CDE established a new home for itself in the North American market, officially opening a new headquarters in Cleburne, Texas.
Located in a major market near the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, CDE is positioned to expand its operations not just in Texas, but across the United States and North America as a whole.
“North America, as a region, we see it as our single biggest growth market,” says Eoin Heron, director of business development for North America. “We operate our business across eight strategic regions, of which North America is one of those, and we realized very quickly that the only limitation to growing our business in North America is us. It’s just getting our name out there.”
The Texas headquarters marks the second CDE facility in the U.S. The company’s first U.S. office opened in Cary, North Carolina, in 2013.
“More than two-thirds of what we were selling was in Texas,” Heron says. “Any company that sells in North America, in this sector, should have a focus on Texas. As part of our strategy to be direct in the market and direct with our customers, we decided that we should make a second investment and go bigger, and we bought this facility in Cleburne.”
CDE acquired the facility in March 2018 with the intent of it becoming the company’s main office in the U.S. The facility includes ample office space, a lecture room to facilitate customer workshops and events, and a fully stocked warehouse with spare parts for the market.
“We house all of our parts here,” Heron says. “We have a full inventory of parts. We’ve already started to back up our sales with available dispatch of parts, as well. We’re looking at in excess of $2.5 million worth of parts, and that’s just on wet processing equipment. That’s what we do.”
The headquarters will also host business development, engineering, marketing and technical support staff to serve the local customer base.
“We continue to build a team here and step-by-step grow out from here,” Heron says. “We’re recruiting across all functions of the business to be geared up for further growth in 2019.”
CDE anticipates doubling its staff over the next 12 months.
“You can make a really good product, but if you can’t back it up with the availability of service, knowledge and parts, you’re not going to grow,” Heron says. “We’re very proactive on our service. We’re more about keeping close to the customer and making sure the customer is getting the uptime. We have many customers who run 24/5, and even in the industrial sand market 24/7, so having that close connection with customers is very important because downtime is not an option.”