It’s not by chance Balanças Marques made it this far. Throughout more than 50 years, filled with changes and unexpected episodes, the company not only survived but it was also – can you imagine it - able to grow. There was no economic crisis, no technological development or demand it couldn’t survive. The company always knew how to overcome all the obstacles, even before they came its way, and, on all occasions, it was able to land in a higher point than it was before.
There is no doubt that we have enough adventures for a lifetime. But Balanças Marques made a point of facing each obstacle as a challenge possible to overcome. And it was enough to have a little nerve and imagination – it was enough to really bet in innovative ideas – to surpass them. Ready to embark with us on a journey through the episodes that show Balanças Marques’ pioneer and entrepreneur spirit?
The one when wood became metal
On our very first episode, we take you away back to the 1970’s. In his workshop, José Pimenta Marques produced the traditional roman scales, like many other manufacturers. All of them depending on wood and carpenters to place their products on the market. Until some day, that dependence was no longer pleasing Balanças Marques’ founder. “After not being able to sort things out on a meeting with the carpenters that sold us the wood, I got to think about how I could fix the problem”, tells the Marques family’s patriarch. And, without realizing it, he came up with a big idea. “At a certain time, by night, already in my bed, I suddenly thought I could try to make the four scales we had in metal, instead of wood”.
He kept it a secret. Alone, but with high hopes, he put to work. He was able to make his idea come true. His roman scales – the first ones to come in metal, instead of wood, in Portugal – were a huge success. The production process accelerated, and the orders increased, arriving from all over the country.
At a certain point, Balanças Marques was no longer the only company making them. The innovative pioneering idea was spread to other scales’ factory, almost as setting a new trend in the weighing sector.
The one(s) where we were one step ahead (again)
On these next episodes, we go to the past to visit 1980’s and 1990’s. The times were optimistic. The business could not be going better. But the investment on developing new products never stopped.
“After creating the roman scales in metal, the business went off. But when I realized that everyone was also producing them, it was when I started off with the pointer scales”, explains José Pimenta Marques. The company therefore placed itself one step ahead of its main Portugal’s competitors, in a move that wasn’t an isolated episode.
In fact, years later, when the company’s founder first heard about digital scales, there was, once again, a desire to reinvent Marques’ weighing platforms. “It seemed impossible there such equipment, all electronic and wire free, but I went to Spain to see it with my own eyes”, he remembers. At the time, he sent his son Francisco, then at the age of 17, to a factory in Barcelona hoping to get enough knowledge to produce that innovative products in their company.
After a while, and as it happened with the metal roman scales and the pointer scales, they were able to do it and added the digital weighing new equipment to its company’s list of products.
The one where we dived into the world of digital weighing
Now, we transport you the present/ a near by past, whose reality you know as well as us. No matter the business area, there’s no denying these last few years have been marked by an invasion of digital equipment and tools. The internet has taken over everything.
In the weighing sector, the reality is no different and, once again, Balanças Marques had to adapt to be up to the challenge. “Like my grandfather went through the phase of the roman scales’ change of material and the phase of transition to digital scales, now we are witnessing a big change with process’ automatization and the weighing process going to the cloud”, refers Tiago Marques Pereira, founder’s grandson and member of the company’s administration.
As such, besides the scales themselves, our organization has been able to present innovative solutions that ally technology and functionality and simplify our client’s day to day. Balanças Marques has continually invested in new products, in new software updates and in several apps, like, for example, Quilo.
Today, we can say we are officially and definitely dipped in the digital weighing world, a world that comes up with news and other potentialities every day.
