Balanças Marques is a family company over 50 years old. Founded in 1967 by José Pimenta Marques, it was built with his courage and strength. It was an entrepeneurial – and risky – adventure that started in the garage of a house like many others. But the story of the company’s beginning and development has nothing to do with the stories of so many other companies. It’s a story of leadership, of overcome obstacles, of constant innovation and of success – of a sustainable success.
“The story begins with a miff”. It’s this way José Pimenta Marques starts the tale of the path that led him to found Balanças Marques. And, truth be told, if it weren’t for a little “miff” with a new colleague on the factory he worked at, maybe he would never have quit the job he liked so much. Maybe he would never have taken the step of starting his own company.
But life eventually took him where he needed to be. After some years working for others and even for himself as a locksmith, in 1967, he returned to the old family business, to his mother’s, Idalina Pimenta, old business. “I’ve always had my roots in the scales industry, so, when I thought I was lost, when I needed a new path to follow, I decided to go back to scales”, tells José Pimenta Marques.
He started by manufacturing roman scales in wood, the ones he used to see his mother work on. He took the client’s list he still had and, on his motorcycle, he went through miles and miles all over the country, hoping to be able to sell his product. He did it. “I started to have more and more clients and things started to go well. I had orders coming from everywhere. The business started to fly”. The company began its growth process. From the 15 meters2 workshop that used to be his mother’s, he went to a 110 meters2 one, at “lugar da Garapôa”, in Celeirós, Braga. “But this wasn’t easy at all. We had lots of work and many struggles”, as he feels the need to add.
After all, along the way, it was the struggles and the problems that pushed him to search for innovative solutions that led the company towards success. “After not being able to work through a situation with the carpenters that sold us the wood, I got to think about how I could solve it. So, one day, by night, I came up with the idea of trying to make my scales in metal”. Alone, without even telling anyone, he got to work. And, once again, he did it. Once again, he was successful in reaching his goal.
He was able to introduce into the market an innovative version of the traditional roman scale, which used to be made in wood instead of metal. His company started to have the ability to produce a lot more than it had until then. It started to receive orders like never before. He and his employees had their hands full. By night, his wife, Maria da Conceição, would put their children to bed and, after a full workday, she would go the workshop, at the time in their house, to calibrate scales with her husband. “I have a great wife. She used to come to my side taking 20 kg’s weights. This all happened because of her and her work as well. You shouldn’t think I did all of this on my own”.
It was a time of a lot of work for everyone. It has always been so – and it still is. José Pimenta Marques never gave up on his will to do more and do better. When most of the other manufacturers also started to produce the roman scales in metal, his company invested in other kinds of scales. And, when the digital ones started to take their first steps in Portugal, he sent his son Francisco, a 17-year-old at the time, to Barcelona to learn how to manufacture those innovative products. As he says, he never stopped. He never stopped working or building. The company did not stop growing.
From a 110 meters2 workshop, he went to a 500 meters2 factory and, from there, he expanded to two big buildings in an industrial centre and, in the 2000’s, he already had several around the world. This is the result of the work José Pimenta Marques led until he turned 65 years old and that his four children and even two grandchildren now carry out instead of him. “When I turned 65, I saw everything was going well and decided to stop working full time. I gave my job to others”. He trusts the “pilots” to whom he left the company’s wheel, over 10 years ago. He looks proudly to the past and he can’t – nor he wants to – hide the huge satisfaction with the present.
In the last decade, since he trusted the company’s leadership his children, he saw things that he would never have imagined in his wildest dreams. A lot has changed. The company grew to a become a business group. The company’s investment in technology went even higher. The company’s know-how and its business areas got more diverse. Each change has contributed to lead Balanças Marques to the point it is at today: “the top of tower”.
To be continued on the next chapter…
