New solutions and momentum for the B2B industry
Dortmund, 29/04/2024 – With the aim of presenting innovative solutions for current and future challenges, NORDWEST Handel AG has successfully organised a Germany-wide roadshow for specialist trade partners. The NORDWEST Management Board and the Heads of the Construction, Trades & Industry, E-Business, Logistics, Business Development and Marketing divisions presented a diversified agenda to around 200 participating trade partners. The roadshow proceeded from Hanstedt (10 April) to Landsberg (11 April), Neu-Ulm (16 April) and Eppelheim (17 April) and ended in Dortmund (25 April). The focus was on groundbreaking industry topics, including the development of the B2B sector, impressions of major projects at NORDWEST and support for dealers in the digitalisation of business processes, recruitment, training, social media and innovations in the area of construction.
Under the motto “NORDWEST up close”, the event offered an entertaining, informative and inspiring platform for specialist trade partners from all over Germany. This year marks its fourth successful organisation. Thorsten Sega, the new third NORDWEST board member, was there for the first time and took the opportunity to introduce himself. Board member Michael Rolf gave insights into the dealer structure and presented NORDWEST’s current business development, while board member Jörg Simon shed light on future challenges and offered a solution-oriented outlook on the year 2024 and its challenges.
The presentations that followed explored innovative concepts and services for specialist trade partners. Thorsten Stiefken, Head of Division Business Development & Acquisition, gave a talk on the current status of NORDWEST’s FachWerk system concept, which systematises and standardises processes in order to develop specialist trade partners into outstanding sales and service companies. Yvonne Weyerstall, Head of Division Trades & Industry, presented new offers as part of the TrainingsWerk training and further education programme. She also introduced the brand-new service platform Wartungswerk24 for construction, crafts and industry, which met with considerable interest and helps specialist dealers communicate their maintenance services to end customers, thereby attracting new customers.
The participants were also informed about the new logistics building in Alsfeld, which will create the basis for further growth for specialist trade partners and offer an even higher level of service. Construction is scheduled to start on 1 July 2024. Efforts to drive forward the virtual warehouse concept are also moving forward in order to give trade partners the opportunity to achieve even better sales with additional assortments. Another focal point and the topic of a talk given by Martin Reinke, Head of Division Digital Services & E-Business, was the digital optimisation of business processes.
The participants demonstrated a keen interest in the presentation of the new social media support by Astrid Sassen, Head of Division Marketing & Corporate Communications. NORDWEST offers a new platform for the provision of high-quality content that trade partners can publish on their social media channels – including an option for regional trade marketing via Google Display. In addition, Astrid Sassen also presented GDPR-compliant WhatsApp customer communication with a new service provider, concluding her discussion of marketing solutions with the topic of SEO support in the form of SEO audit services and an outlook on the new visual marketing of the exclusive brand PROMAT.
As Michael Rolf, Managing Director at NORDWEST, summed up: “This year’s roadshow once again showed how open and interested our specialist trade partners are in innovative solutions and other future topics that we are currently tackling at NORDWEST. As we always say: We never stand still! This event format offers us as a trade association a wonderful opportunity to obtain direct feedback on the content presented and to stay in tune with the market.”
Quotes from specialist trade partners:
Christian Löchel, Managing Director of Löchel Industriebedarf:
“I thought the roadshow was great. There were some interesting new developments, and it touched upon two areas of great importance to us. These were the topics of Wartungswerk24 on the one hand and, on the other, social media – specifically support and automation in professional content creation and WhatsApp communications. It always brings a lot of added value for us as specialist trade partners when we receive this information in concentrated form at first hand – if the NORDWEST Management Board takes the time to do this, then of course we’ll take the time too!”
Thimo Hees, Purchasing Manager at FRITZ WEG GmbH & Co. KG:
“The organisation of the event was excellent, as were the selected topics. There was plenty of time for networking and good discussions among the participants. Thorsten Stiefken’s talk on personnel recruitment spoke to me the most. The current shortage of skilled labour is an issue that has come to preoccupy more and more companies and an extremely important factor for our economic development. The subsequent presentation of the further training brochure and the QuickSpeech e-learning platform, as well as the discussion of other topics related to the TrainingsWerk programme, were good and helpful. The guide to professional onboarding is very good and will be used in our company. All in all, they did a great job on the event – ‘NORDWEST-style’!”
Dominik Steinberger, Authorised Representative of Werkzeug-Jäger GmbH:
“As always with NORDWEST, it was a very good, pleasant event in a relaxed setting that offered enough time for informal exchanges with NORDWEST contacts and fellow dealers. All of the topics were both interesting and relevant and were presented in an entertaining way and with sufficient depth. The marketing topics, in particular, were very stimulating and perfectly in touch with the spirit of the times and the needs of the industry. The topic of ‘Training and Further Education’ was also value-adding for us. We all came out of this event well-informed about future topics and the status of current NORDWEST projects. The day was rounded off with an up-to-date market echo, including relevant facts and figures as well as the opportunity to discuss individual topics with NORDWEST contacts. So, considering the time invested, we were able to take away a great deal of information and added value. We are completely satisfied!”
