The number one brand for heating, ventilation and air conditioning in Georgia ‘Terma’ has been providing “reliable, quality and customer-oriented” service in the HVAC sphere on the Georgian market for 22 years already, according to Giorgi Machitidze, founder of Terma.
“We offer our customers the latest products of our partner companies, such as Mitsubishi Electric, Gree, Wolf, and others, so we provide comfortable and energy-efficient solutions in Georgia,” he said.
The year 2018 was significant and at the same time challenging for Terma as the company completed sectoral transition from HVAC to MEP.
MEP stands for mechanical, electrical and plumbing. It refers to these aspects of building design and construction. In commercial buildings, these aspects are designed by an engineering firm specializing in MEP.
HVAC stands for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. It is used to provide heating and cooling services.
“This was the most important strategic change that we started in 2017 and completed in 2018. It is the most important concept in our industry and means that we will be perfectly ready for large projects and will not be limited to only heating, ventilation, and conditioning. Providing water supply, fire safety and any other service defined by the project is now a standard opportunity for Terma,” said Machitidze.
Also last year Terma worked on a commercial transformation and renewed its showroom.
“We served many international projects last year and raised awareness of Terma on foreign markets,” Machitidze said.
Terma is one of the most successful companies on the Georgian market, which has been named the number one brand in Georgia in the field of heating, ventilation and air conditioning for the second time in a row. About 2,000 surveyed customers and over 100 experts named Terma the number one company and it is thanks to them that the company got its second Golden Brand award this year.
“Terma has been operating on the Georgian market for 22 years. It was one of the first brands in Georgia to be associated with complex projects of the HVAC sector. We are proud to receive Golden Brand, and this award was timely because we have been very active in different directions since 2017. In terms of branding we’ve created a seasonal standard, which is kind of an innovation for Georgian marketing,” Machitidze said.
Terma started operations on the Georgian market in 1997 as a limited liability company, while in 2007 it was transformed into a joint stock company. During this period Terma served hundreds of the largest projects and thousands of individual customers.
Among the recent projects implemented by Terma are the Museum of illusions of Tbilisi; Schirnhofer Factory; the renewed centre of Mercedes-Benz; and the Holiday Inn Telavi hotel.
“Currently we are working on the Meat Product Factory in Vake, the Krtsanisi Villa Residence, and many others,” said Machitidze.
Q. Terma was going to gradually integrate solar systems into its portfolio. What are the developments in this regard?
A. We are trying to integrate solar systems into our portfolio, however we see that the Georgian market is not active in this direction. As of yet there is not enough awareness of these technologies among consumers, but we hope that interest will gradually increase.
Q. How competitive is the Georgian market and what is Terma’s competitive advantage?
A. There has been a boom of commercial construction in Georgia and especially in the capital, Tbilisi. A number of residential complexes are under construction as well as office-commercial buildings, business centres and hotels. All these units need proper service.
Since the construction industry has exponentially grown, our sector is growing as well. According to the principles of the economy, the level of competition is also growing.
Overall this is a very useful trend because it drives our company to do more and more and be leaders of the market. It is bad that some organizations use the method of dumping (a kind of predatory pricing) and thus degrade the average quality, however two decades of doing business have taught us that success primarily comes from innovation and proper regulation of the price-quality-technology combination.
Q. What are the challenges that Terma faces on the market?
A. The year 2018 was full of challenges and as I already mentioned, it was related to the sectoral transition from the HVAC to MEP.
We have an ambition to develop our own production and last year we started activities in this direction.
We have successfully served the largest projects and overall we are satisfied with our activities of 2018.
Also, last year sales in the individual segment increased by about 15-20 percent while in the corporate segment they increased by 50 percent.
