Misumi: Quality even with "mass-produced goods" from batch size 1

Interview with

Stefan Pulver

Director Sales & Marketing, Misumi Europe GmbH Schwalbach / Ts.

"Across Europe, there are no other suppliers, our business model"

Unique selling point business model: This is what characterizes Misumi Europe GmbH, the supplier of mechanical components, especially for special machine construction - which is not a distributor. In addition, there is constant growth of over fifty percent, what more could you want. Nevertheless, Misumi pursues lofty goals such as accelerating the online business and further market penetration in Europe. developmentscout spoke to Stefan Pulver, Director Sales & Marketing, about how this can be achieved, among other things.

development scout: What a distributor responds to the provocative question: Can be mass-produced high-quality?

development scout: How far the market penetration of Misumi Europe has progressed?

Powder: Our market share may be due to our product range very complex topic. Because our competition is not known standard parts manufacturer, but the many mechanical manufacturing facilities, which are asked to create small quantities from quantity one. What record is however possible to have our growth figures are still well above 50 percent and were interrupted only by a marginal growth during the crisis. In the last fiscal year, we generated sales of more than very recently 25 million euros. We now employ about 100 employees.

development scout: How many vendors with your business model on the German market?

Powder: Across Europe, there are no more. There is for the industry of electrical engineering / electronics a similar provider, but these are purely a distributor. From us to acquire customers in any case a Misumi product.

development scout: They offer their products over quantity 1? Is not particularly expensive?

Powder: No not really. Because it is based our business model, namely to provide the customer with a product made for a price he is willing to pay within a reasonable delivery time. The fact that we offer a very large range of products allows us to be able to deliver as many of these unique pieces. This variety generates finally our volume.

development scout: The business model of Misumi is predestined for the online business. How far this has progressed?

Powder: In Japan we already do over seventy percent of our entire order processing over the Internet. Here in Europe, we still have to push the internet business extremely forward. We're currently around fifteen percent. Even if it increases, we are still feeling some resistance from the market in German-speaking countries. What already works very well in the private sector, namely ordering on the Internet, has not yet taken on the same importance in the B2B environment of the rather conservative mechanical engineering. The persistence in ordering by fax, even by post, is still present. There is still a considerable contradiction between the desire for fast delivery times and two to three days by post before we have received an order. We advise our customers to take a look at the alternative order via the Misumi 24/7 eCommerce solution. Offers can be generated there just as quickly as orders can be placed directly. Our goal is to do around 50 percent of our business on the Internet in the next three years so that we can take the next step.

development scout: Which is?

Powder: That I can not yet tell.

development scout: Probably her catalog is so good that the customers need not the Internet, why the designer should be buyers or even shop online?

Powder: The ideal customer, in our view using the catalog for brainstorming and for pre-selection. It configures itself according to its needs, the products on our online portal and grabs the CAD data it receives on the type number. Finally, it can generate a kind of bill and save and create yourself a binding offer and / or make their purchase directly. We map the entire product via the product code. This intelligent type item does all its properties. On the Internet, all data together. In addition, we have defined in our platform a job management, which simplifies the process greatly. Last but not least simplifies handling the administrative burden on our site. We reward this by saying that we offer a discount of 2 percent when the customer settles its orders exclusively through our 24 / 7 eCommerce.

development scout: A few years ago it was one of your goals to win German supplier for your portfolio. Search AND cooperate you know?

Powder: We are still looking for. We also get many requests, but there is in this business, a core problem is that the very small lot sizes in conjunction with competitive prices and a temporal flexibility that our customers expect are not compatible with the traditional overhead calculations of German suppliers. After an initial examination these costs are far gotten more. Thus, we are currently forced to access the approximately 500 supplier of Misumi in Asia and two suppliers in the global economy back. Even then it was not easy to find reliable partners and collaborations are partially grown over the decades, parallel course on the range and volumes. Our suppliers need a certain volume, which must be built up first. Moreover, the diversity of the lots a very high degree of automation, so that you can generate the required volume of the variety. After the German cost considerations, the set-up costs are so disproportionate that it can not be justified.

development scout: Which products have you taken this year newly added?

Powder: The new catalog includes 4000 pages more than the old one with new 2000 products. For over 700 products we have introduced shorter delivery times and for some products 3000 reduced prices. As always - and there is also not change a thing - Misumi will not bring a brand new product on the market. Rather, we always follow the customer's requirements, which are reduced primarily to additional versions of existing products. Every now and then comes but then added a new product category. An example of this is the product line of grippers for handling and assembly technology in just new comers out 2011 catalog / 2012.

development scout: As Japanese Misumi is in Germany?

Powder: We have a Japanese mother and we use Japanese planning methods. Even so, we are not a Japanese company. Strictly speaking, we are not a German, but rather a European company. Due to our business model and because we have centralized the entire order processing for Europe here in Schwalbach, there is a need to employ native speakers from these countries here as contact persons for our customers from all over Europe. A real blended family has now emerged, made up of around 15 different nationalities.

development scout: What do the disasters in Japan for Misumi in Europe especially with regard to delivery times?

Powder: Due to two factors our delivery was by the earthquake on 11. March and the associated tsunami affected only temporarily. Firstly, due to the wide distribution of our products to the aforementioned variety of manufacturing facilities are very few products affected by non-delivery of the manufacturer. On the other hand, in retrospect had the blessing in disguise to have been almost exactly a year ago due to the ash cloud faced with logistical problems and to "train" that has occurred in the disaster emergency quasi can. In this context it should be mentioned that our entire supply chain is handled between the continents by air. Then, too, there was no air traffic for several days. Our philosophy is to be transparent, we were and still are actively approached to our customers and have them almost daily information about the status of their deliveries. Especially roads and damaged bottlenecks in energy supply delays in the first days after the disaster, goods deliveries. Similarly, one of our main distribution center in Tokyo was affected. There stockpiled goods by the earthquake literally catapulted off the shelves. Still on the first weekend after the quake, the camp was through the tireless efforts of our colleagues back to a working condition. The situation has relaxed then within fourteen days so far that we up to a few products are once again able to deliver today.

development scout: What goals have you set for the next year?

Powder:We are dynamic in our history, but not in changing the definition of our goals. A Japanese company, we believe in four-year cycles, the current is the same as the previous one: we want to continue to expand in this market and gain market shares. After our focus in recent years, first on the German-speaking world was and we have achieved our stated goal of obtaining a high degree of popularity more than has already been a year ago started to open up to us to other European countries. Overall, we expect our business well for us in the fiscal year just begun 2011 double again.

Interview by Editor in Chief Angela Scheufler.