fittings 03

8 ASK OLE 16 PRODUCT AVAILABILITY IS THE CORE OF OUR BUSINESS 11 SAFETY MUST BECOME AN AUTOMATISM Ta

ke me

home

How can I help you?... with a smile that never fades

No. 3Winter 2012

30 min. update

...and we’re proud of it

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DirtPhone

Win theultimate

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Fittingsa publication

ÖAG’‘Wir, die

“HOW FAST can I make this forklift go to the other side of the hall?” It’s a challenge that has a certain Top Gear potential - and I to-tally admit that it would provide good entertain-ment. What you never see on your TV screen is the ambulance and the fire brigade ready to step in if anything goes wrong.

Our distribution cen-tres are not built for rac-ing forklifts. Nor do we have firefighters and par-amedics available. How-ever appealing it might be to speed up, especial-ly when the deadline ap-proaches, it is a no go. Wearing safety shoes, a helmet and a reflec-tive vest might not be the coolest outfit in the world, but it protects you and the people around you. All the rules, regu-lations, guidelines, train-ing, reporting, attention

to the working environ-ment, etc. won’t help if we, as individuals, don’t take responsibility for health and safety.

Next time you are tempted to put your fork-lift to the test, or against better judgement ig-nore safety guidelines - remember that these guidelines are devel-oped by profession-als who know what can go wrong. This means that, at the end of the day, you, as an individ-ual, are responsible for both knowing the rules and regulations as well as living up to them. For your own (but definitely also for your colleagues’) sake.

Happy reading

4Inside

FITTINGS ISSUE 3 · DISTRIBUTED JANUARY 2012 · Fittings is the employee magazine for Wolseley CE staff in Austria, Switzerland, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. Publication by Wolseley CE. Circulation: 2,300. Available languages: English, German, Dutch and French. Editorial responsibility: Wolseley CE/Charlotte Gullach Büttrich. Journalistic production and project management: Radical Communications/Patrick May. Design and layout: Appetizer.dk/Simon Johnsen. Photography: Das Buro/Emil Lyders, Peter Lous. Print: Trykcentret. Editorial committee: Wasco/Sacha Büchele, [email protected]; ÖAG/Julia Willrodt, [email protected]; Tobler/Jacqueline Made, [email protected]; CFM/Peter Broecker, [email protected]; Wolseley CEE/Tobias Roser, [email protected]

Safety is a shared responsibility

Charlotte Gullach Büttrich

Chief responsible editor for [email protected]

Tobler +41 44 735 50 00CFM +352 4995-1Wasco +31 88 099 5000

OÄG +43 50406 0DT Group +45 39559700Wolseley +44 118 929 8700

USEFUL NUMBERS

Ask Ole – Anything you like

Safety must become an automatism

Health and safety is a key area for Wolseley. It is our shared responsibility to create a safe environment.

How can I help you?

A job at the switchboard requires strong nerves.

Product availability is the core of our business

A good plan is a well executed plan

Plan 45 (P45) is a significant strategic pillar for CE.

Fittings Quiz

8

‘Wir, die ÖAG’ ...and we’re damn proud of it

On the cover:620 colleagues from ÖAG witnessed the kick off of ‘Wir, die ÖAG’ on 11-11-2011

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13

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20

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You can write to Charlotte at [email protected] Feel free to share your ideas, comments – both positive and critical.

P45

P45 award“Last year in CE, we focused on gross margin. We had a competition between the business units where we, on a monthly basis, awarded the business unit who increased their mar-gins the most when compared to the previous year. We are holding the same competition this year, but with P45 as the focus. The busi-ness unit who is best at increasing P45 perfor-mance, as compared to the same period last year, is the winner of the month. So far, Tobler has won twice – Wasco and CFM have both won once.”

P45

404551

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3Fittings 3 · 2012

ÖAG has a new logo. The company’s trucks got a crisp new look. Employees are equipped with

novel working apparel. Branches are being refurbished. The biggest change, however,

is one that is far less visible. It comes from the inside of the organisation, from its staff.

ÖAG last year (Novem-ber 11, 2011) launched an ambitious initiative with the objective of increas-ing revenue and strength-ening ÖAG’s position in the Austrian market. It’s not the first project set out to restore the glory of the market leader in Aus-tria. But it is the first one of its kind and, by far, the most prestigious project being executed in CE at the moment.

CEO Helmut Kus who, together with Mar-keting Manager, Markus Wögerbauer and CE’s CEO, Ole Mikael Jens-en, are responsible for the initiative explains: “In the preparation phase, a workgroup consist-ing of 30 staff members from different regions, departments and func-tions worked their way through 300 interviews with customers, suppliers and employees. The main

...and we’re proud of it

ÖAG’‘Wir, die

4 Fittings 3 · 2012

idea behind this, was to uncover our strengths and weaknesses, while find-ing out what the core cul-ture of the company is.”

Change starts with youThat the project will be a success, nobody doubts. For good reasons. “Wir, die ÖAG is supported by all employees, regardless of function and geogra-phy," Edgar Cihlar (47) says. Edgar has a dou-ble function in ÖAG: he’s Category Manager Roh-installation, but he’s also VP of the staff council in ÖAG. “I am proud to say that this project is differ-ent from what we have witnessed in the past. We are building a foundation upon the combined input from staff and custom-ers. We are given the op-portunity to fix problems that we are confronted

with every day. And, we have the back up from our management to do so. The responsibility to ensure that this project is a success rests with all of us," Edgar says.

“ÖAG is a company with great traditions and 140 years of experience," says Helmut. “What once has made this company great, now has become contra-productive. The volatile market situation requires changes in the organisation, and this re-quires a different mind-set.” “This was a ma-jor challenge," Markus Wögerbauer explains. “It was as if people ac-cepted that the glory of ÖAG was fading. The feeling of pride had to be reactivated. People now understand that instead of waiting for change, they can make it happen themselves.”

What we are good atTruck driver Reinhard Paller (52), just like Ed-gar, is a member of the original workgroup. “The invitation to participate came as a huge surprise to me," he says. Rein-hard has been delivering supplies for ÖAG for 21 years. “When you are on the road like me, your pri-mary contact is with the customers. I don’t nec-essarily have the full pic-ture of what is going on in our organisation. When a customer tells me that Sales screwed up, I have no reason to doubt them. Thanks to this project, I have a far more nuanced picture of our organisa-tion and, equally impor-tant, of our working pro-cesses. That will make me a better partner for my colleagues, but also for our customers.”

“When we started, the common belief was that a cultural change was necessary," says Lu-kas Schreiner (35) re-sponsible for HR in ÖAG.

“But early on in the pro-ject, it became clear that we should focus on un-veiling our core culture instead, our DNA, and support this core culture. Here’s where the idea of partnership was born. Partnership involves cus-tomers, staff and suppli-ers. All initiatives have the objective of being the best possible partner.”

“Customer surveys show that our custom-ers, in spite of the dif-ficult times we have ex-perienced, still respect us," says Edgar Chilar. “We obviously succeeded in maintaining good per-sonal relations with our customers. We have to extend the trust our cus-tomers have in our per-sonal relations to an over-all trust in our company brand.”

Spot on

More on next page

We have succeeded in maintaining good personal

relations with our customers

5Fittings 3 · 2012

Adjusting the course“For all people to under-stand the strategy and what is expected from them," Lukas explains, “we have developed a series of workshops. We decided to keep the num-ber of participants per workshop small - 10 to 15 people. Then we had a brilliant idea. We opted for staff to conduct the workshops. We thought it would be more impres-sive when the new strat-egy and the tools we de-veloped were discussed with a colleague. Some-one who, just like you, has to make ‘Wir, die ÖAG’ a part of his/her daily habits. To make this work, we had to train 55 colleagues to lead these workshops.”

A concept that ÖAG

staff will be working with is the ‘Profi-Partner’ con-cept. It is built on three pillars: 1) Handshake, 2) Pace and 3) Team spirit. “We use this and other tools during the four-hour workshops for people to experience and practice the whole idea of part-nership," says Julia Rees (28), PA to the MD and one of the three project facilitators. “An important aspect of relations is re-liability. You should not promise more than you can live up to. We devel-

oped a tool with an hour-glass that helps creating awareness of how much we can accomplish with-in an hour. People are shocked once they find out that one hour really is no more than a swoosh on the clock. You don’t need a university de-gree to be able to apply

these tools. Everybody can understand and uti-lise them.”

”What is important during the entire process is that we do not lose momentum," says Lu-kas. “We have back up from all the involved par-ties, from Wolseley, our management, customers and suppliers. And, most importantly, from every-one working in ÖAG. Dur-ing the kick off last year, everyone was enthusias-tic. For days after the kick off, people came to work with huge smiles on their faces. We are looking at assets with fresh eyes and employ them intelli-gently. That is the gener-al sentiment people have. Staff can feel the chang-es and the positive nature

No need for a university degree to utilise the tools

Continued

“WHEn WE think partnership, obviously our customers come first," says Market-ing Manager Markus Wögerbauer. “Being the largest wholesaler in Austria means that we have a lot of sup-pliers. Hundreds. They are important partners, and we have a mutual interest in helping our customers succeed in

their projects. We have decided to take the thought about partner-ship with them a step further. The main idea is to help our key sup-pliers to be more vis-ible to our customers. They will be more pre-sent in the shops that will be refurbished, in relation to the new working clothes, but also on the Web. We

launch what we call a ‘partner of the month’ programme in which we offer a specific sup-plier from the various product areas a joint marketing programme. They, of course, pay for this, which in turn helps us to finance the change project. The first reactions from suppliers are positive.”

With a little help from our friends

Markus Wögerbauer

Lukas Schreiner


A SPECTACULAR launch, where the entire ‘Wir, die ÖAG’ campaign was revealed, was witnessed by 620 VIPs, in-cluding staff from all over the country. Short movies, in-

terviews with key stakehold-ers, speeches and presenta-tions of the new logo and the new work clothes - present-ed in the best Italian catwalk style - were witnessed by the

VIPs on the evening of the 11th. There were some oooohs, some aaaahs and a lot of hap-py and extremely satisfied ex-pressions.

11-11-11

that these represent. We hired 21 additional sales people to face our cus-tomers every day, for ex-ample. This will naturally provide a significant sales boost.”

Happy to take action“I am thrilled we’re taking action," says Reinhard. “The crisis is tough on everyone. Our customers are experiencing difficult times. They often ask me how other plumbers are doing. They are natural-ly curious, and they want to be reassured that they are not the only ones suf-fering. But, at the end of the day, complaining doesn’t get us anywhere."

Edgar agrees with Re-inhard. “We are given a unique chance to fight for our place in the Austrian market. We’re the compa-ny with the best relations and the highest margins. I know that we can do this. The new logo and clothes

are the signals from both the inside and the outside that we’re serious about this metamorphosis. It is somehow the visible proof of what is going on in our organisation. Coming to work is fun again. I be-lieve this project will be a

success. Why? Because I am a part of it," Ed-gar laughs at his own re-mark. “Just kidding. What I mean is that staff has been involved in this pro-ject from the very start. Therefore, the ownership for the success rests with all of us. It’s in our hands now.”

“Success," Helmut says, “is if we manage to remind everyone how great a company this is and motivate people to make the extra effort. Success is also defined by increased organisational efficiency which, ultimate-ly, provides a better cost base. Last, but not least, we’ll experience increased market growth.”

HelmutKus

Lukas Schreiner

Julia Rees

Edgar Cihlar

7Fittings 3 · 2012

would you like to ask Ole?What

WITH RESPECT for the extremely difficult circumstances Tobler is facing, my advice is to focus on value creation. I appreciate that prices and thus margins are un-der pressure due to the strength of the Swiss Franc when compared

to the Euro. It might be tempting for our cus-tomers to purchase their supplies in Germany if the price differences be-come too large. But we have to believe our cus-tomers when they tell us that product avail-ability, service, com-

petent advice, product range and next day de-livery are higher priorities than price. By focusing on these parameters and being good at them, we create the value that our customers actually tell us they want us to create for them. This puts us in

a stronger position and should keep us from hav-ing to reduce prices and thus lower our margins. At the same time, we get solid support from the sourcing team that does everything within their power to neutralise the impact.

A colleague from Tobler asks: With the developments with the Swiss Franc, it is hard to keep our margins if we do not do anything about it. What are we going to do?

PERSOnALLY, I am a big fan of the con-cept of exchange pro-grammes and the like. You get an opportunity to acquire new input. A change of environ-ment can be very re-freshing, and no matter what - it’s a fantastic experience. As a com-pany, we’ll benefit from the insights that are be-ing shared throughout the various business units. So, I am all for it. It’s quite a common practice in Ferguson in the States, for exam-ple. But the culture in Europe is different. We recently assessed the opportunities on the

management level and had to admit that the mobility was unfortu-nately limited. But then again, why not? Why should you, if you work at the distribution cen-tre in Twello, not be able to work in the dis-tribution centre in Däni-ken for some years? Of course, there are some challenges: the lan-guage, for example, or pension plans and the like - but if you really want this, you should go for it. The best ad-vice I can give you is to contact your HR de-partment and ask them to help you.

Is it possible to swap jobs and work in another country for a couple of years?1

2

AskOle

In an organisation with more than 2,000 people, the distance to the top

management may seem vast.

Ask Ole is an initiative to decrease that distance considerably. You now have the

opportunity to ask CEE’s most senior manager, Ole Mikael, a burning question.

Don’t let this chance pass you by.

... Anything you like


Send your question to [email protected], and we will make sure your questions get answered. Don’t mince your words – you will remain totally anonymous.

I WOULD BE lying if I said that I think these are the ideal condi-tions for us to work under. But ‘worried’ is not the right senti-ment. I firmly believe that we are on the right track. We are do-ing all the right things, and we are creat-ing opportunities. Our competition has re-acted to the crisis by

reduc-ing prices. This might help them in the short term to increase their volume, but at the same time they have to accept lower margins. This, in turn, will limit their options for investing in growth. We should not fall into the same trap as our competitors. On aver-age, our market share is 20%. That means

that there’s poten-tial for growth in each market as we still lack 80%. Last, but not least, we have a great strategic tool, P45, to guide us. If we cannot keep healthy margins for whatever reason, the alternative is to adjust costs and thus staff. This, however, we should and can avoid. With the excep-tion of Switzerland, our margins in CE are lower than in other comparable Wolseley countries.

ÖAG IS A great com-pany with a great busi-ness potential. The organisation has ex-perienced many dis-ruptions in the past - which have weakened the business founda-tion. We have started an ambitious change project in ÖAG, fo-cusing on what we are good at and what we are being recog-nised for. The project we have initiated is a considerable invest-ment, and any invest-ment of this size, cri-sis or not, represents a risk. But the project

has clear business ob-jectives upon which we have to deliver and which we will monitor closely. It is imper-ative to release all the posi-tive energy in the organ-isation and get everyone to work in the same direction. For many years, the organisation has re-duced costs, and we had reached a situa-tion where there were too few customer fac-

ing employees. It was necessary to boost the number of sales peo-ple (+21) while at the same time increas-ing efficiency in our back office. We did not stop there though. We

have plans to further strengthen the busi-ness going forward by investing in refurbish-ment of all branches and showrooms and improving the logistics’ infrastructure.

Does the crisis worry you?

In Austria we invested in an ambitious change programme. Is this smart in a time of crisis?

3

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9Fittings 3 · 2012

Health and safety is a key area for Wolseley. It is our shared responsibility to create a safe environment. All business units report on health and safety. The figures provide a reliable indication of how we’re doing. The conclusion from the last reporting cycle is: we’re improving but ... surprise ... can still do better.

“THE FIGURES isolated don’t pro-vide a complete picture," says Laila Nysted Therkild-sen, Senior Con-

sultant Health & Safety CE. “So far we have report-ed injuries, but we need to differ-entiate these so that we can see

whether the in-juries are due to traffic, handling or whether the per-son in question is hit by an object. The report fur-

Safety must become an automatism

... like eating and breathing

Edwin Heijnekamp

Senior team leader, Wasco


Safety

Safety thermore excludes near hits and al-most accidents - which are at least as interest-ing. Last, but not least, we aim for more accurate re-porting, using the same definitions for what and how we report. This will allow us to compare the units and learn from each other.”

AT WASCO, safety is like a second skin. An initiative that had a strong impact is outsourcing (leas-ing) the transpor-tation fleet. The lease includes full service con-tracts. Monitoring and maintenance transpires auto-matically, and the fleet is always tiptop, fit and safe. “It’s the

responsibil-ity of man-

agement

to create a safe working environ-ment," says Nico Kerk, Wasco’s lo-gistics manag-er. “This includes training for staff working with ma-chines, and people without training do not operate ma-chines. We send people home who are without safe-ty shoes. It might sound over the top, but if some-one not wearing safety shoes drops a radiator on his foot, I lose two people in the line:

the one that has to go to the ER for medical treatment and the one that has to take him there.”

Edwin Hei-jnekamp, 40, is the senior team leader in Wasco’s distribution centre in Twello. Accord-ing to him, Wasco has taken a major leap forward when it comes to safety. “A few years ago nobody was sur-prised to find rub-bish in the path-ways. Today, this is simply not done. There’s 30 peo-ple in my group, led by two team leaders. It is my

responsibility to make sure that they get home in one piece. I can-not be everywhere all of the time. I have to depend upon their looking out for each oth-er. I inspect rack-ing once a month. We fix damaged shelves immedi-ately. We close the area around the rack, and we also do that in our ware-house system. As a conse-quence, we risk getting behind

schedule, but I do not take unnec-essary safety risks. This sig-nals to staff that we are serious about safety. If they observe dan-gerous situations, they report it, and we fix it imme-diately. You can’t stop accidents from occurring. But you can mini-mise the risks.”

Wasco

In ÖAG, it recent-ly has been decided that the responsi-bility for health and safety resides at HR, with Lukas Schrein-er, the HR Direc-tor, taking the lead. An external consult-ant continuously as-

sesses safety in the workplace - with the objective of ensuring that ÖAG is com-plying with legal re-quirements in this area. According to the figures, there are not a lot of work-related accidents here, but neverthe-

less, the business unit is eager to raise awareness. Health also get attention, not only when it comes to safety. Re-cently, a stop smok-ing support initiative has been launched.

ÖAG

More on next page

11Fittings 3 · 2012

“REPORTInG Health and Safety issues is important, because it shows us, as an organi-sation, where we can and must im-prove," says Tobler’s HR Director, Mi-chael Engeler (40). “Equally important is to get the report-ing right and to dis-tinguish between the serious and mi-nor accidents. A cut on the finger has a different urgen-cy than an accident where one of our people has to be hospitalised for sev-eral weeks.”

“It has been al-most seven years since we had a se-rious work-relat-ed injury in Tobler," Michael explains.

“The reason why this number is so low is due to the fact that our peo-ple are very aware of safety issues. In Switzerland, health and safety is an in-tegrated part of your education. The responsibility for health and safe-ty rests with line managers. They have received spe-cial training which includes both the-ory and practice. The practice part is conducted on site. A health and safety consultant from Swiss PS, the company that sup-

ports us in health and safety matters, joins the line man-ager for half a day on site where he/she provides hands on training to the line manager both in what to look for and how to react on safety issues. Line managers report work-related acci-dents on a daily ba-sis.”

Tobler recently developed a health and safety concept that is being dis-tributed through-out the entire or-ganisation. The main objective is to raise awareness

amongst all em-ployees. “It is the management’s re-sponsibility to make sure that there’s a policy and that all health systems are in place and func-tioning. But, at the end of the day, it’s the staff that has to live the concept. Creating awareness

is important, be-cause it helps staff to keep health and safety issues in the forefront of their minds and live up to rules and regula-tions.”

ToblerMichael Engeler

HR Director, Tobler

Incident rate

Comparing Wolseley

This graph shows the incident rate: the amount of incidents/per 100

employees. The injuries shown in the graph below are reported injuries

that required off-site medical treatment.

3

2.25

1.5

0.75

0 CE DT Nordics

Wolseley average

Units

Lost workdays Comparing WolseleyThis graph shows the lost workday rate: the amount of lost workdays/per 100 employees.

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30

20

10

0

CE DT Nordic

Wolseley average

Units


A job at the switchboard requires strong nerves. These women answer between 200 and 800 phone calls a day, they take care of internal mail, greet people visiting headquarters, take care of cater-ing, order office stationary, send reminders to colleagues that got married, had babies or are hospitalised. We’re mighty proud to present to you .... the receptionists.

How can I help you?... with a smile that never fades

“IT IS HARD to sat-isfy a customer calling the switchboard not knowing what he/she wants," Fabienne Juill-erat says. “They might call me and tell me they just have spoken to a colleague, and they would like to talk

to him/her again - but they do not know the name of the colleague. I have 720 colleagues to pick from, so that’s a tough one, you see. Most of the time we figure it out togeth-er, but it requires pa-tience.” Fabienne has a lot of patience. “You

have to in this job. My secret? Relaxation tea," she says - hard-ly able to control her laughter. “No, serious-ly, it’s all about your motivation. I love talk-ing to people. Every day, all day long. Quite a number of custom-ers, suppliers and col-

leagues call on a reg-ular basis. I have the feeling that I know them, just a little bit. Once, I got a bottle of champagne from a supplier. I helped him to get hold of a col-league who was really hard to reach. It’s nice to be appreciated.”

Fabienne JuilleratName:

Function:

Age:

@ Tobler:

Work:

Receptionist

38

3 years

5 days a week from 7.00 to 17.00

When the customer doesn’t know what he/she wants

Resume

More on next page 13Fittings 3 · 2012

“BAD DAYS? They don’t exist here. Not all customers call-ing us are always po-lite but my job is not to talk to them, my job is to redirect them as fast as possible to the person where they can have their prob-lem solved. They don’t call us to talk to me you see.” “To peo-ple with a phone pho-

bias I always say to get a cup of tea be-fore they call, take a deep breath and con-centrate on listening when calling. I myself once had a training to learn how to answer a telephone correct-ly. I must admit that I couldn’t really use what I learned in prac-tice. With an average of 300 calls a day, and sometimes more,

it’s about getting the people that call to their next destina-tion as soon as possi-ble. Nobody is waiting for long introductions on the phone.” “Of course you often have a picture of someone that calls to here of-ten. And vice versa. I once had a customer who had a little crush on my voice I think. At some point he vis-

ited the office and he was clearly disappoint-ed when he saw me. He thought I was a lot younger. He is still a customer and today we can laugh about it. I think it’s a good thing that we can’t see each other on the phone. Video skype is a great tool for private use but I wouldn’t want it pro-fessionally.”

Marie-Jeanne KayserFunction:

Age:

@ CFM:

Work:

Receptionist

51

8 years

5 days a week from 7.00 to 16.00

Good thing you can’t see each other

Name:

“RESPECT! That is the key word," says Ria Oudshoorn, one of the two women at the switchboard in Twello. “I’m in contact with a lot of different people every day, and they all deserve the very best service. Especially if they do not have the resources to be polite

themselves. Every once in a while I deal with a frustrated customer or a desperate supplier. It’s my job to help them to get rid of their frus-trations. When people call the switchboard, I can’t see them. It might be a managing director of a large company or a small plumbing firm. Therefore, it is impor-

tant that everyone is treated in the same positive and appropri-ate fashion.Once, long ago, I had on-the-job training. But, in this job, attitude is more impor-tant than training, if you ask me. You really have to like your job. Fortu-nately, I do. I can’t re-member a day where I got out of my bed and

was not 120% motivat-ed to do my job. Eve-rybody visiting Wasco headquarters in Twello gets a professional wel-come, as well as peo-ple applying for a job here. Some of them you never see again. Others come again, and then I know that he or she might be my next colleague.”

Ria OudshoornName:

Function:

Age:

@ Wasco:

Work:

Receptionist

56

3½ years

25 hrs a week

The first one to see potential new colleagues


TALkInG TO Eva Berger makes you want to call again. Somehow, you can just sense that she an-swers the phone with a huge smile and help-ing you is her most

important mission. At least until the next customer calls be-cause then she is her most important mis-

sion. With around 800 phone calls a day, there’s a lot of mis-sions. So how does Eva stay motivated when it is dark and rainy outside and cus-tomers are in a bad mood? “With the right people at the switch-board, the sun always shines”, Eva answers avoiding the pitfall of having to say anything

negative. “You see, I am always top moti-vated. For me. there are no bad days. To-gether with my col-league here at the switchboard I am the very first contact peo-ple have with ÖAG. The communication has to be excellent. We are the perfect team. We cheer each other up. For me the

customer is the single most important thing. We represent ÖAG and I take the repre-sentation seriously. We are an important brick in the total per-ception people have about ÖAG. To make sure that perception is positive, we go far. Can’t do, does not ex-ist here.”

Eva BergerName:

Function:

Age:

@ ÖAG:

Work:

Receptionist58

10 yearsEvery day from 7.00 - 16.00or from 8.00 - 18.00 hrs

Can’t do, doesn’t exist here

Our receptionists happily provide a few pointers for you to consider when assessing your own phone skills.

Do’s and don’ts

Repeat the caller’s name at the end of the conversation

Start your call with a smile - it is contagious

Focus 100% on the conversation for the duration of the entire call

Start with ‘good morning’ - followed by the name of the company and your own name (the first seconds of a call people often don’t hear)

Be polite and appropriate, even if the other person is not. If you remain polite, they will soften up.

AlwaysWhen on the phone,

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5

Say ‘I don’t know’ - always offer a solution of some kind

Say that the person the caller wants to get in touch with is on a break or, worse, is in the bathroom

Talk with chewing gum in your mouth - it’s impolite and in bad taste

Tell a caller you ‘forgot their name’ - instead, ask whom you may say called

Check your e-mail or, worse - read the paper - while on the phone. People can sense you are not paying attention

NeverWhen on the phone,

12

34

5

Resume


The results of the customer surveys leave no room for doubt: customers prioritise product avail-ability – more than anything else. More than price. How is that possible? And how do we make sure that we live up to their expectations at all times?

“IT SHOULDn’T sur-prise you too much that our customers prioritise availability," says Nico Kerk, logistics manager at Wasco. “Our customers are excellent plumbers. But they are not neces-sarily very good at plan-ning. This is a headache which smaller custom-ers especially suffer from. Mostly because they do not keep large invento-ries. It is too expensive

for them. They would much rather that we keep an impeccable inventory, so that all they have to do is to order when they need something. The worst thing that can hap-pen is that we don’t have what they need in stock. Then, they have to wait for us to order the item and cannot finish their job. Which again, is a frustrating experience for their customers as they might not be able to use

the bathroom until the plumber is done.”

never run out of hot buns“I compare it to the hot buns at the bakery," Nico says. “A bakery should have hot buns. Not sometimes. Not most of the time. They should be there every time I vis-it. And not cold. I want a hot bun. If they run out of hot buns, you will leave disappointed. You will

most likely find anoth-er bakery. We don’t sell hot buns, but the princi-ple is the same. We have around 25,000 SKUs - that is unique items - in our assortment. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we have these items in our warehous-es at all times. Availabil-ity of these items is ap-proximately 93%," Nico explains. “Then, we have the top 1,000 items - these are our hot buns.

is the core of our businessavailabilityProduct

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These items are the most commonly sold items. We have to make sure that we never run out of them. We keep track of this on a daily basis. Availability of these items is at 99.2%. This means that eight out of 1,000 articles are not available.”

SO FAR, this makes sense. But with hot buns in mind, why don’t we just purchase massive amounts of hot buns so we never run out? “That would be financial sui-cide," Daniel Priore, Head Inventory Manager at Tobler explains. "Buy-ing stock costs money. If you like us to have many items, 19,500 SKUs, it costs a fortune to have a large stock of every-

thing. Besides, products are being upgraded reg-ularly and that means that - just like that - the products that we have in stock are unsellable. No-body wants to purchase an older product. Then, there’s the issue of guar-antee. Some products come with a year’s guar-antee. If we have them in our warehouses for four months, the guarantee for that period of time is expiring without anybody utilising it. Keeping the perfect inventory is a bal-ance between not pur-chasing too much; other-wise, we lose money, but at the same time making sure that we do not run out of the top items. It’s a big puzzle that needs constant analysis and at-tention.”

The reason why we exist“To a large ex-tent," Daniel says, “it is our own doing that we are in this situation. We prom-ise custom-ers that we can deliver tomorrow when they order today. For them, there’s no longer a need to keep an invento-ry. This has now become our challenge. Or rather, it is our value proposition, because this is the rea-son for our existence. To-bler is represented by 40 branches in Switzerland. The country is approxi-

mately 300 km wide and 200 km long - mean-ing that the next Marché (branch) is never further away than 20 km. Eve-ry Marché sells different

Our customers are not necessarily good planners

Daniel in front of what he calls the beating heart of the inventory of Tobler: “Here we monitor all aspects of Tobler’s inventory“

More on next page

Nico Kerk, Wasco


items in different quantities. Inventory is paramount since what we do not have in stock, we cannot sell. And, we don’t want customers to approach us in vain, be-cause we’ll lose them to a competitor. So, we need a relatively large in-ventory - one that reflects our sales. The better we are at balancing our in-ventory, the more profit we make. The dream for any inventory manager is to to sell our invento-ry before we have to pay the invoice from our sup-plier. This requires a flaw-less feeling for the mar-ket. We need to know what we are selling at all times. At Tobler, we have A, B and C articles - cat-egorised by value. Our A products are the top 2,000 most commonly sold products. The A cat-egory represents roughly

80% of our entire rev-enue, so obviously we strive for higher availabil-ity targets here. The A items are comparable to the anatomy of a body: they are the vital organs.”

A seamless puzzleAn important brick in

the puzzle are our sup-pliers. “We track and trace what we sell every day," Nico says. “Our top 1,000 products are a re-flection of what our cus-tomers want. We have those items in stock in our central warehouse. And even if we, by mis-take, run out, we can still get the items from one of our branches. All of our branches are replenished

have the items that they decide we need in stock. Therefore, we monitor whether everything we ordered is delivered on time, in the right quan-tity and the right qual-ity, as agreed. No mat-ter how good we are at knowing what we need, when, where and at what quantities - if a suppli-er cannot deliver, we still have a problem. There-

Continued

SKU stands for Stock keeping

Unit. It is a number or code used to identify each unique product or item. When we write ‘19,000 SKUs’, we mean 19,000 UNIQUE products or items.

Selling our inventory before we have to pay the supplier

every night. If a branch runs out of a certain item five minutes before clos-ing time, they will get that item delivered the same night. Thanks to the daily replenishment of our branches, we can keep inventories at the branch level very low and keep the investment equally low.”

“IT IS nOT my respon-sibility to decide what products we have in our warehouses," says Dan-iel. "This is for our prod-uct managers to decide. I am responsible that we

fore, it is important that we monitor our suppliers on their ability to deliver (OTIF: On Time In Full). If we find out that an item becomes critical because the supplier cannot de-liver, we inform Sales about this. We will pro-vide a proposal from our product managers for an alternative item. In that way, they can anticipate the situation when a cus-tomer calls. A proactive approach is always better than having to play catch up with the facts. All in all, I think we have re-ally good cards, but now it is a question of playing our hand to the absolute maximum advantage.”

SKUin plain language


News

TOBLER recently intro-duced a renewed version of their vision and mis-sion statement, as well as company values and management principles. “Our mission and vision statement was devel-oped back in 2006," says Heinz Wiedmer, Tobler’s CEO. “Without leadership and management prin-ciples though. In 2011, Wolseley introduced the group values. This was an excellent opportunity to integrate these important guidelines.”

“We’re an organisa-tion in continuous growth and development," says Heinz. “In order to be a successful company, it is important to have a sol-id understanding of the company’s identity, as well as to know where we

SInCE November of last year, Tobler’s cus-tomers can download a small icon on their smart phone, which looks very much like an app but, in fact, is a link to a mo-bile version of the E-shop (html websolu-tion). With one click on their phones, they enter the entire product as-sortment. They can see and compare products, check realtime availabil-ity and order products on the go. If a product is no longer sold, alter-natives will automati-cally pop up for the cus-tomer to choose from. In the article’s specifics, the customer can see all the relevant details like a picture, measurements and an exact description.

“They can choose whether they want to pick up the products in their preferred branch or whether they want the products delivered," e-Business Manager, Ste-fan Zahm, 44, explains. “If they choose delivery, they will get the prod-ucts the next day. If they need the products more quickly, they can choose to pick them up in a Marché. Their or-der will be bundled and ready for them within an hour after the order is placed.” The mobile ver-sion of the shop is de-veloped under the same principles as the E-shop: keep it simple. As a re-sult, the shop has all needed functionality AND is user friendly.

are and where we are go-ing. The guidelines will help us all, both manage-ment and staff, to un-derstand what decisions to make and also how to behave in new, unfamil-iar situations. It’s also a useful tool for new staff to understand the com-pany they are going to work for.”

To make sure that there’s a broad aware-ness of the guidelines, Tobler communicates them both on the Inter-net, intranet and in fold-ers, but the guidelines are also part of a compa-ny training that Tobler will develop. Last, but not least, the guidelines are a part of review meet-ings with staff. “I want all people to not only know but also live the guide-lines," Heinz explains. “It

drives consistency in our behaviour as an organisation and that, in re-turn, creates con-fidence. When we take the next step, the guide-lines will make sure that we all take that step in the right di-rection”.

Tobler introduces leadership and management principles

Tobler releaseda mobile version of their E-shop


Plan 45 (P45) is a significant strategic pillar for CE. The principle is crystal clear and simple: staff costs may not exceed 45% of the gross profit. There are multiple ways to achieve this. Cutting staff costs, while probably not the most attractive, is one way. Alternatively, you can increase sales and/or margins which will also have a positive effect on P45.

“WHATEVER param-eter - or combination of parameters - you choose, depends on the situa-tion," says Karsten Wing-sted, CE’s Chief Financial Officer. “At the end of the day, what really counts is that we produce an ac-ceptable profit (trading margin). We aim for five

P 4 5PLA

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A good

is a well executed plan

planP45


Thermometer

to seven percent. Wolse-ley closely monitors how the individual business units perform. You’re ei-ther a performance build-er, synergy driver or a so-called growth engine

- the last two categories are what we need to aim for. To be con-sidered a syner-gy driver, the trad-

ing mar-gin has to be

three percent or more.”In CE Manage-

ment, we follow P45 performance per region in each country, and Man-agement in each country follows P45 performance at an even more detailed level.

Margin is the key“Tobler’s performance is

exemplary," Karsten ex-plains. “Wasco and ÖAG are, like Tobler, in the category of synergy driv-ers. Both units, while do-ing their best, are chal-lenged due to tough market situations. CFM is in the category of per-formance builder - but we’re doing all we can to change this.

P45 is an important tool to help us get on track and stay on track. The foundation of P45 is value creation and staff costs. First of all, hav-ing the right products, the right services and of-fering them to the right customers is crucial. If we get this right, we cre-ate value for our custom-ers which will enable us

to increase sales pric-es and/or increase sales volume. By doing this, it means we produce a higher margin and, in turn, will have a higher profit.

“The margin can al-so be influenced by the prices we negotiate with our suppliers," says Karsten. “Again, the bet-ter our prices, the better our margin. Some prod-ucts have better margins than others. Sanitary, for example, has relative-ly high margins. So do our own brands, the so-called private label prod-ucts, because we have to pay less for these prod-ucts. The Comfort line is a good example of this.”

Balancing costsIT MIGHT be that we are not able to negotiate better pric-es or charge more for our products and services because of fierce competi-tion, for example. In that case, we have to start identifying places where we can work smarter to in-

crease staff effi-ciency and reduce

staff costs. This is an exercise most of the Wolseley companies have been through during the financial crisis.

There’s a lot of things to consider which make work-ing with P45 impor-tant. For example, you’d think that direct sales - where cus-tomers order from us but get the goods di-

rectly from our sup-plier - is less interest-ing, because we do not make the same amount of money on them. On the other hand, however, our costs are lower be-cause we have no handling costs, and we do not have to store the products. Thus, from a P45 perspective, this can still be interesting.

An example which illustrates this: We can spend the same time on selling for 100 euros with a gross margin of five percent (direct sales) as we can on sell-ing, handling and de-livering for 25 euros with a gross margin of 20% (stock sales). Both examples result in a gross profit of five euros.

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Ideas@work

Is Fittings’ non-exclusive white board where we share

ideas from all of the divisions - also the Nordic divisions.

The quality of the idea does not depend on whether your

office is the boardroom or the cabin of a truck. The idea

doesn’t have be rocket science either. On the

contrary, we love practical, applicable ideas that

easily can be copied by others.

FIVE YEARS ago Was-co decided to buy sani-tary wholeseller Kopex.

“We bought revenue, volume and know-

how," Jan Bijnen, responsi-ble for Sani-tary explains. “Unfortu-

nately, a lot of Kopex col-

leagues chose to leave after

the acquisition and, with them,

the know-how left as well. Since we

didn’t know an aw-ful lot about sanitary

and even less about the market, we saw the

business decreasing - rapidly. We decided that if we were to turn the tide, we would have to invest in know-how. Or, alterna-

tively, abandon the sani-tary category again.”

Wasco decided, be-cause of the interesting margins on sanitary, to invest in sanitary. A strat-egy to support the busi-ness was developed. “The strategy had three components for the short, middle and long term," Jan explains. “On the very short term, we had to get better at winning orders to restore and increase volume. We had to ad-just our initial perception of sanitary and its mar-gin potential. Prices were a good bit lower than we expected. So to get or-ders, we had to adjust our prices. Fortunately, we had a colleague, Ray-mond Vink, who proved to be an ace in pricing our offers. At the same time, we agreed with custom-

In the beginning, I had a hard time seeing how we could turn the tide

A three-tier strategy got sanitary on the right track


ers that if they got a low-er offer from one of our competitors, that they would contact us be-fore accepting the offer and give us a chance to match or outperform the competitive offer.”

Improve our reputationWhile this brought back volume, it did not do a lot for the margin. It did, however, restore the trust of customers in Wasco. At least, partially. The next thing Wasco did was to add resources. “We added people in produc-tion and calculation," Jan says. “We made sure customers got their of-fers quickly, and, once

they ordered, they also got their supplies quickly. This improved our repu-tation significantly. All of a sudden people, both customers and also col-leagues started believ-ing that Wasco could do sanitary. We consist-ently communicated to the market what we had done, never what we were doing. Therefore, they could see that what we had in place was what we had told them.”

“We’re in the mid-dle of implementing the third and last component. Here, we turn the val-ue chain around by di-rectly

contacting project devel-opers. All of a sudden, in-stead of being at the end of the food chain, we’re almost on top of the food chain. That gives us far better range of options to increase our margins. We invested in two pro-ject developers and that worked like a charm. On-ly recently, we started executing on this com-ponent and since it re-lates to projects that still need building, the mon-ey is not in the bank yet. However, we can see re-

alised turnover and that looks extremely promising.”

It really

hasn’t been a walk in the park, and Jan admits that he was skeptical about success in the beginning. “We had three years to make a turnaround. But we had to stop the down-ward spiral of -14% within a year. In the beginning, I had a hard time seeing how we could turn the tide. However, we invest-ed cleverly and the strat-egy obviously works. Two years ago, management decided upon 11 key stra-tegic initiatives. When we started, everyone agreed that sanitary was the toughest challenge. Now, after two years, we real-ise that sanitary is prob-ably the easiest challenge of all.”

We made sure that customers got their offers quickly, and once they ordered, they also got their supplies quickly.

Raymond Vink with has the experience and ability to sharpen every offer that left the Wasco of-fice and contributed heavily to the success of sani-tary in Wasco

Ideas @ work


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’dirt phone’Win the ultimate

1 What does SkU stand for?

A Safety Keeping Unit

B Stock Keeping Unit

C Swiss Karate Union

2 Which receptionist is happy that you can’t see each other?

A Ria Oudshoorn

B Eva Berger

C Marie-Jeanne Kayser

3 What are the three pillars of ÖAG’s Profi-Part-ner concept?

A The right products, the right services and the right customers

B Handshake, Pace and Team spirit

C The right products, Team spirit and Margin

4 What five sourc-es can a heat pump utilise?

A Bedrock, ground, air, lake, groundwa-ter

B Vegetable oil, ground, air, lake, groundwater

C Bedrock, ground, brine, lake, ground-water

5 What is the average injury rate per 100 employees in CE?

A 1.7

B 2.3

C 3.2

QuizThe winner of the iPhone from the last quiz is Siegfried Hefner from ÖAG AG in Austria. Congratulations Siegfried.

The winner is...

Use the coupon below or send your answers by e-mail to: [email protected]

The winner will be announced in the next issue of Fittings.

April 1st 2012

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