software, which will lead to
a new, more modern and professional
online form of the magazine. This journal has undergone a dynamic evolution
in the last two years from one monthly
article we now bring three to four main
articles and recently we have introduced
one-page Boxart stories. We see these
as part of an improvement with the kits,
where we've started to pay even more
attention than before to the historical
background of the box arts. Eduard INFO
magazine is no longer just a list of news,
it is also fun for modellers and is on its
way to becoming a quality and popular
scale modelling magazine.
The bad mood and the global crisis can
be fought in different ways. Scale modelling is one of the unequivocally positive
ways to relax and create something that
makes you happy. We are doing everything we can to improve the current situation. Do it too! Fight, resist, don't give
up! Help us, be with us. BUILD, assemble,
learn new techniques, use our innovations! You will help us and yourself. We will
reward you by making great new kits and
accessories for you that will keep you
entertained and put you back in a good
mood. Plus, we'll give you a monthly INFO
magazine with lots of inspiration and
keep you entertained on Facebook and
Instagram. Who has this nowadays? And
get ready for another Sweep discount
event, this time it will be all about photo
etch and later followed by Brassins.
Jan Bobek
November 2022