Bors Csikós, Managing Director
“My father founded the company with a colleague after their previous job ended”, said Bors Csikós, Managing Director of Meta-Vulk Kft. In the early 90s, an acquaintance of his father, originally a teacher, told him that a company producing rubber products was looking for an international salesforce who spoke foreign languages. A “T.E.” rubber plant was already exporting, but more than 90% of its sales were realised in Hungary and they wanted to develop and expand. “My father joined the company as a manager of foreign trade. However, the company went out of business overnight, and my father and the chief engineer, who worked in the commercial office in the capital, found themselves in a difficult situation. However, it was the fact that the company went out of business that created the opportunity, because someone had to serve the former clientele.”
The idea proved to be a good one, and the relationships built up at the time proved to be long-lasting. “This is how we built the base on which we still operate today. We currently have 20 suppliers, eight of which we have been working with since the mid-nineties.”
The company started in August 1994 as a typical story of the era following the political changes in 1989-1990. The business was a second-hand photocopier and a fax machine in a corner of their home, in fact in the parents’ bedroom. “Every Friday, the goods would arrive on the shelves in the garage and from there they would be shipped around the world. As we were still building our house at the time, we used wheelbarrows (sledges in winter) to get the goods in and out.”
The fact that the world economy worked differently back then, and the now dominant Asian suppliers were not as strong, helped the venture to be bold by today’s standards. The partners of “T.E.” suddenly found themselves without goods, and sought to find new sources of supply, mainly in Europe. Just like the newly established Meta-Vulk, the Western Euro- pean partners had an interest in cooperation, so they waited patiently for the first weeks and months to build up. Meta-Vulk was eager to build a reliable network of suppliers that could provide customers with a wide range of products to meet their needs. Individual agreements had to be made with suppliers who could supply each product category. “It was not an easy job, as one of them only produced compressed vulcanised products, another only extruded profiles, a third only large series of overriders, bumpers and so on. It wasn’t easy at the time without the internet, databases and GPS, but we managed to find the right supplier for every job.”
Since then, Meta-Vulk has remained a classic trading company, with no manufacturing activities. “We can now say that we’ve been making products with the same manufacturing background for 27 years. MV indirectly provides continuous employment for around 450 people.” Meta-Vulk and its suppliers and customers have built fruitful relationships for long-term development, taking significant steps together; as they say, pulling each other forward over the years.
For a long time, the business operated from a rented apartment in Budapest. “Customers didn’t come to visit us, because we only had foreign customers, and when they came to Hungary they visited the suppliers, with our assistance.” Slowly growing into the family business, Bors Csikós initially only saw the business from the outside. “I didn’t get into the work at that time, I just saw the working days getting longer. I joined the company in 1998, and that was when I suggested to my father that we should start a domestic business, to see what the possibilities were. I did an apprenticeship for a year, visiting suppliers regularly, mostly doing all-round work. But it taught me a lot about the business, and I’ve seen every area and every process up close. Through my family’s business, I’ve received a lot of support from my father, both then and later. I was given a free hand; the only condition was that everything had to work. Perhaps more importantly, it has given me a wealth of knowledge and values, which have always been aimed at keeping the business on a firm footing. A domestic trade network was set up, which continued until my father’s partner retired 12 years ago. My father bought out his share, and I got half of the company as a gift, and from then on I’ve been a 50% owner of the company.”
The company already offers its customers a portfolio of almost 30,000 products in hundreds of categories, which means they are present on the market with a very broad range of products. The most prominent product category is vibration dampers, bumpers and machine feet, of which almost 400,000 units are exported each week.
Exports are the decisive factor in its operations, with Western and Northern Europe typically being the most important desti- nations. “They make up 80% of our customers, but we also ship monthly to North America, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.”
Because of the commercial and organisational activity, we make different investments to those of a production plant. All financing was possible from our own resources; the company never took out a loan, not even for the construction of the headquarters and warehouse, the purchase of material handling and packaging machines, or the development of the IT background. The most important marketing activity in the life of Meta-Vulk is to participate in three or four major international trade fairs a year, which, in addition to attracting new customers, are a good opportunity to meet face-to-face with old customers and suppliers.
“The pandemic has had both good and bad impacts on our operations: demand for European-made products has increased due to a freeze of Asian sources, and our turnover has increased by 35-40% since 2020. At the same time, the difficulties in sourcing raw materials and the downtime due to virus outbreaks in production plants posed major challenges for our producers, which they overcame with exemplary speed and efficiency.”