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Historical

In 1986, SIROCO founder Carlos Rocha, participated in a nationwide young entrepreneurs’ project (JEEP, Jovens Empresários de Elevado Potencial), and won the Luso-American Development Foundation award. He then left his executive job at Renault Portugal and started his own project SIROCO.

SIROCO, S.A. was a small company created in February 1988, in a difficult context: Portugal lacked qualified workers, had no tradition in technological products and Europe suffered an economical crisis in the early 90's.

In 1991, Siroco decided to expand its market by shifting from a domestic focus to global one. After 3 years of hard work on the market, combining the participation in industrial exhibitions (Hannover, Midest and Birmingham) with projects for multinational companies such as Bosch, Ford, Renault, Philips, GM, the competence of SIROCO became more and more recognized and accepted. The reliability of Siroco solutions proved to be adequate to their needs. On the 26th European Foundation for Management Development Seminar (in Vaasa, Finland, Sept.1996), SIROCO was selected by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu International as an exemplar European SME.

Venture capital helped SIROCO in one of the Portuguese best succeeded liaisons.

SIROCO moved to its new factory in May 1999.

Message from the Founder

SIROCO is much of a dream.

In 1988, SIROCO was considered by some analysts an "impossible" project, because costs with energy, machinery, telecommunications, transportation, technical parts and bank rates were significantly higher in Portugal than in the rest of the European Union. The peripheral geography of the country and the deficient logistics were extra drawbacks. Lower salaries were not relevant in our capital-intensive project, so there was no apparent advantage for us.

But I had another approach. It has always been my belief that Portugal can play a role on the new world context, and I looked for a chance to prove it. I accepted to run the necessary risks to start my life as entrepreneur, from a zero level stage - heavy personal loans, a team there to be trained, a market there to conquer, everything there to be done.

I thought (and I still think now) that PEOPLE are the only factor that really makes a difference. In the centre of my projects, I always put the PEOPLE. Any measure taken in the company should contribute to strengthen human-related subjects - employee & supplier's motivation; customer & partner's satisfaction; contribution to the Society and Global welfare.

Now, 22 years after its foundation, SIROCO is here to prove the adequacy of our concepts: with Portuguese technicians, SIROCO is recognized as one of the European best run SMEs.

- Carlos Rocha -