The overcame difficulties, the resilience, all the work and success that are a part of Balanças Marques’ past have set the bar pretty high for the “pilots” who succeeded José Pimenta Marques. Today, it’s his descendants – his four children and two of his grandchildren -, who lead the family’s company destiny. But maybe because “an apple does not fall far from the tree” they ended up raising the bar even higher. In the last few years, the company expanded to foreign markets and grew in a quick but sustainable way. Under the leadership of the second and third generations, between 2018 and 2019, Balanças Marques made it to the list of the best 100 companies to work at, in Portugal, and achieved a really high point when won the tittle of best weighing company in the world.
Alice, Francisco, Maria and Paulo grew up in the company founded by their father, among scales, weights and a constant load of work to do. Since they were children, they witnessed and participated in the efforts and sacrifices made both by their mother and father towards the evolution of Balanças Marques. They still remember the old scales, the long manufacturing process and the several difficulties and victories that emerged along its story. They feel, above all, a great pride of what their family was able to achieve. So, in a way or another, their lifes brought them to lead the business.
About a decade ago, José Pimenta Marques trusted them with the administration. Together, the four of them took the job of guiding the destinies of a company that the family’s patriarch had created in 1967.
Nowadays, they can already count on the support of the third generation. Tiago and Rafael Marques Pereira, Alice’ sons, also joined the team of Balanças Marques. Like their mother and their uncles and aunt, both of them grew alongside the company. And both of them, at some point of their lives, decided to take their grandfather’s dream and make it also their own.
Sons, daughters and grandchildren now have the wish to follow the footsteps of the company’s founder. They want success for them and their own. They value family quite a lot. They look at their employees with respect and as indispensable pieces to the puzzle. They never stop working, innovating and building.
And the proof is in the success of its internationalization process, during a world economical crisis, in the 2000’s. And, of course, also on the awards the company has received in last few years. The list is already long and includes distinctions to the human resources’ policy, to the commercial scales BM5, to the Marques weighbridge and to the billing software ETPOS. It now culminates on the highest point they aimed to achieve: the award of best weighing company in the world, in 2019, according to the Weighing Review Awards.
Marques family was invaded by a feeling of pride – specially, the man who built the company. “When I heard this news about our company being the best in the world, I didn’t go everywhere telling random people that my children are the best”, tells José Pimenta Marques. But he soon confesses: “I feel proud, I feel pleased, I feel happy. Because who doesn’t feel happy with the kind of job my children and grandchildren are doing?”.
The joy of the ones who watched the family business reach an almost unimaginable point is obvious in any of the involved.
Part of the third generation, Tiago Marques Pereira does not hide his satisfaction with the work that has been made and he makes a point to highlight the long way Balanças Marques went through to achieve the position it has today. “Knowing my grandfather’ stories and knowing what it cost to keep the company going and growing, wining this award is one of those things that, 20 years ago, when I was a kid, I would never have imagined to be possible”. At this moment, however, he feels a sense of achievement. “We are still here with a family-like vibe and, simultaneously, in a short period of time – in which the country went through a huge financial crisis – we were able to turn it around, see our company grow each year and see it winning this award”, he explains.
For his brother, Rafael Marques Pereira, this distinction also offers a feeling of pride and achievement, but it drops a “weight over his shoulders”. “From this award and others we have won, I take a great sense of responsibility for our generation. The responsability of keeping this good job, of being able to maintain the level or even raising it”.
In the future, all of them hope to, at least, be able to keep the bar where it is today. Which, by its own, is not an easy task. The first generation was able to reach a dimension that seemed impossible for a company that started in a 15 meters2 workshop. The second one has been able to make the company grow, in every sense, and in an exponential and sustainable way. To the third generation, there is the weight of responsibility and the will to do even more for the company when, in a few years, the wheel comes to their hands.
To be continued in the next chapter…
