Distributors are no longer "parts pushers", but are establishing themselves as system partners - whether in development, project work or as a reliable partner along the supply chain. What strategy is Conrad Electronic pursuing in this context?

Conrad Electronic has always seen itself not only as a retailer, but in its almost 100 years of company history has always aspired to offer its customers real added value. This conviction already shaped our founder Max Conrad, who was one of the first suppliers in Germany to sell radio components and thus opened this innovative media gateway to the world for people in the 1920s. In 1937, his son Werner helped push the next technical revolution in German households and presented a television construction kit including a manual entitled 'Television from A to Z' at the Funkausstellung. Then as now, we listen closely to our customers, shape trends and act as an innovative problem solver with our sourcing platform. Our focus is on acting as a reliable partner and simplifying the procurement of our business customers' daily technical requirements. We meet this requirement with our platform approach, which impresses with its flexible scalability in line with customer requirements.

What characterizes a comprehensive platform economy and what are the benefits for companies?

First of all, the Conrad Sourcing Platform is about providing business customers with the most comprehensive range possible to cover their technical needs. There are currently over 7 million products available on the platform for this purpose - whether as part of Conrad's own product range or via our partners' offerings on the Conrad Marketplace. This range is supplemented by customized services. Our printer rental service, which we are implementing together with our partner Miete24, is brand new and offers an all-round carefree package for printing during the rental period. Our new direct import model has also been well received by business customers. It enables us to easily implement large-volume transactions directly from Asia. Coordinated by a central Conrad contact person, customer-specific product adaptations or product developments can also be realized in larger quantities.

How do the customer requirements of SMEs and corporations differ and how do you manage to take all concerns into account?

We invest a lot of time in understanding our business customers and their needs. On this basis, we create solutions that make the procurement process as smooth as possible. Accordingly, we offer special B2B services such as individual requests for quotations, forward and call-off orders or different payment methods to provide companies of all sizes with the right offer for them. And, of course, the topic of e-procurement is playing an increasingly important role in today's world. At Conrad, we understand omnichannel access to mean the goal of providing every business customer with the right digital connection to our platform. Accordingly, we offer various e-procurement solutions to small and medium-sized enterprises, large companies and corporations: Small businesses can still purchase in the traditional way via our online store - with special options for business customers, of course. And companies with their own merchandise management system can either integrate our range into their existing ordering or ERP system via EDI or API interfaces or use e-catalogs. Companies with their own ordering system, for example, can access our range at any time via OCI/Punchout without having to import the product catalog into their system beforehand. Existing cost center structures and purchasing guidelines on the customer side are taken into account. We support the digitalization of our customers' customer journeys with modular solutions: Parts or even the entire order communication can be digitized by exchanging information via EDI or e-catalogues can be updated using API interfaces. Our customers can therefore put together their ideal set and still have control over their entire process.

Germany is characterized by SMEs. However, smaller companies in particular often have reservations about approaching distributors. How interesting are SMEs for you?

We also have the right solutions in our portfolio for this customer group. In an increasingly fast-moving digital world, it is becoming more and more important for SMEs to think about streamlining their procurement processes. Studies show that, particularly when purchasing C-parts, the costs incurred for the purchasing process often exceed the actual value of the goods. E-procurement is the ideal tool for saving time and money in procurement. Especially when a company has several employees who are supposed to buy for themselves and their department, but the boss wants to retain control. Our Conrad Smart Procure solution is an easy-to-use e-procurement solution for SMEs without their own ERP system. It is browser-based and runs on any end device. Managers can use Conrad Smart Procure to allocate budgets to their employees, define the product range or special products, issue individual approvals and carry out evaluations. On top of this, our e-procurement customers can use our single creditor solution. And this in turn takes a lot of work off the accounting department's hands when it comes to invoice management: business customers then receive all invoices directly from Conrad, regardless of how many orders they have placed with different partners on the Conrad Marketplace.

Conrad Electronic is particularly well known for its stores. You recently announced that you are closing many stores. Has the business model had its day?

In the B2C sector, there is a clear trend towards private customers increasingly shopping online. This trend has been reinforced by coronavirus and we at Conrad have reacted accordingly. In the business customer segment, however, we still see bricks-and-mortar retail as the ideal complement to online retail. That's why we opened our first B2B store in summer 2020 with our Conrad Profistore in Hürth near Cologne and are currently looking for further locations. Our business customers appreciate the immediate availability of products including a 24-hour pick-up station and the opportunity to try out technology on site. Especially when it comes to high-priced products such as an industrial drone. We can also carry out minor electronic repairs on site by providing the necessary equipment in the Conrad workshop. Another special feature of our professional service: if time is short, we can come directly to the site to deliver urgently needed parts.

How has e-commerce changed retail?

Digital marketplaces are also gaining ground in the B2B sector. In the technology and electronics sector, Conrad was one of the first retailers to recognize this trend. Accordingly, we launched the Conrad Marketplace back in 2017. In contrast to many other marketplace providers, however, we at Conrad continue to focus on the human factor despite all the opportunities offered by digitalization and e-commerce. We are convinced that working together as partners at eye level always requires a real counterpart. We offer our business customers personal support in key account management and inside sales as well as technical customer advice. And our marketplace partners are also more than just sellers for us: to make it easier for new marketplace partners to get started, we provide them with personal contacts during onboarding and beyond who are on hand to answer any questions they may have. And we also offer our marketplace partners comprehensive services such as detailed reporting with the key performance indicators for the performance of their products. Manufacturers and distributors can use our marketplace to quickly and easily tap into new sales channels without incurring any primary marketing costs, while retaining full control over their product range and prices at all times.

Conrad Electronic has been offering the B2B marketplace for around five years. What goal are you pursuing with it? What expectations did you start with and how are things looking now, five years later?

Before the launch of the Conrad Marketplace in 2017, we offered a range of around 800,000 items on conrad.de. Five years later, we already have over 7 million products on offer from more than 650 manufacturers and distributors, including well-known partners such as One4Business, Hyrican and the Blumenbecker Group. In our experience, however, an extensive selection is not everything for the success of a marketplace; product quality also counts, especially in the B2B sector. We therefore deliberately opted for a curated marketplace model right from the start. In other words, we make sure that our sellers' product ranges match the area of technical requirements we have defined. At the same time, we only allow certified manufacturers and distributors in order to meet the needs of our customers in this respect too.

How will the Marketplace develop further?

Our goal is to become Europe's leading procurement platform for technical requirements. Accordingly, internationalization is currently a major topic for us. We have had our own Marketplace in Austria since 2021 and launched our Marketplace in the Netherlands in July 2022. Other countries will follow in the coming months and, of course, we are also looking at the possibilities of cross-border procurement in order to open up an even larger customer group for our sellers and enable business customers to purchase goods seamlessly across national borders.

Automation technology is one of the most important sectors in Germany. You have been targeting this sector for some time now. How can you support automation specialists? What services and solutions do you offer here?

We have a huge range of products to cover the daily technical requirements in the fields of automation technology and pneumatics - from sensors and connectors to drive technology and power supplies. In total, more than 900,000 products are available in this area. We also offer customized services, such as calibration service, PCB board service, 3D online printing service or cable meter service for meter-precise cable orders. We have also compiled comprehensive guides on automation and pneumatics. And we also pool our knowledge in the topic area of automation. There we recommend special automation products and provide advice on user examples such as field and process technology, control cabinet and special machine construction or digitalization. We also focus on future topics such as edge computing and machine learning, remote maintenance and industrial Ethernet, modernization and plant expansion, decentralized automation and robotics.

What trends do you see coming to automation in the future and how would you like to support them?

AI is definitely becoming increasingly important. In procurement, as already mentioned, e-procurement is on the rise in order to make work processes more efficient. But AI is also becoming increasingly important in plant engineering, as the interrelationships in modern production facilities are becoming ever more complex. Here, machine learning ensures faster analysis and optimization. The large volumes of data in particular can no longer be handled any other way. The components must therefore be able to communicate intelligently with each other. In some cases, the data is already processed on the components themselves and analyzed using machine learning. This reduces data traffic and significantly shortens response times. We are also focusing on the needs of our customers with regard to our product range: This year, our team is represented at the "all about automation" trade fair series, among other things, where the topic of cobots is currently in particularly high demand. We therefore had Franka Emika at our stand, among others, who belongs to the new generation of cobots and will soon be available in the Conrad range. We have promised further cooperation in this area.

One of the biggest challenges for automation specialists and companies in general is uncertain supply chains. How can you provide support here?

Distributors with sufficient stock can score points in these times characterized by manufacturer supply bottlenecks. Together with our international supplier network and additional safety stocks, our purchasing department is doing everything it can to maintain the best possible availability for our customers. At the same time, we are constantly expanding our network of partners on the Conrad Marketplace in order to be able to offer an even larger selection of products. In addition, there is the option of agreeing framework agreements with terms in order to be supplied in line with demand. On the Conrad Sourcing Platform, the stock levels and prices of both the Conrad range and the marketplace providers can be viewed immediately online. If the desired item is not available, we proactively offer alternatives for many products. There is also our procurement service: With an excellent national and international network in the area of delivery, our team of experts takes care of time-consuming research on behalf of our customers worldwide.