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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INFO Eduard

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