Marketing Strategy Consulting in mechanical engineering

he IMA Schelling Group is one of the leading companies for machines and systems in the wood, metal and plastics industries. With over 100 years of experience, the Group continues to impress with state-of-the-art solutions and technologically advanced developments. Its rise to the elite of mechanical engineering began in 2015 with the merger of two long-established companies, IMA from Lübbecke (Germany) and Schelling from Schwarzach (Austria).

Today, the group focuses on intelligent high-end solutions and customised systems, ranging from fully automated batch size 1 production to networked manufacturing systems. With around 2,100 employees in 16 subsidiaries worldwide and a global network of 70 sales partners, the IMA Schelling Group is an innovative, internationally active group of companies.

In recent years, we have supported the IMA Schelling Group in key strategic areas. This included the development of a consistent employer branding and a brand ambassador programme to increase the company's attractiveness as an employer and to present its inner values to the outside world in an authentic and effective way.

We also focused on developing service brands such as "ZIMBA" and "AIMI" and optimising the portfolio architecture to structure the machine and service offering more clearly. We also supported the digital sales strategy and optimised the ERP data structure to make processes more efficient and future-proof.

These diverse projects are helping to position the IMA Schelling Group for a strong and successful future, both internally and externally.

The central question arising from the ZIMBA project was how the service brands should be strategically embedded in the corporate architecture. As the first products to function across locations and machines, they played a special role in the integration of the IMA and Schelling brands - both internally and externally.

The service brands formed the umbrella for the product brands and created a unifying structure that brought the entire portfolio together in a meaningful way.

IMA from Germany and Schelling from Austria. The merger of the two companies presented a number of organisational and procedural challenges.

We supported management, marketing and HR with communication strategy and unified positioning in both internal and external messaging. The aim was to make the merger tangible for everyone, create a sense of new beginnings and shape the narrative for the future.

ZIMBA is one of the flagship brands and a symbol of the IMA Schelling Group's new digital orientation.

The software, with a focus on machine learning and predictive maintenance, had to be not only functional, but also communicative.

To achieve this, we worked closely with the project teams to develop a claim, a CI that could be associated with the group, and an appealing landing page.