Circontrol presents its commitment with innovation in VI Conference on Strategic Change in Clusters organized by ACCIÓ

On this conference Ramon Comellas spoke about Circontrol’s experience in emobility, an expanding sector

Circontrol, together with Frit Ravich and Relats, has presented its experience in the VI Conference of Strategic Change in Clusters organized by ACCIÓ and with the collaboration of IESE Business School. This session is framed within the cluster policy of Catalan’s government and aims to present three success stories from different business sectors that have adapted to remain competitive. Joan Romero, CEO of ACCIÓ, highlighted the ability of these companies to adopt strategic changes in innovation and internationalisation, but also the ability for networking in clusters model. IESE Business School also collaborates with the conference and the cases presented will be studied by their students worldwide.

Circontrol, emobility pioneers

Ramón Comellas, Circontrol’s president, has talked about how the company started betting on emobility when it was still incipient manufacturing its first charger in 2008. At this moment emobility was so emerging that Tesla, one of the most emblematic companies in the sector nowadays, didn’t exist. Ramón Comellas, who back then was already part of Circutor, a company of the same group as Circontrol with a wide experience in energy efficiency, realized that electric mobility was really important for the future and this is the reason why he saw the need of creating a new company to provide the project with the corresponding entity. The sector has changed a lot in these ten years. At first, Circontrol had to dedicate lots of efforts and investments in R+D in order to create such a new product. Besides, Circontrol had to focus mainly in foreign markets and advanced countries such as Nordics or United Kingdom. Nowadays, the situation has changed and there are more countries every year that see EV as a choice for the present or a very close future. This positions Circontrol, with more than 50.000 charging points installed in 56 countries, in a privileged position. Besides, Electric Mobility is growing 50% every year, more than any sector right now. Ramon Comellas also spoke about how important is for catalan companies in the automotive sector to opt for electric mobility. This sector is rapidly changing, and many countries will stop selling fossil fuel cars in 2030. Automotive sector is very important in Catalunya and exports 80% of its production that’s why it has to adapt to the new context in order to survive. An initiative such as Cluster of Automotive Industry in Catalonia is very helpful for the adaptation of the companies.

The importance of clusters and corporate cooperation

One of the main objectives of these conferences was to publicize the strategy of cluster’s creation which will be increasingly important to interconnect companies that work in the same sector. Catalan government, through its competitiveness agency, has 25 years of experience in clusters development with the program Catalonian Clusters. I currently has 28 clusters that group 2.200 companies with a turnover of 74.000 million euros and over 300.000 employees. Circutor is a member of Energy Efficiency Cluster and Circontrol joined the Cluster of Automotive Industry of Catalonia (CIAC) a few months ago. In CIAC Circontrol has joined the task force on electric mobility that will present an strategic study in 2019. Circutor forma parte del Cluster de Eficiencia Energética y Circontrol se incorporó hace unos meses al Clúster de la Indústria de la Automoción en Cataluña (CIAC). Se ha incorporado al grupo de trabajo sobre movilidad eléctrica que presentará un estudio estratégico en 2019.